BOOKS, A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Hosta pods

Yesterday I told my father-in-law about the book-weeding. He looked nervously at his own shelves. “There are books here I couldn’t imagine parting with,” he said, and then grinned. “But obviously I can’t take them with me! Where are you taking them, is someone buying them?”

No, I tell him, we’re donating them to a charity sale.

“That’s the thing,” he says. “No one will give you anything for used books. David” (his other son) “tells me that after I am gone…dead, that is…probably my library will be given to a small college, where they’d be glad to have them.”

“That’s a good idea.”

He looks around again, and back at us. “But there are some I wish would stay in the family. David took one whole shelf.”

I don’t know whether to tell him there are books here I’d love to have, or whether it’s not the time, or my place to say that. I figure there will be other chances. And if he starts telling me to take books, I’ll probably get tearful and embarrass and upset him, so I stay silent. Instead I tell him about the book meme.

“There’s been a thing going around the internet, asking people if they were going to be marooned on a desert island, what five books they’d take with them. What do you think? What would you choose?”

He looks at me skeptically – he dislikes all games and quizzes, but I can tell he is either somewhat intrigued, or willing to humor me. He thinks for a minute, and doesn't say anything.

“The Qu’ran,” J. suggests.

“No, it’s a very disappointing book,” he says. I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “No, it really is,” he insists. “It has no narrative. It’s a collection of Mohammad’s sayings, his revelations, over five periods of his life – he’d say something, and someone wrote it down on a palm leaf, and after he died, they collected all the palm leaves…”

“or backs of envelopes, or paper napkins…” said J.

“Exactly. They collected them all and wrote them down. It’s a book of utterances.” He frowns, and then gets a beatific look on his face. "But the recitations, the chanting of the Qu’ran! That is something else entirely. I was listening the other day to Iraqi radio, and there was someone chanting the Qu’ran with such a pure voice, so beautifully! Oh, it’s something when they can do that!”

His eyes are closed; my husband and we exchange the look that means “this man will never cease to amaze me.”  “OK,” I say., when he opens his eyes. “Come on. Pick five books.”

He looks at the shelves, looks back at me. “What did you pick?” he asks, finally.

“The Iliad.” He nods in approval.

“Complete Works of Shakespeare.”

“That’s not a book, that’s a library!” he says.

“Well, yes, but we need volume. Collected Poems of Czeslaw Milosz – he’s a Polish poet.”

“Never heard of him.”

“The Oxford Book of American Verse.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting, I don’t know it either.”

"And maybe a Bible?”

“BAH!” he exclaims. “Another disappointing book.”

This man just loves to be perverse, I think to myself.

“I also thought maybe I’d just take five blank books,” I tell him.

“Not a bad idea,” he says, and then goes back to the Bible. “It’s too long, and very repetitious. I prefer the Reader’s Digest Bible.”

“WHAT?”we both say simultaneously. “What is that?”

“I have it right in my study, go look. They’ve done a marvelous job, they’ve cut out all the repetition, and added a lot of excellent pictures.”

J. goes and brings back a thick dark blue book, and begins thumbing through it. He’s right, the illustrations are pretty good. I find the concept a little weird, but, hey, that’s what Reader’s Digest is famous for – condensing books. Thsi is also one of those cultural things: I grew up thinking that the Reader's Digest was beyond the pale, but my father-in-law always thought it was a very legitimate, important, and impressive publisher, largely because he missed the cultural clues, and because he knew someone who was an editor there, and this man showed an interest in his work.

Meanwhile, J. is looking through a central section called “great paintings of Biblical scenes.” He holds up a Victorian painting of a bloated fish-like whale, out of whose mouth the figure of Jonah is being ejected. We all look at it, speechless for a few moments.

“The printing is really excellent, don’t you think?” my father-in-law says.

In his study there must be twenty Bibles, including all the best-known English translations as well as Bibles in various other languages. He’s such a BS-er, hauling out this one today. ‘Well,” I say, trying to lubricate the conversation, “I suppose if it gets more people to read books…”

“I knew a woman who was a condenser for the Reader’s Digest – that’s what she did. Very brilliant woman. She had a method; she’d hold a pen in her hand and mark as she read, cutting all the superfluous parts. She was very good at it.”

‘Very brilliant,” says J. under his breath.

‘I don’t suppose Tolstoy would have thought too highly of it,” I remark.

He shrugs, and grins devilishly: “I know one thing -  you won’t get any money for any Reader’s Digest Condensed Books at any booksale.” Then he settles back in his chair contentedly. “And as for the desert island - I think I prefer the five blank books.”

Comments

[qB]

Well it looks lovely to me on my screen in Safari. Unhooked. Breathing. More white, less black, larger font, more light between the lines. Different green - more apple, less grass? Yes, I like it.

[dale]

I agree, it looks lovely. I confess I'll miss that splash of red when the page first opens. I don't think I'll miss the sometimes glacial loading time, though.

[beth]

I tried to figure out how to give you that red screen, Dale, but had no luck! Thank you both for the feedback.