Well, I managed to finish reading War
and Peace – its many pages of turgidly detailed description and seemingly
superfluous analogy notwithstanding – before leaving Athens last week. What sustained
me was the stories – which army won which battle and who got off with whom in
the romantic stakes. My curiosity satisfied, I admit to merely skimming the
epilogues, in which Tolstoy sets out his theory of the study of history. After
all, my time in the city was limited and I didn’t want to spend too much of it
with my e-reader.
So, each morning, at one or other of
the myriad kafeneios, my partner and I would convene before sampling Athens’
other attractions. There are so many museums, galleries and archaeological
sites that a campaign plan (sorry, Tolstoy) is necessary to do them justice
but, fortunately, we had already been to some of them on previous visits. The Byzantine
and the Islamic, however, had eluded us. They are both beautiful museums, full
of treasures that are meticulously explained and lovingly displayed. If asked
to choose between them, however, I would come down in favour of the Islamic,
not only because I have an aversion to the idolatrous art that is the main
feature of the Byzantine period, but also because of the charming roof-top café
where, with a restorative glass of wine in hand, one can contemplate the ancient ruins of Kerameikos laid out below.
The mega-rich of the Greek diaspora are
responsible for founding and endowing many of the magnificent museums and
galleries, but there is a modest Municipal Gallery of Athens, housed in a
former silk factory, where we saw some lovely works by Greek artists that were
made in the 1930s and 1940s – a time of great political strife for the nation. Our
visit to this gallery came with the benefit of sole occupancy: it is also
located near some very good ‘neighbourhood’ cafés, which is ideal for one of
our other favourite pursuits – lunch.
Bravery is perhaps too strong a word,
but it does take some gumption to seek one’s lunch in a place that makes no
concessions to tourists. On one occasion, we took the advice of a local and ventured
down to a cellar, through a trapdoor in the pavement, to an old-fashioned,
basic eatery established to provide lunch (only) to the workers at the adjacent
market. (The pop-up concept is not new.) There was no menu, no pricelist, no
staff, except for the proprietor-cum-cook and his assistant. We ate and drank
what we were given, which, because the business relies on returning customers,
was authentic, delicious and inexpensive. The next day, we became bolder and chose
ourselves a café that was intimidatingly native. But the lady in charge took
pity on us and offered us a choice of dishes, served cheerfully and without pretension.
Of course, I miss all that now that
we are back in a city that lacks family-run restaurants of that sort. Still, I
have more time for reading and have had a closer look at Tolstoy’s epilogues.
He argues that the history of humanity is not explained simply as chain-link of
cause and effect, such as can be found in the narration of episodes in the life
of an individual: he refutes the notion of individual free will and argues that
History should aspire to become a science, by establishing ‘laws’ as do other
sciences. The amount of data-collation needed to establish such laws would have been beyond his ability, but present-day computing power makes it feasible and, in fact, his legacy is alive in the work of Peter Turchin’s ‘Cliodynamics’
and his Seshat project, a vast, big-data attempt to make sense of it all. Still,
if science isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be had in reading
history as stories and, if cinema appeals, get yourself along to see Sam Mendes’
film 1917.
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