16
" Today, unlocking the room and stepping into its dusty embrace, it struck her – the bareness, the
cobwebs in the corners, the dark squares on the walls where the maps had once hung, the
intricately designed tiles disappeared in filth, the urn-less, roseless emptiness, the laughter that
once was. Sighs everywhere, and echoes, the papery trail of ants through the ancient wood, the still,
suspended sheets of dust, and through it all, those memories, still alive, still alive. "
― , The Courtesans of Karim Street
17
" The question is, shall it or shall it not be linear history. I've always thought a kaleidoscopic view might be an interesting heresey. Shake the tube and see what comes out. Chronology irritates me. There is no chronology inside my head. I am composed of myriad Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water. The pack of cards I carry around is forever shuffled and re-shuffled; there is no sequence, everything happens at once. The machines of the new technology, I understand, perform in much the same way: all knowledge is stored, to be summoned up at the flick of a key. They sound, in theory, more efficient. Some of my keys don't work; others demand pass-words, codes, random unlocking sequences. The collective past, curiously, provides these. It is public property, but it is also deeply private. We all look differently at it. My Victorians are not your Victorians. My seventeenth century is not yours. The voice of John Aubrey, of Darwin, of whoever you like, speaks in one tone to me, in another to you. "
― Penelope Lively , Moon Tiger
