silk

Some books are simply this—unforgettable.

Stories that graft onto imagination, memory, even our bodies as they seep through our senses, winding their way beneath skin. We don’t simply read, we feel, travel, escape and for a moment, live these tales.

Once read, we carry them with us. Such stories can even change us. 

Unforgettable.

After curating a particularly difficult exhibition (non-existent budget, tricky exhibition space, 12 hour work days, an impossible deadline etc. etc.), another curator working with me gave me a gift as a sign of appreciation for what I’d done. While I’ll never forget the kindness motivating the gift, the true treasure was the gift itself—a book.

Silk by Alessandro Baricco.

As the curator passed it on to me, I’ve been recommending it to people ever since. 

Told as a fable, in 1861 a French silk merchant, Hervé Joncour, travels to the end of the world: Japan. His mission is to find and buy silk worms. Here he meets with the most “invincible” man in Japan, Hara Kei, and at that first meeting there is another, a concubine with eyes that do not have an Oriental shape.

So it begins.

A love story lit by an unfathomable desire and a subtle eroticism, spanning time and a vast distance, and is compelling for having a will all its own.

A truly unforgettable story.