In my home, a step down off the dining room, overlooking the beautiful garden my wife has created, I have my studiolo. A studiolo in Renaissance times in Italy was either a piece of furniture or, in the case I have in mind, a small room in which to write and read and listen to music and think. It was, in miniature, a study cum library which offered privacy and a minimum of space for books and personal memorabilia and writing material.
In mine I have a comfortable chair and a desk looking out the window on the garden, lawn and trees with a view of the ocean over the top of the seawall. I note, with no particular Luddite pride but certainly with no feeling of deprivation either, that this private room has no television, computer, fax, telephone, Iphone or kindle. On the shelves that surround me I have the special books I am currently browsing through or studying. I read and write there in blessed peace. I am distanced from trouble in the streets. The virulent and contemptible exchanges of distrust and hostility between fellow Guyanese can be forgotten for a while. The perilous state of the nation is for another day’s, another week’s, another month’s consideration. I find myself retreating more and more into this quiet room, my books within easy reach, possessing the kingdom of the imagination beyond all squalor. I am increasingly reluctant to exchange such benison of private place for the boring and acrimonious turmoil of the world at work and play.
And so I sit here and write. And often enough I put down my pen to savour the infinite sweets of reading. Never a day passes without a discovery, a revelation, a wondrous fact, an in
