Vila Literária
When on the 5th May, 1789, 1200 deputies of the Estates General marched through Paris on the verge of abolition of hereditary monarchy, King Louis XVI wrote in his journal 'Nothing happened. Went hunting' . History is about perspective, and when you live in the middle of history you often don't know what it means. This I hope will go some way to explain how I managed to go through the past 10 months without doing much writing. Nothing happened. Went hunting.
I've been having troubles of late constructing continuous narratives. The kind that start at the beginning, proceed to the middle bit and end with a conclusion. You know, the sort that see the damn thing through. In my case, writing involves very little actual writing and quite a lot of concentration. Which is another way of describing an honest and sustained confrontation with boredom - a feat I find myself unequal to at present and so shan't attempt it here.
With that out of the way, as an unjustly proud and frequently aloof Londoner, I always assumed that my beloved city held an esteemed place in a constellation of literary destinations. What with our many bookshops, London Review of Books, and many a storied pub where many a writer have penned many a book fuelled by many a pint. That is until I found out that, according to World Cities Culture Forum, London ranks 30th on their survey of 39 prominent cities by the number of bookshops. To have been 10th would've been regrettable, 20th lamentable, but 30th!? The shame of it.
Ever since that day I have taken up visiting bookshops and libraries at every travel destination I chanced to visit - a sort of personal literary pilgrimage of the humbled. As it happens, Lisbon came 1st on the list with 41.6 bookshops to London's 4.3 per 100,000 people. It also boasts the oldest operating bookshop in the world - Livraria Bertrand, founded in 1732. But this isn't about Lisbon. If you are willing to endure a 2-hour train ride north of Lisbon, you may find yourself at a lonely train station, in the middle of expansive farm land looking up at a hill obscured by trees. Look beyond the tree tops and you may spot an outline of a medieval castle wall that surrounds small village of Óbidos from undue influences of the outside world. The village is home to circa 700 people and 2300 locals who get to share 15 bookshops. If the figure fails to inspire awe, allow me to put it in it's proper context: per person Óbidos has 10 times more bookshops than Lisbon and 100 times more than London.
Óbidos has been on top of my destination list for years and I've been putting it off because I felt that one had to deserve the privilege. One doesn't start dinner with a cake, just as one doesn't start a pilgrimage in Jerusalem. Óbidos is ancient. Area has been inhabited since the late Palaeolithic, the early foundations were laid by Romans, and the current castle was built by Moors and remodelled by Portuguese. That Óbidos become a literary village is no accident; and it's 10 bookshops in close proximity are not a result of failure to understand dynamics of supply and demand. The village was looking for a strategy to revitalise itself by creating a pathway to the future and they looked to the oldest tool in the book - the book itself. This is a village that chose to celebrate literature.
One of it's crowning jewels is the Literary Man hotel. Home to over 70,000 books, it is the largest book hotel in the world - a category of hotels notable for its small sample size. When Lolita became a commercial success, Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera left the US and took up a suite at the Montreaux Palace Hotel on the shore of lake Geneva in Switzerland. He spent 16 years of his life at the hotel that was to be his last home. After the death of her husband, Vera lived in the hotel for another 14 years. When asked why he preferred to live in the hotel, Vladimir answered: 'Simplifies personal matters. Eliminates the nuisance of private ownership. Confirms me in my favourite habit, the habit of freedom.' Within these walls, I start to understand what he meant.
We have a natural talent for possession and accumulation, but I'd argue that there are times in life when these artefacts become part of the general oppression. Having spent over a year in close proximity with my own stuff and my own choices, it is an incredible relief to be surrounded by objects that aren't mine, in a place that wasn't made by me and yet for me. An archetype of me at any rate. The kind that would appreciate book-covered halls, record players, antiquated typewriters, a good chef, attentive staff, cheesy covers of Despacito echoing through the hallways, and a splendour of a well-stocked gin bar.
At the bar, bartender offers me a gin and tonic with Ginzu. The way he tells it, it's an artisanal Scottish gin inspired by Japanese samurai. This isn't strictly true of course. Ginzu is neither Scottish, artisanal, or inspired by Japanese samurai, but then what's a hotel bar for if not for making up of fanciful stories. Hotel bars grant one a privilege of anonymity in a public space, an opportunity to withdraw into a deep leather chair with a book and a drink amidst the comings and goings. In my experience, really great hotel bars have a level of ambient noise just loud enough to permit one to read under breath without being overheard. I once took a speed-reading class where I was told to read with my eyes only, preferably without moving my eyes, preferably while staring somewhere in the middle of the page. I knew then it wasn't for me. I want to taste every word on the page, to feel their texture and cadence on the tip of my tongue. Just like I wanted to savour that moment for as long as it would last.
It's gone now and perhaps one day I'll get to go back. For now though, I'll leave you with an echo of what it was like to be there: in that village, sitting in that bar, sipping on that gin, reading that book, surrounded by those books, listening to Despacito.