‘But what must it be like for the fish?’ We’re talking about cormorants, Neil MacGregor and I, and the spectacular way they dive for food, when he pauses to consider the situation from the perspective of a fish.
‘I mean just think, there you are swimming along with lots of chums and then suddenly there’s this great whoosh and the chum next to you has just disappeared! He’s vanished! And of course you can’t see the cause of it.’
MacGregor tilts his head. The sunlight in the offices of Penguin on the Strand seems to condense to a point in his eye. ‘Can you imagine it?’ he says. I can’t. It’s not easy to empathise with an anchovy, but MacGregor has a gift for inhabiting other points of view. It’s part of his charm and part of his success. During his 13 years at the British Museum he had us imagining ourselves Romans, Vikings, Iranians, Aztecs…
It’s also why it’s such a crying shame that he’s not here any more. MacGregor lives in Germany these days, directing the Humboldt Forum in Berlin — but a MacGregor-ish interest in other perspectives is exactly what we all need right now.
In many ways he’s one of Goodhart’s ‘citizens of nowhere’ — an insider, at home all over the world. But he’s an insider who looks out; one who wouldn’t think to sneer. When I ask him whether he understands the feeling of belonging to a particular place, he says: ‘I do feel part of Arran, of the island. It’s where every childhood holiday was spent and was also where my family had farmed for a century, and that sense that this land had a connection with your forefathers, ancestors, whatever, is strong.’
MacGregor is an atheist (I assume) but being MacGregor he doesn’t bang on about the credulous idiots who believe, but instead tries to understand what purpose religion serves.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in