30/06/2024
No lacky court poet could have come up with anything as slavish as this on the passing of his benefactor as Hamid Dabashi did on the occasion of the death of Ed Said:
"Close proximity to a majestic mountain is a mixed blessing — one is at once graced by the magnanimity of its pastures and the bounty of its slopes, and yet one can never see where one is sitting, under the shadow of what greatness, the embracing comfort of what assurance. The splendor of mountains — Himalayas, Rockies, Alborz — can only be seen from afar, from the safe distance of only a visual, perceptive, appreciative, awe-inspiring grasp of their whereabouts.
"A very happy few — now desolate and broken — have had the rare privilege of calling Edward Said a friend, fewer a colleague, even fewer a comrade, only a handful a neighbor — the closer you came to Edward Said the more his intimate humanity, ordinary simplicity, the sweet, endearing, disarmingly embracing character ... clouded and colored the majesty that he was... We were all like birds flying around the generosity of his roof, tiny dandelions joyous in the shade of his backyard, minuscule creatures pasturing on the bounteous slopes of the mountain that he was.
"The prince of our cause, the mighty warrior, the Salah al-Din of our reasoning with mad adversaries, source of our sanity in despair, solace in our sorrow, hope in our own humanity, is now no more.
"In his absence now it is possible to remember the time when you were and he was not part of your critical consciousness, your creative disposition, your presence in the world — when he did not look over your shoulder watching every single word you wrote."
Too bad he is was not alive to fill your mouth with gold and pearls.
The Moment of Myth Edward Said (1935-2003)
