Book 53 - Delphine Minoui "The Book Collectors Of Daraya"

Delphine Minoui "The Book Collectors Of Daraya" (Picador)





It was a caption under the photograph of two young Syrian men browsing the shelves of a library that piqued the interest of Delphine Minoui, an award-winning French journalist - ‘The Secret Library of Daraya’.

Curious as to how a library could operate in a place like Daraya, but unable to travel to Syria due to the region’s instability, Delphine reached out and made contact with one of the young men in the photo via Skype. Twenty-three-year-old Ahmed was born in Daraya and remained even after his family fled, determined to document the devastation and support the rebels. One afternoon he was called to help a group carrying books from a deserted, bombed-out home, an idea that first struck him as absurd in the middle of a war zone. Yet from the moment he picked up his first book, he was struck by what it represented - freedom. As the collection of scavenged tomes grew, a room was found for them in a basement, and the Secret Library of Daraya was born.

Daraya is a suburb on the outskirts of Damascus. Declared a hotbed of terrorists by Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad for daring to protest his dictatorship peacefully, it was placed under siege and ringed with his forces in 2011. I have to admit to having very little understanding of the conflict in Syria, so I appreciated that Minoui explained the events that led to Daraya’s position and the steady escalation that saw the suburb attacked with missiles, bombs, and even chemical weapons, including sarin and Napalm.

Delphine has written The Book Collectors of Daraya by speaking with Ahmed, and his friends through an unreliable internet connection via Skype and WhatsApp. Initially, her focus is on the library; how it came to be, which books are popular, and what it means to the residents of Daraya. It’s a delight to hear how the library and its books provide a refuge and haven from the devastation on their doorstep, how it provides a respite of normalcy, and brings people together. Non-readers become readers, free to choose something other than propaganda, soldiers take books with them to the frontline to read, trade, and discuss, in between wielding their Kalashnikovs.

Unsurprisingly the miracle of the library does take somewhat of a backseat as Delphine learns of the daily hardships and horrors the suburb’s residents face. It’s a harrowing tale of danger, deprivation, and starvation as the siege drags on for more than five years. Not content to reduce Daraya to rubble, the Syrian dictator stops any attempts to provide food or essentials, determined to quash the rebels.

There is a little repetition in the narrative of The Book Collectors of Daraya, but I found it well-written and readable. Minoui adds a personal perspective, sharing her experience of terror attacks in her home of Istanbul, and in Paris, and freely admits her bias. I think she treats those she speaks with sensitively, and it’s clear she believes that it’s important their story is told. I particularly appreciated the inclusion of photographs that show the library, the men whom Delphine introduces us to, and the streets of Daraya.

The Book Collectors of Daraya is as much about the Syrian civil war, and particularly the experience of the young men who established the library, as it is the library itself. Simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting, this book speaks of grief, courage, resilience, humanity, and the power of books.

Book 54 - Michael Jacobs "Everything is Happening: Journey into a Painting"

Michael Jacobs "Everything is Happening: Journey into a Painting" (Granta Books)





The story of a friendship is the frame for a dying man's life-lusting memoir, nested into his last travelling adventure in search of meaning inside a painting.

The narration of a life-long obsession becomes a mystery investigation, truncated by death and touchingly completed by the author's best friend, and at the same time reaches the worlds of politics and philosophy, through the recalling of the Civil War in Spain, through loving memories of Anthony Blunt as a great teacher and as a scapegoat of philistine nationalism, and through an attempt at defining the nature of art as life, far from the "sunless" arid interpretations of the academic currents Jacobs encountered during his studies as art historian. By the way, his brief treatment of the way his peers have misunderstood Foucault is a pearl of concision and hilarious in its own way.
A book bursting with love - for art, for friends, for freedom of thought and interpretation, for Spain, Italy and South America, for people. I guess it will stay with me more than I thought it would.

EDIT: I left out the book's many shortcomings, such as the self-consciously embarrassed elitism of the Oxbridge alumni condemning the mass tourism that is nothing else than a side effect of accessibility of art, well, you know, to the masses; or the incredible provincialism of the British intellectual élites in the way they still live the Mediterranean as exotic dreamland without ever really engaging with it. There is a description of the crisis, the corruption scandals in Spain and of the Indignados protests that may look as politically conscious, but betrays a substantial hauteur, with Jacobs shaking his head at the plight of the protesting masses before proceeding to a luxurious cocktail on a rooftop bar with a curator quite on the aristocratic side of Spanish society. Vulliamy's remark, in the coda, that his liberally Marxist friend brought the rage of the protesting masses with him inside the museum for a while, well, that would be comical if it were not infuriating.

However grating, though, these shortcomings don't subtract from the general tone of honesty of the book; instead, seem to contribute to it. Imperfect as everybody else, these two men are not afraid to expose themselves for whom they truly are in the interest of a better understanding of art and of its meaning and appreciated that more than I would have a rigorously correct analysis devoid of interior truth.