I
\n
\nIn early years, as one goes through a book with many pictures, the anticipation of the general world colours each glimpse of landscape, people, animal, house, building, street, river and sky in the book. Whether the content is marvellous or dull, it is charged with the current of an abiding emotion that derives from fascination or at least plain interest; and the larger world that waits to be discovered becomes at least partially formed and enriched through these pictures. At the same time, that larger world now holds out many more possibilities than before and, since the early years are usually unregenerate in their holy innocence, almost nothing intervenes of deception, disillusionment and the like as photographs in a book are studied in their starkness. A plethora of dreams and feelings conjures itself up and replenishes itself upon every view of these pictures, which take the attention more than words. It matters not that the book is about a bygone era, for every representation in it has, and will have, a realization in the world that is waiting out there.<\/p>\n
When written words, however, begin to matter more as the years pass, then the attraction that some pictures once exerted becomes in its turn a matter of absorption. One wonders how a single large book lying forlornly in a bookshelf corner could take up hours of one\u2019s attention and how one could be so immersed when it was not boredom that had to be forgotten. It is not always puerile gullibility or fantasy that can explain the effect of pictures in the early years. Before the influence of the larger world tames and sobers the mind, one makes an identification with images in a certain book in the framework of a singular yearning as if, it seems from present vantage, for another world that had once been experienced. Hour after hour one turns over the pages in utmost procrastination, regarding each photograph with the devotion of an animal stalking its prized prey in the tall grass. If the pictures have become familiar and expected through countless leafings of the book, the attention to them does not diminish by an iota with each scrutiny. <\/p>\n
In later years, then, the regard one has upon this preoccupation of early years gives scope for intense reflection. To reflect on an absorption in the pictures of a book in the past is to accept that some images are forever inviolable even if they are regarded in ignorance. It is this inviolability that defines a fundamental quest for the rest of one\u2019s life, and to describe the book now is to commit oneself to an ekphrasis that tries not to conflate the yearning of the present with the yearning of the past. This is perhaps an almost impossible task, but what matters is that the reflection on an absorption or gaze in the past tends to produce an uncommon inspiration towards one or more creations in the present. These creations may be no more than individual idylls or flights of a mystical imagination, yet they have the possibility of containing aspirations that draw from the stock of humanity\u2019s own goals. <\/p>\n
II
\n
\nThe book held in the hands of childhood was one of an old hardbound series titled \u201cWorld Library\u201d, and it may or may not have been a coincidence that the volume on the Balkans in that series was the single one present on the bookshelf. On the jacket of that book, sunshine spread itself over water, terrace, bridge and house. Only bleak hills of limestone beyond the bridge on the river chose to refuse with absolute obstinacy the sunlight on a day that must be a holiday. Upon the terrace on the edge of the river, umbrella canopies were unfolded in bright colours, below which more young people than old stretched their bared backs upon a grainy surface. Farther down the rocky bank was a species of what appeared to be short alders in dusky and abundant foliage. <\/p>\n
The river gave off a hue of deep aquamarine for most of its body; it moved with unabated restlessness towards the bridge, such restlessness as must discourage all thought of a plunge into the water for a greater measure of luxury on a day such as this. Nevertheless, some of the young people stood in trunks on a brittle-seeming, pitted rock close to the bank for an intrepid, but wisely not prolonged, dash into the current. The waters evoked the notion of a river drawing off filaments along its body that swayed and turned to ease themselves into lighter hues, some of which foamed with a blanched passion. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Even in the glare of the sun the bridge at the centre of the cover picture, the centre of attention for all who beheld this picture, exhibited no more than a modest, dun appearance in perfect keeping with the incredible but sparing elegance of its structure, which spoke of an antiquity that must have come from a supernal realm, to which we cannot wait to rush. From a restrained crest in the middle of the watercourse, the two cantilevered sides declined with gentle grace to the sides of the big stream, where fenestrate stone houses surmounted with hipped roofs stood in a perpetuity of watch in the manner of turrets royal. Under those inclined arms of the bridge an arch made a lofty yet supple crown over the river much as a rainbow across the vault of Heaven makes a diadem for the earth. On the riverside, the stones of the house walls and the tiles of the roofs reflected more of the light of the day than the bridge did. <\/p>\n
This cover picture of this book produced not just a veridical impression of another time, but of an entire, different world simple in its pleasures but happy in its mind. The harmonious bridge alone could have captured the eyes for hours on end, but it must have been the aestival element of the day and the frisking of a holiday, along with the silent but stolid houses of stone, that suggested all together something more than just a distant but pretty world: it seemed that one not just wished to live, but in truth really did live, in that world without for once renouncing one\u2019s present existence. <\/p>\n
On the pages coloured with age were images of icons to which votive offerings were made long in the past; the faces of the icons were serene but eternal, inspiring an instant humility and worship in the suffering heart. Shining relics of censer and candlestand, along with towering, encircling, mural images of godly saints, bespoke a very distant period of civilisation in which styles of worshipful depiction among one people influenced the religious arts of other peoples within a geographical proximity. The Son of God Himself was in depiction in a number of paintings from His life, which related the progress of His healing powers and miracles. Those creations showed the mischievous, peeling, upturning hands of Time in the photos on these very pages of a distinguished history; and yet, despite the encroachment, His face made a more immediate sympathy with the viewer than the countenances and representations of the high saints on windows and walls. Although these latter looked at the beholder with genuine piety they appeared already to have vanished into antiquity in the period when the artists made their meticulous portraits. <\/p>\n
Byzantium was the influence and Byzantium had passed into decline. Other sources of inspiration would arrive from other lands; nevertheless the faces and robes that adorned the mullioned, ogival windows and the all-encircling, patterned friezes carried a lasting significance in terms of the awe and mystery they could make in the viewer as long as they stood. The emperors and their retinues too appeared verily superannuated though captivating might be the scenes painted of coronation and homage. These figures and icons rested immensely far placed in time, but this very removal brought a backdrop of charm and enigma to the period in which the photographs were made. <\/p>\n
The succeeding pages of the hardbound book exhibited the ways of life of the ordinary folk. They worked hard and they talked hard, following their work and their discussion with a spirited turn of leisure in dance, drink and the outdoors. Although their rooms and their halls spoke not of a luxury of design and elegance, these constructions sufficed to perfection for the functions they were meant to uphold. Upon a simple bed with a starched counterpane of linen that heaves in the place of the pillow, a mother is sitting with her baby upon her stretched legs; a white kerchief is wound firmly across her head and her gaze is all upon her infant, whose lips are latched on the nipple of a bottle of milk. Looking down upon them from a wall that exhibits very few other objects, the icon of the cross with an image of the Saviour is embedded forever into the grain, as the house itself with its sparing yet inclusive embrace is installed in the memory of ages for generation after generation. <\/p>\n
The rustic sartorial economy is reproduced in a group of family members who sit around the table in the cleanly living-cum-dining room of their urban apartment that is provided suitably with the basic comforts of the age; the father wears both a sleeveless undervest and, in common with his family, a smile of contentment that illuminates the person and gives the plain or barely patterned dress a perfect dignity. Elsewhere, under an array of small chandeliers that are afire all over, people are dancing in the gentle motion of the infant\u2019s cradle as a natural function of their lives, whilst others seated at white-draped tables hold glasses and turn their heads to watch. In time more young people crowd onto the floor and it is the dapper garcons now who from the tables begin to eye the girls. <\/p>\n
In the city the fez is not an uncommon sight as the glare of the sun beats upon rotund cobblestones and furrowed faces. Men sit in doorways and on the edges of fountains waiting to retire into a mosque or to spend out the last hours of the day. The sleeves of their outer black jackets fall just short of the arms of their under chemises, and their trousers hang out in parts that billow with a sudden breeze over the pathway. The women pass by in their long latticed vestments, carrying panniers in their arms and intent upon their clearer material destination. Minarets in the colour of chalk break the monotony of a hazed sky of summer. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In an empty village street a single man with a square cap and profound lines on his face drives a pony with a whip at a crossroads, his cart on high wheels carrying an assortment of grass and hay. The sun is full upon the street and the houses; it is midday and time to take repose in the shade while the sky looms large. In another empty street but much wider and of the city, a family of four attired in bright colours has stepped out of a series of high apartment blocks and is preparing to get into a scooter with sidecar to make a picnic in the country. <\/p>\n
In one more village, a silkily attired bride holds up in pride and joy the wedding cake for all the guests and neighbours to behold, an accordionist blowing his bellows in the crowd; she then retires into the kitchen to participate in the making of the feast. It is evening but next day, as on the next page, with sunshine stretching across sky and land, a family of three is running in unbounded joy across field and meadow; there is a single child but the mother must have borne many more since her features are so profoundly matronly, yet all cares of the home are left behind as golden corn sparkles on the horizon and the house yard beckons with its moistured ground, where a gallant barrel of drinking water awaits to be scooped. <\/p>\n
These lands were subject to strict regimes of authority unmarked by the will of the people. Black-and-white photographs in the book showed uniformed dictators of the region with multiple ribbons and decorations, a large number of whom would be assassinated by one or more of their political or civil subordinates, who in turn would run a high risk of being put down bloodily by their own compatriots or underlings. The tradition of authoritarianism persisted in the time the other pictures in the book were made. Nevertheless, the eyes and the mind saw only halcyon sunshine and peace over the villages, fields, rivers, streets, houses and common people, with no trace of the agony of convulsive change but only the agony of labour in providing for and continuing this life. <\/p>\n
The cover picture with the bare, moist backs glinting in the sun alongside the river flowing under a capping, otherworldly bridge was in itself sufficient to fuel the imagination and haunt it. On the inner pages, one was drawn to the empyrean radiance of a limitless agrestic earth and the strains of a rousing music far away in the hamlets of the countryside, as if this way of existence was how it always had been and always would be.<\/p>\n
III
\n
\nThe yearning of the present is in some ways a yearning for that existence. In other ways, it is a consequence of the knowledge that an existence once glimpsed was not what it was thought to be. The dreams and feelings aroused by that apprehended existence still do not pass away. No saga or chronicle of repression, oppression, .bloodletting and internecine hatred allays the belief that if there was a condign way of life, it must still vindicate itself ultimately. <\/p>\n
So one creates an idyll in the present that nonetheless attempts not to escape from all of reality. One passes into that distant macrocosm. Over a hilly, verdant and riant landscape, villagers wear dresses of a vanished century although they live in a new regime of collective ownership. Their village contains more than one community and more than one house of worship. There are wide fields for cultivation and pastureland for cattle close to a forest. The village follows old customs but respects the new authority. Such a village may never have been, but what is crucial is that two educated people meet and fall in love in that village. This is a hackneyed theme for the Balkans, but even so it shall continue. They meet on a cold morning in the grounds of the house of an old woman upon a high hill. Then, in the course of a celebration of rural thanksgiving, the two people dance the kolo on a lower spot on that hill and walk to the side, where the quiet countryside spreads below them. They establish a mutual understanding but they still cannot bring themselves to stay for long in each other\u2019s company. However, one propitious afternoon, when they have nothing on their hands, they stumble upon each other on a street; they spontaneously decide to make a corso along the edge of the village stream, eventually sitting together on the far bank of that same leaping stream. From that moment onwards, they meet more frequently and talk to each other at length. One day they cross a bridge into a forsaken piece of territory and come upon tombs of the Bogomils, which induces them to reflect upon their affiliations. Then, on the occasion of another celebration in the open, the boy breaks into a tizzy over what he thinks is the girl\u2019s kindness towards unsavoury elements in the village. But that evening he rushes to her home in repentance and asks for her forgiveness. All is still not well. Although their families tacitly consent to their closeness, they have to contend with local zealots who take strong exception to their supposed disregard of custom. Yet they are free: they visit the houses of poorer families of different faiths, including one in which a birth has taken place. One day they rush out from their own houses in the freshness of a sunny morning; yielding to the happiness in the air, they forget all passage of time and run together across endless open country, coming back to make a picnic at midday in the shade of trees. As the sun declines far away, they talk about their lives, their hopes, the lives of other people and the hopes of other people. They speak with prescience about the fate of the village in the light of the nationalistic vehemence of a neighbouring province and its marauding army. <\/p>\n
In the end, they must flee from the rapine and extermination that will overwhelm the village. Can they still remain together? This is where the novelist must concede that what he has begun is a coming to terms with loss as he feels it. Loss may be permanent or it may change according to the perception of the loser. Nevertheless, if one is talking about a realm of which one was enamoured, then that realm remains with one in a basic sense. Similarly, love abides fundamentally even if two people in love are separated by the force of circumstances. And perhaps another book arrives and remains where words are pictures in homage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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