Books once more

By its very nature, the printed word is an incommensurable subject.  Books are a never-ending delight. Well, maybe not all of them. There are certainly some you may wish you’d never encountered, books that haunt you when you would rather sleep. Yet sometimes it is the other way around. Those nagging thoughts of what you did in the past, or things you wish you hadn’t done or said, may be dispelled by reading a book.

Aside from books I want to read again, the most recent of which I have already commented on, and those which I treasure, how about the ones I don’t want to read again, for one reason or another. Then there are those I set aside after reading no more than a couple of chapters. Not all categories interest me and I wonder how these books turned up on my desk. I’m certainly not like my mother. When she started her university studies, she chose biology – because, she told me, it was something she didn’t know anything about.  

I suppose there’s a difference between the subject matter and the books themselves. There are many I know about and probably should have read but never did. Some, like Proust, I’ll probably get to one of these days, and I have read snatches here and there. Collette though? Recommended, thrust into my hand, but while a few pages did intrigue me, I soon grew tired of her use of adjectives. Just too many, somehow too lush. Another friend I know is gorging himself on Voltaire, but for me he is too philosophical. Several of my literary friends swear by Pride and Prejudice but so far I have never been tempted. There are books I have approached with great hopes because I liked a previous book by the author, only to be disappointed as it falls short of my expectations.

Is it that I am too lazy? Or just that they don’t appeal to me. Sometimes I begin a book and then … well I’m not like a friend of mine who says that even if she finds she doesn’t like a book, once started, she feels she has to finish it. On the other hand, keep in mind that I’m the one who will skip to the end of a story to see what happens before going back and reading the rest.  One can better concentrate on matters like style, how words are used, what influences are at work.

Scrolling through my computer I find a Substack list of the favorite books of 88 authors. I doubt I have read even 5%, or maybe 10%, of the books mentioned. Intimidated, I think maybe I shouldn’t even write my blog any more. There are all too many words already floating around the ether.

I’ve just come across a list of what are considered great novels in English, and find my literary education is sadly wanting. I suppose it’s nice to know that I have whole worlds waiting for me out there at a flip of a page. Many of these books have, unknown to me, become part of who I am. How many worlds there are waiting to be discovered, if only I give them a chance.

I find I keep discovering more, with authors not listed by others, like Tabucchi and Vittorini. Or Calvino, who really should have been included. New and old authors appear every day and it is up to me to decide if I want to read them and what I can learn from them. Recently Elisabeth Strout has made me aware that each of us has a story to tell, or more than one. If you had asked me, I might have said of course, for each of us is unique.  

Perhaps I am also conditioned by the fact that for me a book must be something I can take in hand. It is satisfying nowadays to see that despite the proliferation of books online and eBooks, they still exist in their paper versions. I can still find books that can be propped up on a pillow and keep me company at the end of the day.

Books, their contents, will still be there centuries from now, not perhaps materially but in spirit. The soul will last – handed on as something untouchable, ungraspable, orphic. Some books shine with a light of their own. Some with reflected light.

It is their past that matters, and mine.