Month: December 2015

When David came to the shop today I made him listen to me tell him about the squares of coloured glass I had was given for Christmas this year by my husband. These were being fitted into and around my front door which received a drench of light every afternoon. I imagined a cathedral, but really this was just my front door. I had my colours organised, but the glass artist changed them because he said my colours were not going to obey me. He said that colours quarrel. My dark colours would go black and sulk.

He changed my panes to rose, champagne, sage green, ice and an invisible gold. I complained that now there was no colour. And there wasn’t. He said there would be, that now the colours would cooperate and allow each other a fair go in the light, and that they would change as the light changed and show all of their personalities. My dark colours would just turn their backs because didn’t have enough space.

I said I didn’t know. He replied that it was understandable, everyone is busy. But there is nothing so busy with its own concerns as a piece of stained glass. Each piece of glass thinks it’s right. They needed to be treated subtly and with cunning to get them to all do what you want without them knowing.

Well, my glass panels are up and fat with warmth and light, and they are beautiful, and the artist, with his dreadlocks and tools and the dusty workshop was absolutely right. In the morning they are quiet and smooth and rich, in the evening they are hilarious, and show blue and purple even though this is impossible.

David said that this is true:  colours, like books, are impossible.

 

(Photography by Ramin Rahmani Nejad)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason to write about something is to disturb the essence of an encounter and then protect it.

The thing that the piece of writing will need protection from is the writing itself.

What I am writing about will need to be protected from me. A small story that is shared with me here at the shop is not necessarily small. It just has a small entry point. But itis a vast story.

When I write, I do not want these stories to be viewed as through clear glass.

Barbara came to the shop and I wrote about her. The writing is the lens through which I viewed her; and her small story was not small. My understanding and ability to share it, however, is small. Instead of looking at Barbara through glass, which is too clear and hot, I have to look through something like a polished coin of opal, through shadows and complications. If I see her too easily, I might understand her too easily and thus wrongly. There ought to be a courtesy of space and shadow so that her real story can survive my inaccuracies.

If I run the stories through opal, they will be preserved. This means writing less and interpreting nothing.

If I say that I can see with clarity, I will be wrong. A proper and courteous view is always distorted (by me). I must write responsibly to be fair.

It is important that I clear away the ropes and strings of too many words so that the essence of my subject is not bruised.

Barbara came in and asked me to help her wrap some Christmas gifts for her grandchildren. She carries her purse between both wrists as her hands are too swollen and painful to grasp things. Her hands today are shaking. She said that her son and his family have told her that she must move to an aged care facility.

I helped her wrap the small things she had, but it was her fading dignity that we were really wrapping.

(Artwork by Bing Wright)

The structure of each day in the bookshop has become quite nice.

Each day forms, bulges out toward the afternoon, trims itself, and tries to return to normal by closing time.

Each day the flow of information is generous.

Each morning seems to be about Henry James.

At closing time, I am anxious to get home and keep going with Henry James. I am slow. Leon told me that I am slow with books, it is true. But I am justified – The Spoils of Poynton is a thicket. I have to go slowly.

Young families wash in on a tide of enthusiasm and spare time because the school holidays have begun, and it is summer. And there is a new Star Wars film. When they leave, the door is covered in fingerprints, and there will be an empty juice bottle amongst the Geronimo Stiltons.

‘Where’s that book The Cross Sections of the Man of War? Is it still here? Last week it was.’

‘Nanna is getting us books and we can pick our own. This one is about the war, but it’s book two, so do you have books one and three? I’m getting it anyway.’

‘Do you have William Gaddis? I’ve been looking for The Recognitions all my life. It’s up there with Gravity’s Rainbow and books like that.’

In my spare minute I have another go Henry James. Not many people have ever asked for his books.

Karl came in with his book list and told me that his eyes gave way earlier in the year, which was disappointing as he has always been one for the written word. But now he is fine and ready to roll.

John complained that every time he went to the bakery his doctor would go pass the window and see what he was eating and then give him a rocket because of his health – his cholesterol is way too high. ‘Small town bullshit that’s what it is. You can’t even take a piss without somebody telling everyone at Woolworths about it. I’m enjoying that Dick Francis though, the only one of those crime mugs that can actually write.’

I am lucky to receive a consistent commentary on the weather. This is a topic with a satisfying variety of expressions available to share it.

‘How’s this heat? Keeping you busy?’

‘Cool in here.’

‘This heat is ridiculous!’

‘Good weather for reading, that’s what I say.’

‘Foul weather. And here I am out in it.’

‘Damn strange weather!’

‘Damn fine weather!’

‘This weather takes the cake.’

‘Don’t know how Christmas will go with weather like this.’

‘Heat’s bad but nothing like in the sixties.’

A lady told me that Gould’s Book of Fish has her flabbergasted.

All day I am offered suggestions of the best things to read. I free fall amongst the suggestions.

I think that behind each thing that is told to me, there is something of greater importance, not able to be said.

For me, to work here, serving out books, is like something I read –  a single line in a novel and I often wonder what it means when a line in a novel will not leave you alone. The way one single sentence can be heard as though it were tapped out with one of those little mallets used by geologists, the kind of mallet that disturbs, reveals and then preserves…

…..to sit on the stool and time would be forgotten. No hunger or thirst or desire for a friend or lover’s company. Just an awareness of someone in the distance hammering a floor, banging through ancient concrete with a mallet as if to reach the truth.

Anil’s Ghost, Michael Ondaatjie

Leon has just been into the shop today to describe the weather in case I missed out on it. He also told me he is not making much headway with Twilight (even though it is such a Great Book) but that it was no wonder with the weather like it is.

I said it was a quiet day; the weather was why nobody had been in perhaps.

He reminded me that he was in. And not to let the weather bother me.

He asked me why I took so long to read everything, why was I still reading Lolita in Tehran…I said that I was not a fast reader and I had to re-read things all the time. I was re reading the part in this book about The Great Gatsby which I had read in school and hadn’t liked very much.

Leon then told me that he saw that film on DVD, about that rich fool and the green lights on the jetty, died in a swimming pool. Died for his dream and that.

He said that he wouldn’t die for any dream – but his dream would be to not have Crohn’s disease or schizophrenia. The reason he wouldn’t die for them is that they would kill him anyway. He said that some dreams just ruin everything else and better to keep your eyes on the road and what did I think was my dream?

I said that I hoped that my bookshop might survive.

He thought this was hilarious and said of course it will. He offered to buy a copy of The Great Gatsby to help things along.

I said there was no need and he answered, as he left, that it was lucky he didn’t need to get one as Twilight was a better book anyway.

 

Photography by Greg Rakozy

 

Adult readers talk about getting through a book. Young readers do not. They talk about what they are reading. We adults gain an accomplishment when we complete a book but the other type of reading must gain the actual book.

Today in the shop:

‘Do you still have my list of the Herge books I want? I saw one in Tasmania but dad didn’t get it. Here’s what I need: Tintin in Tibet which has snow on the front and Tintin in the Congo which has trees on the front. Also Herge and his Creation which is by Harry Thompson and is about Herge who came from Belgium. I will give you my phone number so you can ring me about them.’

‘In this Star Wars book there is a drawing of the Millennium Falcon and around here and underneath it is really small, but you can see this picture of the droid, right here, well……that droid is R2D2 and this part here is where he rides. He is attached in there. Here, I’ll just show you some more stuff…’

‘I liked all of the Harry Potter books. But I didn’t like book four.’

Today I had requests for Flannery O’Connor, Wolf Hall, The Cattle King, the Inkheart trilogy, The Wounded Woman and anything about the Bermuda Triangle. Also the complete series of Spiderwick and anything else as good as those…

A child brought me Glass Tears from the table and told me that the author, Jane Jolly, came to her school and did reading. And that this book was one of her own actuals.

Serenity opened the door to tell that school holidays have started.

Elaine picked up her copy of Hunting with Eagles, a Christmas present she bought for herself.

Malachi came in to see if The Way of the Shadows had arrived but it hadn’t and he said that soon he will die because the book is taking so long.

I was warned not to miss Emile Zola and the best one to start reading is Earth I promised to begin immediately.

George came in and we had a long conversation about Reading Lolita in Tehran. I said that I want to know more about Henry James.  A young reader of Geronimo Stilton told me that he read the Geronimo Stilton books not to see what happened in the books but to see what happened to him when he read them. So now I tell George that that I want to know more about Henry James and that I was going to read Washington Square again and see what happened….to me.

Reading the blue and green of depths. This means reading downward, inward, unable to contemplate selections beyond our own tremendous choices, volumes that fit no other archive but our own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A customer explains why her art collection contains so many children’s picture books. She has always found the most profound artwork this way because many artists find this a successful medium to deliver their work to the public. And it has to be good – children are an audience that can be difficult to please. She explained to me that to get the attention of children is easy but to hold it is complicated and difficult. The best artist does not insist on clamour, but instead relies on ‘holding’. This means to deliver a true and genuine note through the cooperation of illustrations and text within the book.

I said that I thought I understood. The first time I came across a copy of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak as an adult I was sabotaged instantly by memory. The book must have terrified me once and it must have struck deeply. I wonder now what exactly it was that washed me in terror…the wild things themselves or the even worse truth that we all contain them. That book is a simple vessel loaded with a vast and ancient cargo.

A child said to me once that my shop did not have any books about the rat. I could not make out which books he meant but he insisted they were about the rat. He was troubled that I did not instantly know about the rat. He was more troubled about this than the fact that I did not have the books in the first place.

I know that a single world can stand for an entire landscape, an entire world. Words like radiant, collide, desolate, incandescent, tremblingly, unalone, cascades….and rat.

Vivy came in to tell me that her flatmate needs a book. The flatmate has a disability and so needs a really good one…

Isabel asked for a copy of The Australian Merino by Charles Massey, a fitting gift for her son, a farmer and could I have it in by Christmas.

Bruce came in to for a copy of The Magic Faraway Tree to read to his grandchildren and also for himself to read because it is never too late to start something new.

Dianna came in with her mother and was told that she is not to read anything that had magic in it. She asked me for Charlotte’s Web and told her mother that it was about farm animals so that was ok. I agreed with her that it was a good choice under the circumstances.

Steve stopped by to see if I had The Hunger Games. The movie, he told me, is shit but the book might be better.

Clay asked for Treasure Island because he has just seen the DVD and he wanted to make sure the DVD had the pictures and maps correct. I said that I doubted it.

Margaret bought two picture books by Brian Wildsmith. She collects them as he and Charles Keeping produce the best of the children’s books. I offered her my new knowledge and described the cooperation of picture and text and she was pleased. She said yes, it is the cooperation of glow.

Was it Christopher Marlowe who described a book as an infinite treasure in a little room? Here I must hold infinite treasures in little rooms in little rooms. All of them prepared to cooperate their contents for somebody who would like it.

And somebody wanted a Complete Arthur Conan Doyle and somebody else wanted The Crucible. I always like to ask…why do you and how did you know about this book?

And why do you hope specifically for this edition or that one….why?

(I asked her to get me a lovely old copy of The Magic Pudding, but she didn’t get the right one. She was educated you see and didn’t realise which copy to get. She got me a new one. I would’ve preferred the old one….the heavy one. It’s the weight of it, equals the contents in a way….so I’ve dropped in here to see if you have one of the older versions…)

I was informed that one cannot begin a series until all of the volumes have been bought. Otherwise there’s no point starting. This customer asked if I had the complete series of the George R R Martin books as he is hoping to stitch them up over the summer break.

Jayden came to remind me that I am missing volumes 3, 6, and 11 of The Wheel of Time series. (Shouldn’t you have these?)

I will get them.

My friend Frank can hardly breathe now.

My friend Peggy is moving to Queensland. She said now she will have to rely on Amazon for her books but she won’t get many because they are all morons.

Emma visited to pick up her book The Red Pyramid. I wondered why she is not at school again. She lingered to tell me a few notable things. You should get Ransom Riggs she informed me. To have walked out without sharing this information is impossible. I understand this.

TJ has asked for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo which he saw on TV.

In here, in between customers, I am reading Reading Lolita in Tehran and it has filled me with alarm. I am reading about a reader who is writing about her reading with a reading group who are reading Lolita in a place and time where it is simply forbidden by law to read Lolita. And Lolita is about them, this small hidden group of reading women who somehow manage to survive the confiscation of their lives. And through this convoluted path the true meanings of these forbidden classics such as Lolita, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice reach me like drops of hot glass.

The uncomfortable glow, it shows me how little I know.

 

Photography by Manuela Schwendener

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you remember and experience when you read is complicated. You remember the story and your own experience of reading it at the same time. That is two things. Montaigne said this about his experience of reading the words in a book: I took to trailing far behind them murmuring, ‘hear, hear.’

Trailing far behind……

Here are some of the things I have been told about reading as people come and go through my book shop, told in the exact words that these customers said to me:

• Reading is not simple. It is sailing and sailing.
• It makes you there.
• Reading is multidimensional and leaves you with a mother lode of new stuff to think about. That’s if you read science fiction.
• To read more than one book at a time is to read in counterpoint. Each book works on the other even though you may not realise it.
• Reading is a thousand add ons a minute.
• How many books can your head hold? Are we as big as the internet?
• Do the bad books get squeezed out of your head?
• Reading a good book is a constant bursting of understandings. So if you like the sea and ships then read about them, your idea of them gets bigger. And it never stops getting bigger which it is why it is a bursting of understandings that never stops. Do you get it?
• I was wondering what you might think this means, this from Dylan Thomas:

Through the parables

Of sunlight

And the legends of the green chapel

And the twice told fields of infancy…..

• Because I think it is about memory. Do you have any books of his poetry? I have these memories of the books I read and am now trying to find again. And I think that the parables of sunlight stand for each book I read, especially when I was a child as they are the ones that are still lit up. One of the books was called People of the Deer and I’m working hard to find that book again.
• When you read with other people there, it’s hard to listen isn’t it….you know when they are talking about the weather and that and you are in there, in the book, dealing with the dying racehorse that give it everything and all that. Bloody hard. The light and just the shape of a gate or something that the horse went past, it all adds up doesn’t it though?
• I’m a great one for reading I am….there’s not many who can read as fast as me. I don’t remember the books I suppose but really, who even does?
• When I read the Troll Fell books, he had this red cloak and it was really important but when they made the cover they got the colour of the cloak wrong! I couldn’t believe that they even did that. I didn’t want that one, book 3, because they got that wrong. I never forget anything that is important in the books. In 100 Cupboards I remember every single item…..

(Hear, hear…)