Saturday, August 4, 2012
Life Imitating Art
This is going to be brief because my eye hurts! But it has resonances.
I wrote Azimuth over a ten year period and regard it as my ‘legacy’. It is a strange book, both an adventure story and an agnostic’s search for enlightenment. Much of it was written in a divine effluvia, a semi- unbridled outpouring from the unconscious. Looking back, a two month work posting from the EU to Uzbekistan must have kindled much of the landscape and history which is a backdrop to the trilogy. Samarkand is a truly magical place.
This week I had a decidedly gruelling eye operation for a totally detached retina. Two hours and fully conscious with lasers and needles and oil. The woman who did it? A young, beautiful Uzbek, straight off Azimuth’s pages. The chances of finding an Uzbek eye surgeon in the UK must be zilch. To discover her as MY eye surgeon? Jungian synchronicity par excellence..
Afterwards, in an act of circularity that you might find in a Borges labyrinth, I gave her a signed copy of Azimuth. A thank you to her and also to Samarkand.
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