Sunday, July 31, 2005

Book-Worm-Hole

I made another one of my increasingly frequent forays into a bookshop yesterday, seeking , as ever, to dissolve the ennui of a now tedious vacation in the please-grope-me smell of fresh paper.

Armed with little more than conspicuously light pockets, i stepped cautiously into the decidedly regal premises, and felt the full force of a dozen 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' hard-bound editions staring me in the face, snickering in all their over-hyped, but i must admit, not wholly undeserved glory.

After this rather inauspicious beginning, i started looking around the vast and immensely complicated labyrinth, stumbling hurriedly past sections entitled Cookery (I've never understood the motivation for buying, leave alone writing, cookbooks) , General Knowledge (whatever that may be), Erotica ( ok, so i sneaked a little peek here), and reached Literature, quietly occupying a little corner, uninhabited but for a Japanese girl feverishly haranguing a shop-attendant for a copy of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.

With a half-smile, and afore-mentioned fatalistic utterances, now on my lips, I look up and see a new edition of The Fountainhead, the redesigned cover lily-white and Communist Red,colurs i would have thought hardly appropriate.
Howard Roark, i am sure, laughed.

Jack Kerouac simply sits, in satori-induced stupor, not taking insult, in true Buddhist fashion, at the ignominy of being placed next to Jackie Collins(why are you here ?),and I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

Continuing on my merry ride, i spot other masters laid to a dusty rest, Gogol's Dead Souls probably lamenting Sophocles' Tragedies (under 'Greek', you see) , Kawabata and Murakami and Ishiguro and Oe trying manfully to catch the Japanese cutie's attention, Huxley's Doors of Perception leading to Hugo's Hunchback, and so on and on and on in a never-ending rollercoaster through the literary ages.

And after three hours or so , With the customary sigh, i prepared to troop out, Neruda's clouds waving white handkerchiefs of goodbye, my pockets still feeling the same, but my spirit well and truly uplifted, when Scott Fitzgerald, genius of the Jazz Age, chronicler of the 1920s, beckons me one last time, and who am I to refuse?

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Before I die, I want to own a book-shop.

7 comments:

Le conteur said...

Thanks for dropping by. :)

How did you manage to resist the urge to buy something? You must teach me... my dad would be very thankful. Credit card company would not.

Also, it seems that that you had a birthday recently. Happy belated birthday! Hope you had a good time.

JL said...

me too. something about the smell of books. feel of fresh pages. powdery thin like butterfly wings.

if you liked fight club, try invisible monsters. mad fabs.

melon collie said...

hello, ahem!
it is an art that calls for great self-discipline. Do you have it in you? :)
And thanks for the wishes!

jasi, yup, i love that smell. I'll try to get my hands on invisible monsters..

Anonymous said...

"...I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty." Oh man, you don't know how badly I want to cry everytime I read this last line. Why like that? I have no idea. Isn't it just a simple plain sentence? But it surely is a simple plain sentence which has the power to touch me, that even I am thinking of Dean Moriaty now. :)

p

keed said...

i wanna own a bookstore too. a used one i think with a tech cafe and general beatness.

melon collie said...

phoebe, one day , when i'll make enough money to afford a road trip out west, i know deep down , i'll be looking for him...

sounds great , billy! count me in too !

Anonymous said...

didnt i tell you? i own one.
my father does, actually.
Me
The one who makes your life hell.

About Me

a recluse waiting for salvation