When you have a new baby, you receive gifts from everyone. Toys, clothes, books. None of them are for you. But I believe my father sent one particular gift with me in mind. It was a collection of books called Classics For Boys: Treasure Island (L’Île au trésor), The 39 Steps (Les 39 Marches) and so on. An investment in my son’s literary future. I’m sure my dad expected me to read a couple of them. And so this weekend, I picked up The Lost World (Le Monde perdu), by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The world of the title is an island inhabited by dinosaurs. But the real lost world contained in the book is Victorian England. Doyle’s explorers drink tea, wear immaculate white suits and polished boots and shave once a day. They patronise the natives and would rather shoot the dinosaurs than study them. Of course, as far as little Gustave is concerned, I too come from a lost world. A world where telephones had wires and dials. Where messages were written by hand or typed on metal machines, and sent out in envelopes, arriving a day or two later. Where there were only three television channels. Where pirating music meant recording from vinyl onto cassette. And where my parents let me play in the street. The world of the 70s and 80s will seem as far from Gustave as Victorian England seems from me. And yet it is preserved in my memory, just as Doyle’s world is locked in his book.
