|
The Magic of Bookstores and Books |
|
|
|
|
|
|
((I’m losing the computer, so I decided to put all of the lists and writings that I didn’t want to delete in my journal.))
Eddie Hurley
1201-01
Final Draft, Description
9/5/10
Essay Prompt #1, pg. 28
The Magic of Bookstores and Books
A bookstore can be a simply magical place. If you have any passion for books at all, your emotions when you enter one are probably just as varied and turbulent as mine. Being in the presence of the near-godly amount of knowledge, wisdom, emotions, opinions, philosophies, creativity, practicality, professionalism, skill, talent, style, powerful insights, spirituality, and basic humanity is an almost religious experience, in my eyes. It is not the actual bookstore that inspires such sentiments in myself and others, but the books within its walls and along its shelves. If you love them and are open to what they can do to and for you, they can affect you to some degree in almost every imaginable way. That is certainly the case when I enter a bookstore.
One of the very first emotions that come to mind when I think of a bookstore is excitement. The mere prospect of gaining more books to read fills me with an uncontrollable yearning. Once I enter, not only do I know that I can often spend some considerable time among the many volumes, but that, in the end, I will be taking some of those precious tomes home with me. It is always a truly wonderful thing to look forward to. Once my decision is made, and I have dedicated space for their comfortable placement in my home, it is only a matter of time before I experience the joy of actually reading them. That joy can continue on for years upon years, given that I read others of my special family of books between readings of the new ones.
A trip to the bookstore does have its dark sides, however. Just as I am filled with excitement and anticipation, I am also filled with panic and dread. I will always have to leave that store, and no matter how much time I am given in it, it is never enough. Faced on all sides by those wonderful worlds of paper and ink, I know that I can never have them all. I will always have to leave so many of them behind. Every time that I make the terrible but necessary choice, I feel like a wretch for abandoning so many more than I can ever adopt.
Thankfully, there is one way in which I can give myself hope. Every time I go to the store, even if I can only buy a single book, I write. I write and write, recording as many titles of as many fabulous books and series as I can, knowing that, in the future, I may some day come back to them and finally make up for my betrayal by giving them the security of a home and my respect. Even though the number of books that I have at this moment is nothing compared to the number that I want, I truly love them. I am proud to own them, and to give them the appreciation that they so richly deserve.
Once again, though, credence must be given to the other side of the coin. Though I come to know both hope and pride, I am also forced to feel discouragement and shame. The immeasurably larger, and ever growing, number of books that I have yet to acquire can just as easily discourage me and make me feel as if I am never making any real headway, as it can encourage me to work harder and look forward to the future where there will always be new books to enjoy. In addition to that discouragement are my feelings of inadequacy, brought about by my simple monetary inability to purchase all the books that I so desire. That such a worldly, mundane consideration is what balks the fulfillment of my wishes is simply pathetic. Fortunately, there are always other considerations when it comes to books, which can often help to take some of the sting out of that depressing vein of sentimentality.
What few people are most likely aware of is that books can evoke more than just emotion in the right, or wrong, circumstances. When I am on the way to the store, as well as when I first enter it, my stomach rolls and rumbles in shifting knots that are often nevertheless quite pleasant. When I am leaving the store, though, it is another story entirely. Every time I have to leave, my heart literally aches. I clutch my chest in response to the pain, accepting the fact that my knowledge of its emotional cause won’t make it go away. It is just something that I have to endure until it becomes so dull that I no longer notice it. The only way to make sure that it will be less intense and/or long-lasting is to get a rather large number of books during each foray into the great literary establishment. Something about one or two heavy bags of books just makes the pain go away, as if they are weighing down my sorrows, rather than my hands.
Of course, not all physical sensations caused by books are simple pain, pleasure, comfort, or discomfort. The five senses can be just as caught up by their spell as the soul. One of the most immediate senses that the books engage is smell. As soon as you walk in the door of any place with a lot of books, you are confronted by their wonderful aroma. Always dusty, musty, warm, heavy, yet somehow light at the same time, crisp, soft, and inviting. It draws you in, bringing to mind the idea of boundless mysteries to be explored, and knowledge to partake of. I often savor the smell of my books whenever I browse through them, and when I am actually reading them, too.
If you are lucky, and if the smell of the books is thick or powerful enough, you can even sometimes taste them. It is always a perfect low-level accompaniment to the whole experience of books. The taste is just a nice, light, salty one. The closest I have come to it in other areas is the taste of sawdust. Even that can’t really compare, though. Even with the finest and lightest dusting of sawdust, the taste is still too strong and distracting. Sharp and heavy, it can be pleasant at times, but it just isn’t as refined as the taste of good book air. That air is never out of place. Most people will never even notice it, it is so non-intrusive. I am quite certain that if you somehow managed to take it away, though, people would be made disconcerted and uncomfortable by the lack of something they never even knew was there.
The sound of a book is an entirely different kind of experience from the other two senses mentioned. You and the book must make your gentle music together, and this brings you closer to each other. Everyone knows the sound of quickly flipped pages; a softer version of the sound of baseball cards being clacked against the spokes of a bike’s wheel, as was so common in the not-so-distant past. Though this sound can be wonderfully nostalgic and playful, it has no practical role in the actual reading experience. The real magic only shows itself with the deliberate turning of the page. That archetypal crisp, crinkling scrape is music to a booklover’s ears. That sound is actually a beautifully sincere form of literary courtesy. It serves as a momentary break between bouts of reading, relaxing the mind so that it won’t be overwhelmed by its constant efforts to comprehend what it is seeing. Just as you wouldn’t want to look at paintings for hours on end in total silence, no matter how beautiful they may be, only using the sense of sight to read words on a page, no matter how well they are arranged, for such long periods of time would end up wearing down and boring you.
Arguably the most powerful and fundamental sense of all, sight, obviously cannot be ignored. Books just look good. It’s that simple. Clean, crisp cuts and the frequently beautiful cover art are pleasing even to those who don’t really care much for books. There are more specific, subtle visual details to drink in as well, of course. Pages differ slightly in color between books, and the very edges of the edges of the pages can be softer or harder in appearance. Sometimes, those edges even have special colorations of their own, such as gold or silver. This kind of ornamentation can make books more strange, gaudy, beautiful, or simply refined-looking, and you may not know which descriptor is accurate until you actually read the contents of the book and match it up with its superficial appearance. One last visual detail I have noticed is that, when you are reading a book, somehow, the edges of the pages you have read always look somehow different. Whether darker or lighter, I see this mysterious aspect of them as their way of helping me, in return for my giving them a place and purpose. Even if my bookmark falls out, I always have virtually no trouble finding my place. It is a truly pleasant and convenient phenomenon that will still be wonderful even if I figure out how it works someday.
The last sense to be mentioned is the sense of touch. Though less obvious and literally “in-your-face”, it is in many ways even more basic than the other senses. This shines through when it comes to books. The laminates of the covers alone can be filled with detail. How thick is it? How much give does it allow the cover before a mark is made? Even if there is no laminate, there are still so many details to take in even before the book has been opened! Where and how significant are the indentations and protrusions? Do the colors affect the texture? Is the book hardback or paperback? Once the book is finally opened, there is still more to discover and experience. Different paper mixtures give different basic textures, and the same is true of inks. Then, of course, there is the personal aspect. As you use your book, it gets worn. Exactly how it does so speaks not only of the book, but of the reader as well. All of these different details combine to give every book its own identity, like a fingerprint, or even DNA.
When all five senses are used, in addition to really thinking about and soaking in the actual content, I feel that a strong and passionate enough reader can come to experience and savor their reading in such deep and numerous ways that their books can come to seem like old friends. It could even be said that they can have personalities of their own, completely separate from the personality that pervades nearly any piece of writing because of the individuality of the writer. Like any creature with personality, there is always more to learn about them, and they can often provide insights into who you are that you could never have made on your own.
All of these sentiments and beliefs of mine explain why going to the bookstore can be such a magical experience for me, and hopefully for you as well. It is the books that truly move me, not the place where they reside. Even so, going to the bookstore, specifically, is quite a bittersweet experience. However, if you are lucky enough to someday have enough worldly financial success, it is possible that it could come to be an almost purely sweet one. And even if such an unimportant aspect of one’s life has to be relied upon in order to gain these precious incarnations of the written word, the reward makes the compromise more than worth it. After all, the reading experience can be much more wonderful and deep than even I could ever adequately express.
 magic_doglover · Mon Jan 02, 2012 @ 04:02am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
