Richard Gwyn – The Museum of Innocence

In Istanbul, he went to a place called the Museum of Innocence, where a famous author had created a mausoleum of spent emotion. There were piles of old stuff there, including an entire wall covered with fake cigarette stubs. He thought it was a shame to parade room after room of artefacts detailing a man’s obsessions, his peccadillos, exposing to the world his phantoms of regret. Naturally, he fell in love with the guide and wondered whether the author had planted her there in order to entrap him.