Hania's been on me to write a Christmas wish list, though I'm more tempted to write a "don't wish" list, at the top of which would be a Kindle.
Though I love all the articles and talk about Kindle. The more people rave about it, and the more people buy it, the sooner we'll see the second step in the process: the rediscovery of the simple beauty of the book.
In case you were wondering, I finished Shimazaki Toson's Before the Dawn this week (after going to the library and extending the due date). But I didn't close it - after reading the glossary and rereading the introduction - with the sense of accomplishment I had expected to feel.
Of course, there was the relief you always feel when finishing any big book, knowing that you're now free to go out in the evening and pick up other - slimmer - books.
But the sadness of the ending (I won't divulge the details because I don't want to ruin your own reading of it) combined with the realization that, for all the hours I had spent with Toson, I had read just one more book in the vast universe of books. Every morning I walk into my living room and am confronted with stacks of unread books. Perhaps this is the appeal of Kindle - the absence of a physical presence, a constant reminder, a guilt-producing mass.
Yesterday evening I drove down to Miami for a gathering of media folks at the Conrad Hotel and, finding few writers among the crowd, I headed down to Books & Books in Coral Gables.
My friend David was working the cash register. It was a slow night at the end of summer. We caught up on news, only occasionally interrupted by a customer. A white-haired man in suspenders handed David a slim children's book and asked the price. "I can afford that," he said, handing over seven carefully counted one dollar bills. David put the book in a brown Books & Books bag.
"Now it looks like you bought a girlie magazine," I said. The man turned to me and laughed. Heading out the door he said to his wife "a girlie magazine" and chuckled again.
A teenage girl with a Spanish accent asked if there were any Harry Potter books, and David went in search. While he was gone, I went outside and picked up a copy of The Oxford American - with my name on the cover - brought it inside and placed it prominently in the rack of more popular magazines. Tip for future bookstore employees: If someone asks for a big blockbuster, don't look where the computer says it should be; find the cardboard display case made specially for it.
A few late-night browsers wandered in. It was very pleasant standing there chewing the fat surrounded by books. I was transported back to my childhood in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, when I would spend happy afternoons sitting in my grandfather's liquor store on South Main Street. And I wondered: If he had had a bookshop, would I have become an alcoholic?
I never thought myself prone to the summer cliche of the great book read.
But in the summer of 2003 I read The Odyssey in preparation for a trip to Greece. A few years later I read Crime and Punishment before a teaching gig in St. Petersburg.
And what have I been lugging down to the pool this summer? Shimazaki Toson's 760-page epic Before the Dawn.
Of course, unless people actually see me hoisting the novel onto my lap they have no idea of its daunting bulk. Not that anyone these days asks, but if someone did wonder what I've been reading, and I said Before the Dawn, it wouldn't get the admiring looks that War and Peace or Infinite Jest would. No, for those I'm going to have to go to Japan.
When I was at Villanova I had a few priests as professors, and one of my favorites would begin each class by recommending a book or two. They weren't always related to the class (Education); in fact, they covered a wide range of subjects. Fr. Breslin always spoke with great enthusiasm, eager to share his vast knowledge and turn his students into curious, well-rounded adults.
When I became the travel editor of the Sun-Sentinel in 1989 I started running, on page 3, excerpts from books that complemented whatever was the cover story that week. If it was a story about St. Petersburg, I'd put in a passage by Vladimir Nabokov; a piece about Patagonia would inevitably get a dose of Bruce Chatwin. It was my way of recommending books to readers. I had to discontinue the feature in 2000 after some little-known author threatened to sue us for not getting his permission to reprint 200 of his far from priceless words. Years before I had sent Pico Iyer a section, which included a passage he'd written about Vietnam, and he had graciously thanked me for the free publicity.
Which brings me to today's recommended book: Pico's The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. It is a beautifully written, typically thoughtful, consistently probing study which looks at the Dalai Lama in his various roles: that of icon, monk, philosopher, globalist and politician (including criticisms from some who believe that he has been too passive with China). You get a strong sense not only of this remarkable man but of the history of Tibet and of the Indian city, Dharamsala, which has become the headquarters of the Tibetan exile community. If I knew where Fr. Breslin was, I'd recommend it to him heartily.
Another year that I didn't make it down to Books & Books for Bloomsday. In the past I was often traveling, or busy in the newsroom; this year I came up with the excuse that only people who've actually read Ulysses should be entitled to celebrate it (distinguishing Bloomsday, say, from St. Patrick's Day).
Also, I was in Miami yesterday, having lunch with my friend the Japanese translator. Drivers in South Florida are all familiar with sitting at a raised bridge or waiting for a train to pass - but few are prepared for it. (Though my friend Dave used to say he always appreciated the lulls, especially at bridges, as they gave him time to look around, take in the view, collect his thoughts, consider the day. He's since moved back home to Chicago.) I sometimes have a book in the backseat; for a long time I drove around with Lawrence Durrell's Spirit of Place - but, even though it's a collection, it wasn't the best work to dip into quickly. Yesterday as we drove to lunch, I noticed that Bill had a small volume just behind his gear shift that seemed perfectly chosen for this purpose: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.