I only had £20 to my name that morning. A crisp purple-blue £20 note. No wallet. No more money. I had deliberately left my wallet at home - to conserve money - so that, when I went out that saturday morning, I'd have just enough for a decent breakfast, a couple of coffee's, and a spot of light lunch - maybe even a glass of wine too (if I didn't go anywhere too expensive). Just £20. It's an effective gambit. If you've only got £20 in your pocket, than you've only got £20 in your pocket, and that means that you can only spend the £20 in your pocket! It's a brilliant idea. It stops me from sleepwalking into bookshops with the intention of browsing...but inevitably walking out with books.
So there I was. On a sunny saturday morning on the London Charing Cross Road with only £20 to my name. I felt good. I felt free. I felt I was in control. I felt not like a pauper but rather like a prince. When money is scarce even the smallest of sums can feel like gold nuggets. I felt the £20 note between my thumb and forefinger and said unto it
"You my £20 note are mine. You belong to me. I don't belong to you!"
So with this warm feeling of control nestling in my breast and a whistling in my soul, I capered jauntily along the Charing Cross road...and then, from the corner of my eye, I saw it. I ignored it. It nagged at me. I ignored it. It nagged at me again. I ignored it. It kept nagging at me. I gave in. What was it? It was the wide-open doors of, yes, Foyle's Bookshop! They were like a pair of outstretched arms. 'Come to papa' they were saying to me. 'Papa will take care of you'. 'Ok. Ok I will see Papa, but I will not buy anything' I said to myself. So I went in through the outstretched arms of the doors. Through the mouth of the monster. And inside it was going very well indeed. I jogged pass the 'Special Offers' section without even a second glance. I walked up the stairs to the second floor and pass the 'Science' section without even deigning to look at the shelves. I knew what was on them - they weren't gonna get me this time! I strolled aloofly with head high and mighty pass the 'Penguin Classics' section and I didn't even stop for a chat, or a peak. I had survived the black 'Penguin Classics'! I was on a roll man! I scrambled to the 3rd floor to the 'Arts' section and there I felt i-n-v-i-n-c-i-b-l-e. You should have seen me. I was walking through the innards of this cavernous leviathan of a bookshop - and there was nothing in it I wanted! I felt no pangs of desire to buy anything. A-mazing. I was a junky cured. A druggy off the mescaline. Off the hook. Now brimming with uber-confidence and cocky as Nietzsche's Ubermensch (Superman) I strolled to the 'Philosophy' section and with utter disdain took a bright red book from off the top shelf, and opening it on page one, I began to read the opening paragraph:
'In endless space countless luminous spheres, round each of which some dozen smaller illuminated ones revolve, not at the core and covered over with a hard cold crust; on this crust a mouldy film has produced living and knowing beings: this is empirical truth, the real, the world. Yet for a being who thinks, it is a precarious position to stand on one of those numberless spheres freely floating in boundless space, without knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar beings that throng, press, and toil, restlessly and rapidly arising and passing away in beginningless and endless time...'
Wow!
...Er, actually I was fucked. I knew I was hooked there and then. I have read many opening paragraphs, but this was by far; by a considerable margin, the single best opening sentence in the history of...opening sentences? No, in the history of all writing period! It was pure lucidity. Who needs drugs when you can have potent stuff such as this? The words were just flowing off the page and into my bloodstream. Just read it again! It has everything. The remarkable man who had written it; the man who would spend his final years caring for a succession of poodles named 'Atman', had jumped from off the page and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and was throttling me. Not to kill me but to wake me up.
...I fingered that £20 note. It was still there in my pocket. What shall it be, lunch or book? Lunch or book? Fuck it - it was no contest. Fuck lunch. Who needs food when you can eat paragraphs like this?! I bought the book for £13.99 and spent the rest of the morning gorging myself stupid with words, coffee and sunshine.
And who was the writer? Who indeed. Who but the Ubermensch himself:
