I went to the fortress, Belgrade's citadel on the hill. It was more than pleasant, its a national park now, which is what we should all do with all, old and new, military bases. It sits on the meander of a river, that looks like it almost became an ox-bow lake, it is the watchmen over its city. Its full of old militray hardware, guns, tanks, R.P.Gs. When I was a child I would have loved it, but you see on gun you, have seen them all and the whole thing was pretty droll. So I brought an orange juice and fell asleep in the sun.
I woke up a little later and a little red. I strolled in the old town and breezed around. I wanted to buy books for the train. Theroux's, the Great Railway Bazzar, I had over-read and over enjoyed. A very good friend of mine, one of my best, and maybe the best man I know, had given it to me before I left. I'd chewed though Tolstoy's Anna Karenia, which I had meant to be saving for Russia. I fell in love with Anna somewhere in Switzerland, but she was dead now, suicide by train, not something I wanted to know.
I found a old second hand bookshelf minutes out the centre and inside a 100 Serb English language book bin. It was all Mills and Boon pulp, Andy McNab Bang-Bang crap. I'm a literary snob and I will never apologize, the cannon is the cannon because its quality has been condensed and distilled by the passing of years, it is an example of conservatism working at its very best. Bestseller lists on the other hand are aggragated by people who know the least about books, it is the problem of positive re-enforcement. If you read books infrequently, you buy best-sellers, so by definition the people who determine what books become bestsellers are in the main those who are least qualified to do so. On the otherhand those who read most and therefore more broadly than a top ten, airport shop book stand, would probably never pick a book on these lists as their favorite.
It was looking pretty bad after five minutes I still couldn't find anything. As expected they were all best-sellers, but I burrowed to the bottom and suffocated by the overbearing Tom Clancy and behind the engimas of Dan Brown, nestled on the wood at the bottom of the bin was a treasure trove of good literature. I found some Fitzgerald, a copy of Shakespeare's Julius Ceaser and and absolute Erotic cracker: Emmanuel.
I couldn't believe my eyes. Of course it was the cover that caught my eye, flesh always does. At first I thought it was Mills and Boon. Its good desighn, superb, just a woman's, red- rouged lipstick lips, on a black back ground. No man and probably most woman would not have the strength to resit picking it up. My paws passed all over it, flicking it open, my index finger caressing the words between its covers. I have seen snippets of the the film but of course, literature is always better than the movies. I think it was penned at the end of the Sexual revolution and with the Story of O it has cemented France as the naval of the body erotic.
Its steamy, I can tell you that, pure french filth. I brought a beer in the old town and opened it at a random page.
"Between her joined thighs she felt a liquid flowing like the saliva that was now bathing his apoplectic member in her warm mouth"
Phworrrrr! I was hot under the collar.
Its a superb and graphic paragraph. Pg 56 section Green paradise. I had to order a coffee and pause for a cigar to calm down.
I'm an not a virgin to erotic literature. In my second year, swapping books with a house mate, she owned a book called "Play the Game". I picked it up innocently, like Emmanuelle it was the cover that had caught my eye. A woman's heel with a lowered sock. (The chaps who make these covers should be paid more.) Well it went all round our eight person house, we all had a few quiet minutes with, reading enough pages to get and finish the Horn . Unsurprisingly, so incredibly predictable, it disappeard. I know I don't have it and I would tell if I did, and I know the woman I took it off doesn't have it either, she would have told me if she did. Which means one of my other old house mates must be reading those, over read, well thumbed, seedy pages, good for them. I hope they do it late at night and use the light of a red lamp. This kind of wiriting deserves as much.
But there is more, this had happened to me before, reading erotica while travelling. I had once backpacked across parts of Asia, and myself and a very good friend of mine used to read sections of erotica to each other on long train journeys. I reccomend that too, it passes the time like no other, well almost no other. Its word porn, flesh for the mind, meat for the carnivores, carnal soul, it is the animal in civilization, the Belgrade soul.
Between page 12 of Emmanuel (She was on a plane, getting naked) and page 40 of Fitzgeraled (I can tell you Daisy is no Emmanuel), I realized I was drunk, with the Beer and the sun and the walking and the blood flowing I was tipsy. I told you, the curse of the solo traveller. It was a good thing though, I am unrepentant. I am in love with this city. It might be my favorite. Something I thought about Istanbul. But I am head-over heels in love with Belgrade. I will come here again and probably again and then once more. If I had money I would buy property here, to live in and to invest. It has Zeitgiest, it feels like the flavour of the times. In contrast to Sofia, its a thousands of voices silently screaming "Look at us,We are on the accesdeancay!". It had a vibe, good Karma, that goes beyond its meager sights. In short its happening.
The demographics are set right for it too, a young educated population, open economy and they are going to be in the E.U. sooner the better please. I cant believe N.A.T.O bombed this city, I really can't, its too nice. The people are to pleasant for war? And the women are suerly far to pretty for the men to get board enough for Guns. The food is good and cheap, the night-life heaving, the bars friendly. I guess Genocide is the reason and I hope N.A.T.O bombs all Europe if we ever start that nonsense again. We won't though, its unthinkable. Belgrades rising.
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