and bookshelves. How many pages can you read before you're
zonked? We were just talking about Italo Calvino— his
books ran to over 9,000. He didn't get to read them all, but
you know how it is. When you find that long-desired
copy of a title you heard of or was highly recommended, no
xerox or digital copy will do. Desire = pleasure =
dopamine released: visions of curling up in an armchair,
warm socks on, a book in your lap— deliciously,
endlessly satisfying. Also, a way to carve a little respite
vis-a-vis the terrifying commotions in the world.
Factories of fear seem to be in full production, while
unread books invite the past to speak to the future.
Game over, eternal doomsayers cackle, while fleecing
the pockets of the populace. What do self-serving
hacks know about close reading; about the allure of
safety and scholarship, the sexiness of real
intelligence? In a novel set in wartime, a nurse
reads from Herodotus' Histories to a burned patient.
Justifications for war notwithstanding, how can you
quibble about our longtime love for romance,
kissing furtively in the bookstacks, the thirst for
palliatives that deliver? Every story is about
longing. But every good story is about how we try to
outrun our fate. When I come to the very last
moment, I slow down. I don't want it to end,
not yet. Not even after I have surrendered.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
