Wednesday, September 13, 2017
The Key to the Problem
Robert Byron (1905-1941), The Road to Oxiana (London: Picador, 1994), pp. 376-377:
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This morning at the Legation I met a Colonel Porter who asked what my share in the world's work was. I said I had been looking at Mohammadan architecture.
'Mind you,' he replied, 'I've seen a good deal of Mohammadan architecture one way and another, in Palestine, Egypt, and Persia, and I've given a good deal of thought to the matter. I can tell you the key to the problem if you like.'
'Really. What is it?'
'The whole thing's phallic,' he uttered in a ghoulish whisper.
I was surprised at first to note the influence of Freud on the North-West Frontier, but soon discovered that for Colonel Porter the universe itself was phallic.
