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Dear Baron

Having just completed a group of poetic reconstructions of some of the tales ascribed to you, I thought it might please you to know that your work still lives. The fact that your name has been attached, most unfairly in my opinion, to a certain psychological syndrome, might be fame enough for some, but such extraneous matters are not my concern here, and I am sure you will concur with that decision. You are the grandest of storytellers, and that is where our paths cross. As a poet, of course, I am by definition a storyteller, whatever else I may be. But the full potential of narrative struck me only after I learned about The Thousand and One Nights from the lips of the enchanting Leila whom I met in Cairo during the Second World War. She would sit on her striped cushion, tuck her legs under her, light a cigarette, shake out her long black hair, and ask ‘Do you know the story of The Hunchbank and the Vizier’s Daughter?’  ‘No.’ ‘Well then –’ and she would hold me entranced. She was my Sheherazade, I once asked her whether the stories had an Arabic, or Persian, or Indian origin, and she just laughed and said aiwa, yes. The Nights had no boundaries, they passed from country to country, they met some general demand in human experience, they said this and that and you had to believe them. No metaphor, no explanation, no irony. When Aladdin rubbed the lamp a jinnee did – of course! – appear. All this stuck in my mind. Although the end of the war separated me from Leila, we kept in touch, and I remember how pleased I was when she wrote to tell me, years later, that our son Mahmoud had decided to study folklore and archeology at the university, concentrating on the art of storytelling in Ancient Egypt. He eventually obtained a post in the Cairo Museum. As I look back now, I realize that he himself will soon be due for retirement, which will leave him more time to be with his family and to fascinate his new grandson with stories his mother told him so long ago.

You, my dear Baron, seem to have had that straightforward, confident, non-ironic art in your bones from the outset. When you spoke, you held the company enchanted. Who would dare to interrupt or contradict you calm, matter-of-fact, reminiscential delivery? Did anyone think you were an unreliable narrator, in other words, telling lies? I am sure many people did think that, but could they always be certain? You gave no telltale winks or gestures, your body language was convincingly open and honest from beginning to end. You had some jokes, but you did not spoil them by laughing at them. You were clearly a man of the world, and the world was still, is still, a mysterious place, where unexplained things happen every week, especially to soldiers and sportsmen and explorers and adventurers like yourself. You have that particular power of spellbinding which lies at the heart of entertainment and art. And we do not even know you, except superficially and by hearsay; you disappear into your work; your stories are told by someone else, and a rascal at that. Well, I salute your semi-visibility. You make us think about what is real and what is not real, what is possible and what is not possible, what is good and what is problematic.

Sinbad has something on his back, what is it? – It’s the Old Man of the Sea. – But what’s the Old Man of the Sea? – I just told you, it’s the Old Man of the Sea.

                           Yours, with a certain amazement

                                      Edwin Morgan

                                   Glasgow, 23 May 2004