In Highgate Cemetery
UNITED KINGDOM | Tuesday, 2 September 2008 | Views [108]
The granite blocks have been squared and polished. The low wrought
iron fence, now gently rusting, has been set to ensure that visitors
approach from the pebbled main circuit via the short flagstoned walk and not over the lawn. The graven inscription has been gilded, and the oversized
head, two feet in height or more, has been cast in bronze.
Roses, wrapped in crepe and plastic, sit in water in a container at the
base of the monument.
It's evident that a fair few workers have toiled, united, to ensure that the grandest of graves in the eastern part of Highgate Cemetery is that of Karl Marx and the four others who share his plot.
A
couple of feet behind Marx, what order there is gives way to an
ever-encroaching tangle of ivy, old trees whose gnarled roots keep the
earth unquiet, and brambled canes that bear blackberries the colour of old blood. Paths criss-cross
the forest past gravestones with facades weathered beyond recognition,
and forgotten memorials swallowed by vegetation. There are newer
graves too, there, crammed into what space remains.
The western part of Highgate
Cemetery, which reportedly has a horror movie feel, is inaccessible to
the general public - you can only enter on tour, and all places were
booked out so I've not seen it. Both sides hold a large number of
ex-people who've achieved renown in their particular field, be it
medicine, writing, engineering, art, or politics. And as a tourist
attraction it's interesting to visit, but I wonder a little at the
voyeurism of it. Isn't the concept of those Hollywood tours which
allow you to eyeball where Hollywood stars live or lived a little
creepy? And isn't eyeballing gravestones for amusement in what is
still a working graveyard even creepier? Yet despite
that I still hope to visit the western cemetery.
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife.
Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely
hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
Douglas Adams
Writer
1952-2001
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