I've mentioned I spend my time at a used bookstore; not to say the store is used in that it was once owned by someone else, lovingly read and passed on, but the books most certainly have.
I have the particular honor of being able to come to a lovely book-insulated atmosphere with the option to lock the door and just BE. The stacks, the alphabetized order, the categories, the silent voices whispering out of time from the shelves... for a select few, this is bliss. I handle, almost daily, a quantifiable representation of humanity encapsulated in paper, board, and ink. The words held in these pages, many worthy, many seemingly waste beyond a picture in time of how reality presents itself to different minds and how those minds choose to present themselves, tell what is and what has been since words began being recorded.
I recognize that print does not mean truth, but the collection of the print is a truth in itself. It is our truth and our truths, the face given to history to reflect who we are, where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.
The big picture is very hard to see when you are looking at only one small part of it. The benefit of a categorized bookstore, specifically a used bookstore that is respectful of aged books (which are actually historical thoughts or pictures in time), is that it is easier to see humanity as a whole. It is easier to put ideas into perspective or to find perspective on an aspect of what we call "Life" when a categorized collection is looking you in the face. Of course, books don't represent all of what is, they are only a physical form of aspects of the experiences of others, but the books tell so much, even beyond the words they hold (see bio).
This is a great excuse to be a book-hoarder. The best thing about being behind the curtain in a used bookstore is that you get an excuse to keep those books that you would just rather not let go into the dumpster or the recycler. I try to find them homes, at least those I dub worthy ("Who am I to play God of the Written Word?", I ask myself. The answer, "But someone has to do it"). There are too many that have to be marked down and demarcated and devalued because of a lack of demand or shelf-space. I don't feel so much a hoarder as I do a guard of knowledge. I haven't read nor can I read a measurable fraction of what is on our shelves, but I feel duty-bound to protect what passes our threshold.
It is good to find the place you belong, and I belong among the stacks.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Monday, October 24, 2016
Alas, Babylon: take 2
After my last post, I found myself pretty hung up on my response to Alas, Babylon (Patrick Frank). The apocalyptic story, though well done in many details for one of the first of its kind, just did not seem real enough to me. The characters didn't have enough dimension, were too trapped in pre-event stereotypes to be believable.
I have been hung up on the story because I wonder how I could let a story I didn't like get under my skin so much, but this is a book review, not a therapy session... though one could argue that since the fruit of the writer is an insight into the mind of an individual, it is the reader's (and reviewer's) responsibility to acknowledge visceral responses to the brain-fruit of the writer.
**Side note: listening to "The Blues Walk" by Clifford Brown and Max Roach, and the drum solo was kickin'. I'm 40-something, I'm allowed outdated colloquial slang and love affairs with jazz drum solos**
When reading, I wonder often how much the author is presenting of his/her Self or of what he/she thinks we want to read, limiting the intrusion of Self. I'm very interested in accurate reflections of human interaction and speech patterns, and thought processes and impulse control under stressful conditions. How do people really act, and how do non-generalized individuals respond to stressful situations? That is what I want to see in my mind-movie when reading a work of fiction.
I guess we all read for our own purposes. I read to know the authors, to see through someone else's eyes what their imaginary worlds look like. I don't ask for much... just something worth reading.
I can say, Alas, Babylon was worth reading for a look into another time; for perspective into the fears held by mid-century Americans during the Nuclear War terror that gripped the world then.
**Another side note: I don't think the fears they lived under are much different than the proximity we are quickly approaching along the lines of the likelihood of having a button-pushing-happy-World Leader. Will the children in our schools soon be taught to react to a nuclear blast (like our grandparents when they were kids) by slipping under their desks and covering their heads in weekly response drills? Or will we be kept distracted by the next shiny new device that can unlock our houses, tell us our footstep count and play our favorite songs while telling us how to make dinner during a conversation with our Grammygram on her Spain vacation without letting us forget who in Hollywood is getting divorced/arrested/having a baby/gaining weight? **
After saying all of this, as a distraction Alas, Babylon does the job. I guess if I want reality, I'll read the newspaper. Yeah, I said newspaper.
I have been hung up on the story because I wonder how I could let a story I didn't like get under my skin so much, but this is a book review, not a therapy session... though one could argue that since the fruit of the writer is an insight into the mind of an individual, it is the reader's (and reviewer's) responsibility to acknowledge visceral responses to the brain-fruit of the writer.
**Side note: listening to "The Blues Walk" by Clifford Brown and Max Roach, and the drum solo was kickin'. I'm 40-something, I'm allowed outdated colloquial slang and love affairs with jazz drum solos**
When reading, I wonder often how much the author is presenting of his/her Self or of what he/she thinks we want to read, limiting the intrusion of Self. I'm very interested in accurate reflections of human interaction and speech patterns, and thought processes and impulse control under stressful conditions. How do people really act, and how do non-generalized individuals respond to stressful situations? That is what I want to see in my mind-movie when reading a work of fiction.
I guess we all read for our own purposes. I read to know the authors, to see through someone else's eyes what their imaginary worlds look like. I don't ask for much... just something worth reading.
I can say, Alas, Babylon was worth reading for a look into another time; for perspective into the fears held by mid-century Americans during the Nuclear War terror that gripped the world then.
**Another side note: I don't think the fears they lived under are much different than the proximity we are quickly approaching along the lines of the likelihood of having a button-pushing-happy-World Leader. Will the children in our schools soon be taught to react to a nuclear blast (like our grandparents when they were kids) by slipping under their desks and covering their heads in weekly response drills? Or will we be kept distracted by the next shiny new device that can unlock our houses, tell us our footstep count and play our favorite songs while telling us how to make dinner during a conversation with our Grammygram on her Spain vacation without letting us forget who in Hollywood is getting divorced/arrested/having a baby/gaining weight? **
After saying all of this, as a distraction Alas, Babylon does the job. I guess if I want reality, I'll read the newspaper. Yeah, I said newspaper.
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