For those who love the islands
OF PARADISE TERRESTRE
Somewhere among the note-books of Gideon I once found a list of diseases as yet unclassified by medical science, and among these there occurred the word Islomania, which was described as a rare but by no means unknown affliction of spirit. There are people, Gideon used to say, by way of explanation, who finds islands somehow irresistible. The mere knowledge that they are on island, a little world surrounded by the sea, fills them with an indescribable intoxication. These born "islomanes", he used to add, are the direct descendents of the Atlanteans, and it is towards the lost Atlantis that their subconscious yearns throughout their island life…
Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus, 1953
SPECIAL PLACES…
Islands are special places. They may be classified according to such criteria as where they lie in relation to the coast, what type of channel separates them from the mainland, and whether or not one can row or swim across the channel (a measure of the extent to which the sea unites or divides). Islands also differ in the images they project: some seem to be floating or floundering, others look anchored, stonelike, and, though torn-off and incomplete remains of the land mass, quite satisfied with themselves, having escaped in the nick of time and declared their independence; some are in disarray and dissolution, others neat and trim, on the point of establishing an ideal order. Islands take on human characteristics and moods : they too can be solitary, quiet, parched, naked, barren, inscrutable, cursed, and even happy or blissful. They are defined not only by their similarities and differences but also by the company they keep...
Excerpts from the "Mediterranean breviary" by Predrag Matvejević
Somewhere among the note-books of Gideon I once found a list of diseases as yet unclassified by medical science, and among these there occurred the word Islomania, which was described as a rare but by no means unknown affliction of spirit. There are people, Gideon used to say, by way of explanation, who finds islands somehow irresistible. The mere knowledge that they are on island, a little world surrounded by the sea, fills them with an indescribable intoxication. These born "islomanes", he used to add, are the direct descendents of the Atlanteans, and it is towards the lost Atlantis that their subconscious yearns throughout their island life…
Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus, 1953
SPECIAL PLACES…
Islands are special places. They may be classified according to such criteria as where they lie in relation to the coast, what type of channel separates them from the mainland, and whether or not one can row or swim across the channel (a measure of the extent to which the sea unites or divides). Islands also differ in the images they project: some seem to be floating or floundering, others look anchored, stonelike, and, though torn-off and incomplete remains of the land mass, quite satisfied with themselves, having escaped in the nick of time and declared their independence; some are in disarray and dissolution, others neat and trim, on the point of establishing an ideal order. Islands take on human characteristics and moods : they too can be solitary, quiet, parched, naked, barren, inscrutable, cursed, and even happy or blissful. They are defined not only by their similarities and differences but also by the company they keep...
Excerpts from the "Mediterranean breviary" by Predrag Matvejević
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