On Friendship

I've been reading Hisham Matar's My Friends. It's a wonderful book. I was so impressed! It captures time and place so intensely, and talks about the pain of exile so eloquently. Matar has an artist's eye and portrays London, where he and the main protagonist are reluctantly based, so eloquently. When he talks about London, I discovered that some of his favourite places are mine too! My favourite picture in the National Gallery, Jan Arnolfini and his wife, is in an adjacent room to his favourite painting: Young man at prayer.

I also discovered new things I didn't know about, for example, the Four Caryatids carved on the side of the St Pancras New Church, which was built in 1819-22 in the Greek revival style.

St Pancras New Church