tooknap press

     Nature has a very simple way of amazing us: by enlargement.  With the shell commonly known as the Grand Bénitier, we see Nature enacting an immense dream of protection, a delirium of protection, ending in a monstrosity of protection.  The mollusk "weighs only 14 pounds, but the weight of each of its valves is between 250 and 300 kilograms, measuring from one meter to a meter and a half in length." (Armand Landrin, Marine Monsters, 2nd edition, Hachette, 1879, p. 16.)  The author of this book, part of the famous Library of Marvels, adds, "In China. . . wealthy Mandarins own bathtubs made from these shells."  What a mollifying bath must one experience in the house of such a shell!  What capacity for relaxation must an animal of only 14 pounds feel while occupying so much space!  I know nothing of biological realities.  I am only a bookish dreamer.  But when I read a page of Armand Lanrin I am possessed by a grand, cosmic dream.  Who wouldn't feel cosmically comforted by imagining taking a bath in the shell of the Grand Bénitier?

         {the poetics of space, shells}