Spinoza's overcoat: Travels with writers and poets by Subhash Jaireth
Transit Lounge, 2020. ISBN: 9781925760460.
(Age: Adult) Non-fiction. This collection of essays by Jaireth
explores the poetry and lives of some of his personally selected
writers and poets, some probably not well known to many readers.
However his book also includes poems that are the subject of his
study, so the reader is able to read the original words and also
follow his explorations of meaning and place. Jaireth is intrigued
to actually visit some of the scenes described, or the places where
the words were written, seeking to understand more fully the
experience of the poets he is curious about. Thus he travels to
hidden places in Prague, Paris, Leiden, Amsterdam, Moscow and other
cities, to trace the paths of Kafka's sister, Paul Celan, Bulgakov,
Spinoza, Pasternak, and Hiromi Ito, among others. And in sharing his
explorations, and his search to understand more of the written words
that fascinate him, he also shares some snippets of his own life,
his personal travails and search for self-expression.
I was most interested in his discoveries of the ancient city of
Baghdad, the City of Peace, a circular city built within a circle of
fire, setting for many of the stories of The Thousand and One
Nights, the original city now replaced and overbuilt by a
sprawling new city, following wars, terrorism and looting. Jaireth
hopes that the tales of Baghdad may be rediscovered in sculptures by
Ghani Hikmar and new monuments dedicated to the rebirth of Iraqi
culture.
For Jaireth, the writer's choice of particular scenes, particular
words, the rhythmic meter, the form and shape of poems, and
especially the choices made in translation, are a constant source of
interest and he shares with us some of the history and the art of
the poet, the writer and the translator, an insight that can only
enrich our appreciation of the written works he wants us to
understand better.
Helen Eddy