How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays Read Online Free PDF Page A

culture should have read in high school, if not before. It seems to us, if not offensive, at least condescending to insult the reader by advising him to look into, say, the original German edition of the
Elective Affinities,
the Pléiade Proust, or Petrarch's Latin works. We must bear in mind that, bombarded by so much advice over such a long time, the reader has become more and more demanding; and we must bear in mind those who, unable to afford luxury vacations, are game to venture into experiences as uncomfortable as they are thrilling.
    For vacationers who will be spending long hours on the beach I would recommend the
Ars magna lucis et umbrae
of Athanasius Kircher, fascinating for anyone who, lying under the infrared solar rays, wants to reflect on the wonders of light and mirrors. The Roman edition of 1645 can still be acquired through antiquarians for sums undoubtedly inferior to those that our former political leaders exported into Switzerland. I do not advise trying to borrow this book from a library, because it is found only in ancient palaces where the attendants are so elderly that they tend to fall off the ladders leading to the rare-book shelves. Additional drawbacks are the size of the book and the friability of the paper: not to be read on days when the wind is blowing over beach umbrellas.
    A young person, on the other hand, one who is journeying around the continent on a Eurailpass, and who must therefore read in those overcrowded passages where you have to stand with one arm out of the window, could take with him at least three of the six Einaudi volumes of Ramusio's travels, to be read holding one volume in hand, another under an arm, the third clutched between the thighs. Reading about journeys while
on
a journey is an intensely stimulating experience.
    For young people who are recovering from (or disappointed by) political activity, but are still anxious to keep an eye on the problems of the Third World, I would suggest some little masterpiece of Muslim wisdom. Adelphi has recently published
The Book of Advice
by Kay Ka'us ibn Iskandar, but unfortunately without the original Iranian; the translation does not convey the flavor of the text. I would suggest instead the delightful (
Kitāb) al-Sa'ādah wa-al-is'ād
by Abū al-Hasan al-'Amirī, available in Teheran in the critical edition of 1957.
    But not every reader is fluent in Middle Eastern languages, of course. For the patristically-oriented motorist, less burdened by constraints on bulk or weight of luggage, the complete collection of Migne's
Patrologia
is always an excellent choice. I would advise
against
the Greek Fathers before the Council of Florence of 1440, which would require packing both the 160 volumes of the Greco-Latin edition and the 81 of the Latin edition, whereas the Latin Fathers prior to 1216 are squeezed into 218 volumes. I am well aware that not all of these are readily available on the market, but the reader can always fall back on photocopies. For those with less specialized interests I would suggest selected works (in the original, naturally) from the cabalistic tradition (essential today for anyone who wants to understand contemporary poetry). A few volumes are enough: a copy of the
Sefer Yezirah,
the
Zohar,
of course, and then Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria. The cabalistic corpus is particularly suited to holidays, because original editions of the oldest works can still be found in scroll editions, easily stowed in hitchhikers' backpacks. The cabalistic corpus is also perfectly suited to the Clubs Mediterranés, where the animators can organize a Cabala Competition, the prize to be awarded the team constructing the most attractive golem. Finally, for those whose Hebrew is rusty, there is always the
Corpus Hermeticum
and the gnostic writings (Valentinus is best; Basil is not infrequently prolix and irritating).
    All this (and much more) will make for an intelligent vacation. Or, if you want to make things simple,