history and conjecture

horsemouth admits

some of this was written the day before 

the idea occured the night before that even when horsemouth settled down to read a few pages from lawrence durrell's prospero's cell: a guide to the landscape and manners of the island of corfu (or as he calls it corcyra).

now this is based on time spent there from april 1937 to the end of september 1938. there should therefore be chances to discuss what durrell was up to in the various months as they occur. horsemouth's edition is a faber and faber (ff) edition from 1983 (horsemouth would have sworn it was earlier).

strangely it seems to have been printed on two paper stocks (or two papers of different ages). the first 32 pages are darkened down considerably, the remaining 110 pages have stayed bright. 

'their daughters are called sky and freedom..,' 

history and conjecture

in october 1937 durrell is reading histories of the island - history and conjecture he says - diodorus, thucidides...

in the morning horsemouth walked the eggs up the hill. he returned to contemplate his reading...

and there horsemouth left it

not seeing a part 2. not seeing, or finding in his reading, something that could be placed in juxtaposition to it. 

this morning part 2 is still proving elusive. 

overnight over on substack he had two likes. a psychologist and someone who has liked his stuff before. the previous liker liked his quoting henry miller's the air-conditioned nightmare. he himself liked a post arguing that people producing work through AI had vastly expanded indicating that the motive was less self-expression than taking up more space in the world. this horsemouth liked by way of agreement. 

the land is dark but skies are bright. the vapour trails of the aircraft brilliant white. the sun breaking through.