I’m always up for going into the next bookstore. I’ve been addicted to books my whole life, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I don’t necessarily need to be looking for any particular book. I am always content with just browsing through the novels, perusing the non-fiction, rejecting any and all self-help books (none of them work anyway). Hard cover, soft cover, trade paperbacks, I don’t particularly care as long as the whole book is there. Old, new, books are always a new adventure, even when they are old. I can read titles, leaf through random volumes, dawdle over a well-written preface, linger over an undiscovered novel that I had no idea existed at all. I am capricious, following no line of logic or organized pattern of searching. Real discovery occurs when you break-out of pre-established lines of thought or prejudice, adopting a chaotic, non-linear anti-process for discovering new titles. Bookstores, especially independent bookstores, or even better, used bookstores, are a savage jungle of titles, authors, and narratives, meta and other. Upon entering a bookstore I don’t always have an objective in mind, and I have no problem with walking out empty-handed. At this point in my life, I have enough books to serve me for a good long time, and some books need to be left behind for future reading endeavors. Yet, you never know when you might come across something new (or old) that really speaks to you. You have to be open to everything when you walk into a bookstore.
Category Archives: liminality
On bookstores
I’m always up for going into the next bookstore. I’ve been addicted to books my whole life, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I don’t necessarily need to be looking for any particular book. I am always content with just browsing through the novels, perusing the non-fiction, rejecting any and all self-help books (none of them work anyway). Hard cover, soft cover, trade paperbacks, I don’t particularly care as long as the whole book is there. Old, new, books are always a new adventure, even when they are old. I can read titles, leaf through random volumes, dawdle over a well-written preface, linger over an undiscovered novel that I had no idea existed at all. I am capricious, following no line of logic or organized pattern of searching. Real discovery occurs when you break-out of pre-established lines of thought or prejudice, adopting a chaotic, non-linear anti-process for discovering new titles. Bookstores, especially independent bookstores, or even better, used bookstores, are a savage jungle of titles, authors, and narratives, meta and other. Upon entering a bookstore I don’t always have an objective in mind, and I have no problem with walking out empty-handed. At this point in my life, I have enough books to serve me for a good long time, and some books need to be left behind for future reading endeavors. Yet, you never know when you might come across something new (or old) that really speaks to you. You have to be open to everything when you walk into a bookstore.
On the final journey (swimming the river Styx)
Since no mortal has ever made the return trip, none of us knows anything about that last trip across the river. Since the only two things that are guaranteed in this life are death and taxes, from time to time we all need to talk about both. Death has been a mystery since before people could write and the focus of writing ever since a quill scratched across a clean surface, leaving behind a muddled mess of liquid goo in lines of what looks like random bird tracks. All meditations about death are necessarily speculative, filled with metaphors and other poetic tropes which we use to mask the reality and finality of death. We seldom dwell on the face of death, deciding instead to close the casket, look off to the side, or close our eyes altogether. Philosophers, poets, artists have contributed to the mountainous pile of literature that attempts to answer the hard questions about death, but even that mountainous pile is little more than a big collection of guesses, speculation, and imagination. We shore up that pile as a shield against facing the reality that we will all have to face at some point. What we hate about death is the implied trope of change, and we all hate change. There are no guarantees about tomorrow or the day after, and since we are not in control, we fear change even more. Life will always be what you make of it, and death is also a part of life, so why fear it. Those of us who still walk the earth, are still saddened, however, when one of our number dies, hoping that that soul which once burned with so much fire, knows how to swim the cold, cold waters of the river Styx.
On the final journey (swimming the river Styx)
Since no mortal has ever made the return trip, none of us knows anything about that last trip across the river. Since the only two things that are guaranteed in this life are death and taxes, from time to time we all need to talk about both. Death has been a mystery since before people could write and the focus of writing ever since a quill scratched across a clean surface, leaving behind a muddled mess of liquid goo in lines of what looks like random bird tracks. All meditations about death are necessarily speculative, filled with metaphors and other poetic tropes which we use to mask the reality and finality of death. We seldom dwell on the face of death, deciding instead to close the casket, look off to the side, or close our eyes altogether. Philosophers, poets, artists have contributed to the mountainous pile of literature that attempts to answer the hard questions about death, but even that mountainous pile is little more than a big collection of guesses, speculation, and imagination. We shore up that pile as a shield against facing the reality that we will all have to face at some point. What we hate about death is the implied trope of change, and we all hate change. There are no guarantees about tomorrow or the day after, and since we are not in control, we fear change even more. Life will always be what you make of it, and death is also a part of life, so why fear it. Those of us who still walk the earth, are still saddened, however, when one of our number dies, hoping that that soul which once burned with so much fire, knows how to swim the cold, cold waters of the river Styx.
On the bildungsroman
A German term for the “coming of age” novel, the bildungsroman as a genre is as old as time, as timeless as humanity itself. Customs, traditions, a rite of passage, almost all cultures celebrate the liminal state of the “tweener” in their journey to adulthood. Novelists have pursued the topic of with a certain energy, if not enthusiasm. I would venture to say that most novelists are trying to understand their own coming of age by writing that experience into a work of art that may or may not mirror their own. Perhaps they a looking for redemption, perhaps they are looking for sacrifice, but regardless of their intent, they have left a broad trail of broken dreams, failed intentions, and busted lives. Coming of age is that moment experience supplants innocence, and the grown child looks out at the world with new eyes. The transition may be rocky, painful, full of disillusion, regret, a place where dreams go to die. We find out that we are mortal, imperfect, and finite, but what is worse, we find out who we really might be. The problem is that all young children will eventually turn into adults whether they want to or not. During that transition, youngsters are asked to make a series of decisions about their future, for good or bad. In theory, the bildungsroman is about those experiences and those changes that shape a young person, resulting in a new being. Do you have a favorite “coming-of-age” novel? I’d like to hear about it.
On the bildungsroman
A German term for the “coming of age” novel, the bildungsroman as a genre is as old as time, as timeless as humanity itself. Customs, traditions, a rite of passage, almost all cultures celebrate the liminal state of the “tweener” in their journey to adulthood. Novelists have pursued the topic of with a certain energy, if not enthusiasm. I would venture to say that most novelists are trying to understand their own coming of age by writing that experience into a work of art that may or may not mirror their own. Perhaps they a looking for redemption, perhaps they are looking for sacrifice, but regardless of their intent, they have left a broad trail of broken dreams, failed intentions, and busted lives. Coming of age is that moment experience supplants innocence, and the grown child looks out at the world with new eyes. The transition may be rocky, painful, full of disillusion, regret, a place where dreams go to die. We find out that we are mortal, imperfect, and finite, but what is worse, we find out who we really might be. The problem is that all young children will eventually turn into adults whether they want to or not. During that transition, youngsters are asked to make a series of decisions about their future, for good or bad. In theory, the bildungsroman is about those experiences and those changes that shape a young person, resulting in a new being. Do you have a favorite “coming-of-age” novel? I’d like to hear about it.
On homecoming
Tonight, the St. Peter Saints will play the Luverne Cardinals at 7 p.m. in St. Peter. St. Peter is celebrating its homecoming week and football game tonight, which means parades, homecoming queens and kings, getting out of class early, and an exciting football game to which alumni are invited once a year. Nostalgia is fun, but it doesn’t pay the mortgage. I have always thought that Thomas Wolfe was correct when he said you can’t go back home. Personally, I haven’t really lived in my hometown for over thirty years, so although I recognize the last names, a couple of generations of children have gone through the high school. I have more in common with the football players’ and cheerleaders’ grandparents than I do their parents. As the decades have dropped by, my hometown has changed a bit, but it has also stayed the same. Living in the past is a dead end. Homecoming is more fun for the high school kids than it is for the old alumni, and that is the way it should be. Kick-off is scheduled in about an hour, and the band will play, the cheerleaders will jump and scream, the young men will strap on their gear, and the students will file into the stadium to cheer on their team as they always have. Perhaps homecoming is there to remind us all that we have grown up, Peter Pan. I will not be there, just as I have never been there for the past thirty-six years. It’s always time to move on.
On homecoming
Tonight, the St. Peter Saints will play the Luverne Cardinals at 7 p.m. in St. Peter. St. Peter is celebrating its homecoming week and football game tonight, which means parades, homecoming queens and kings, getting out of class early, and an exciting football game to which alumni are invited once a year. Nostalgia is fun, but it doesn’t pay the mortgage. I have always thought that Thomas Wolfe was correct when he said you can’t go back home. Personally, I haven’t really lived in my hometown for over thirty years, so although I recognize the last names, a couple of generations of children have gone through the high school. I have more in common with the football players’ and cheerleaders’ grandparents than I do their parents. As the decades have dropped by, my hometown has changed a bit, but it has also stayed the same. Living in the past is a dead end. Homecoming is more fun for the high school kids than it is for the old alumni, and that is the way it should be. Kick-off is scheduled in about an hour, and the band will play, the cheerleaders will jump and scream, the young men will strap on their gear, and the students will file into the stadium to cheer on their team as they always have. Perhaps homecoming is there to remind us all that we have grown up, Peter Pan. I will not be there, just as I have never been there for the past thirty-six years. It’s always time to move on.
On unpacking my library
Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.
On unpacking my library
Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.