Document Type
Commentary
Abstract
[First paragraph]
North African nomads and the Tuareg in particular are always associated in my mind with salt. And pears too. Not the fruit itself but its voluptuous, sweet, unmistakable aroma drifting across a sitting room on a Sunday afternoon. There was a documentary programme on our black and white television with the cosily familial historical title “All Our Yesterdays.” The “we” were the British (with a few others to help) and the “yesterdays” the politically eventful thirties and militarily dominated forties. The images have little to do with the family album and a lot to do with family history. It was warm, the sun slanting through the window creating a rectangle of light, like a reflection of the screen. It was the visual equivalent of sympathetic weather in literature, mirroring the mood of the action. The action was that my father had just entered the room eating a pear and the Desert Fox was advancing through Libya. There was a linking sequence of shots showing Berbers with camels in the middle distance trudging over a stony desert.
Repository Citation
Sharp, Tim. "Notes & Queries on Traveler's Tales." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 2, 2009, pp. 1–9. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss2/5