The Scribe
Another scribbler on Substack
Be a scribe! Engrave this in your heart
So that your name might live on like theirs!
The scroll is better than the carved stone.
A man has died: his corpse is dust,
And his people have passed from the land.
It is a book that makes him be remembered
In the mouth of the speaker who reads him.
Long before I had read these words from an Egyptian papyrus dated to 1300 BC (they are quoted in the linguist Steven Roger Fischer’s magnificent History of Reading), I had unknowingly followed its somewhat unreliable careers advice. Shortly after graduating from university, I became a writer of literary and cultural journalism and a reporter on social affairs, mainly for British, and occasionally for American, newspapers and magazines. I will probably continue to do that as long as they remain in existence.
But, anxious not to be left behind by the internet, I’ve created The Scribe, yet another platform for me to share online my scribblings about literature, culture, society and ideas. Perhaps I will find here a new audience I am not currently reaching through newsprint and social media 1.0.
I’ve named this space in honour of the unknown author of the words quoted above, who might have looked a little like this.
