Reprint: Microcosmos

What could this world of which she saw nothing but the minarets and roofs be like? A quarter of a century had passed while she was confined to this house, leaving it only on infrequent occasions to visit her mother in al-Khurunfush. Her husband escorted her on each visit in a carriage, because he could not bear for anyone to see his wife, either alone or accompanied by him. She was neither resentful nor discontended, quite the opposite. All the same, when she peeked through the openings between the jasmine and the hyacinth bean vines, off into space, at the minarets and rooftops, her delicate lips would rise in a tender, dreamy smile. Where might the law school be where Fahmy was sitting at this moment? Where was the Khalil Agha School, which Kamal assured her was only a minute's trip from the mosque of al-Husayn?

• Naguib Mahfouz: Palace Walk

Amina, the mother of Fahmy and Kamal in this passage (and three other children) lives a life within extremely restricted boundaries -- her husband's house. Her world is exceedingly small, unlike, say, the visitor to the Library of Babel, who quakes at the contemplation of infinity.

But in another way, her world is as compendious as the library: it contains everything. And like Funes the Memorious, she can forget nothing, nor even overlook it for a moment.

In different ways, by employing metaphors of different scales, Mahfouz and Borges are in the end speaking of the same thing. Whether cosmos or microcosmos, what we speak of and what we know are, in a real sense, all that exists.

Postscript: While the comparison between Mahfouz and Borges struck me some time ago, it became today topical to a post by Paula regarding Muslim women and their veilings. Having beaten her comments feature about the head and neck, I want to say only two things:

It's in the definition of "another culture" that there are aspects we do not get. Not only is that to be expected, it's kind of compulsory. I hate to have to say so in regard to one of the sharpest, smartest people I ever came across, but I wonder if this cultural steamroller attitude is not particular to Americans. This idea that if I don't get it there must be something wrong.

And secondly: it's very fashionable at the moment, and not only in America, to find fault with everything that has to do with Islam. The reasons are not far to seek.

However it takes but a moment of thought to realise that the self-same motivation that clothes a Muslim woman in a hijab, a chador or a burqa is what leads some Jewish women to shave their heads to go about in wigs. And it's what makes the Amish women who have suddenly hit the headlines similarly modest in their outward appearance. Jack Straw doesn't have to deal with Amish people, or he might have thought it better to keep his mouth shut.

Although he is a politician, which, more than "Whore" even, is the very antithesis of the idea of modesty. We should be grateful he has given us the chance to see, once again, just how crass his sort can be, and indeed must be.