The Divine Comedy and other reading

As most of you reading this will know books are very important in my life and continue to sustain me through some very difficult times.

My old primary school headmaster had a selection of abbreviated classics on the classroom shelves which I worked my way through. This was Tong Primary School which some of you will also remember and know well. I wonder what Old Fury would make of me sitting here in Peru writing about him. He would be delighted I'm sure. One day he asked the class if anyone knew the name of the ship in which Christopher Columbus made his first voyage. He was surprised that I should know the answer. No one else did. I was quite annoyed with him for not believing in me. The ship was called Santa Maria. He was very holy was old Cristóbal. Or so he claimed. Guided by God all the way to many killings.

Anyway I knew the answer because I had read about Columbus the night before in the brand new 10 volume , red-covered set of encyclopedias our father had bought for us some time before. The Wikipedia of the day I guess, not that very many other families round about had one. I still remember reading it and also enjoying the pictures and my hopes of visiting all of them some day. Didn't quite make all of them unfortunately.

You may well wonder why I bring this up right now, and indeed I wonder myself too. But here I am in Lima, renting an apartment in a street named after Columbus, Calle Colón, which is the Spanish version of his name, Cristóbal Colón. So life has taken me a full circle from Tong to Lima. Who would have thought?

When I was with Heber and Pamela and their wee boy Gareth at the weekend, as I was getting to know Pamela for the first time, Heber told her that I also liked to read. It turns out that Pamela is a lover of literature and an avid reader. I was even more pleased to discover that she especially likes old  man Shakespeare. Especially comedies and romances. We will discuss this more hopefully this weekend. There's a Spanish version of Hamlet on in Miraflores and I would love to take her, but that might not be possible unfortunately.

But the most surprising thing of all was her love of The Divine Comedy which she told me was her favourite reading and which she was able to summarise for me. There aren't many nineteen year olds of my acquaintance who do this kind of reading. I don't even know if its taught in our schools. But it's certainly a credit to Peru's schools that they've introduced this girl to literature and turned her into a lover of books. It's an even greater achievement considering the poverty in which she was born and brought up. She must have had some brilliant teachers. So thank you whoever you are. Maybe some day she will read the recent Clive James translation, which I hope will eventually be produced in Spanish. Maybe it already has been. I shall check it out. I must let Clive know, he will be impressed.

I'm sure my good friend John L will be impressed that I'm discussing Shakespeare and Dante in a cafe here in Lima with two young people. Just keeping our honourable tradition from Caffe Nero going here, John. Mind you Pamela seems to know more about Dante than I do, but it's good to be taught by her especially in Spanish. She loves talking about it. I have to slow her down sometimes even though my Spanish has come back to me quite quickly.

That's all for now. I will add a couple of photos later. My health is as good as I could hope for.