Literary Withdrawal: Death of a Book

I sit here in the dark quiet of my sanctuary, the place I come to write.

I have a stabbing inherent fear that books, like many of its authors, shall one day become extinct. This revelation came to me because I was forced to purchase a tape cassette recorder to listen to a tape and as I held it in my hand, found myself thinking: I cannot believe I found one to buy.

Think about 8 tracks, LP's (Oh, how I miss LP's.) There truly is nothing like an album, the words displayed proudly in a double album. Amazing artwork like tattoos scrolled across the flaps of the cover and on the inside. The band invited YOU inside of  their minds for an hour or two. Mind you, I adore CD's and DVD's, I am an IT tech afterall, yet wonder if I purchase a turntable would I actually be able to find a needle to set beneath the arm?

Thank goodness for eBay. Garage sales. Used bookstores.

Used bookstores.

You must take pride in the owner of a used bookstore. A secret society where members only travel at dusk, perusing olde wooden shelving like mad Norseman, pillaging layers of books, bindings, blowing cobwebs from dust covers quite possibly uncovering a treasure or two or three.

If you are like me, you leave with insurmountable treasures richer than gold or silver. A book is the fruit of self. Knowledge unsurpassed. Everything I have learned has come directly from books. Let me correct myself, books and the street.

At this precise moment of writing this, I hold in my palm the first print of "Kaddish" circa 1961 signed by A.G. himself.  I  bought it for a dollar.

Don't get me wrong, I adore mainstream bookstores. As a rule, I live in them.  Soak myself up in a huge overstuffed chair by fireplace, an Italian Soda or Cappuccino by my side, a stack of books at my feet, music I have never heard before playing overhead (and yes, I know, a masterful marketing technique) and sometimes I do fall prey to a Frappuccino and end up buying the CD I heard while reading, the artists words ringing true in the background of my mind as I delve into Welsh Heritage, Kool-Aid Acid Trips, Nature, Photography, Art and Poetry.

When entering a bookstore, I bypass the front tables streamed with discounts and deals.  New authors with their third book published about the exact same things they said in the first one. I head straight to the back, where the literature is hiding.  You can always tell they attempt to hide it. Try and ask someone working there
exactly WHERE the LIT section is and they point you towards . . . someplace . . . over . . . there.  (In reality, they have no idea what LIT is.)

*sigh*

Poetry is the second place I visit. Then onto biographies and music, art, photography and lastly, the horribly sad cart where tattered books lie that nobody wants. The cart of misfits. It is upon this cart, I always find a volume I want. Maybe that is because I, myself, am a misfit and that's ok. I like being different. It is who I am. I cannot pretend nor would I wish to deny myself precisely who I am.

I find myself sitting here now and surrounding me are books books books . . . how I adore them so. They are best friends to me. Make me feel comforted. Just to run your hands up the spine of a book, life itself breathing inside waiting for your eyes only to discover an entirely new world created by anothers' psyche.

How truly fascinating.

The smell of a book is glorious! Scented with glue and wax, possibly leather, dry leaves bursting alive in an Autumnal flurry before your sight as pages speak, unfolding life, a bloodline, an adventure. A life you possibly wish to lead.

An old book holds something entirely different. They are my favorites to own. I often wonder what hands had passed these pages and how many? Whose hands touched this very book? How many people cried, felt happiness, pain, grief, love, enlightenment from handling this book now in my possession?

The corners are tattered a bit, sure, but this gives it persona. Tells you it doesn't fuck around, man and it is meant to BE read because it has BEEN read. Now it's your turn to ride that steep climb up the first hill of a coaster.

Get ready . . . the turn is coming, you can feel it now, can't you? The existential drop of your belly as you lift slightly from your seat and remain airborne for a millisecond that lasts a lifetime just to be dropped straight downhill into an Inferno that brings you around dark corners, through forests, screaming wild and flipping pages as night turns into day.

This just caused me to think of not only the books, but the writers of such books. Where have they all gone? Why is it that they are noticed after their death, after their struggle, after their entire lives have been a complete and utter living hell interspersed with momentary lapses of euphoric bliss?

As I attempt to complete my own novel, as many of you are right now or have, I transcend into the minds of writers I pay homage to. I use the word homage well, because they are all quite stone cold dead.

(Ahh . . . but not in the pages. Within the pages, they survive. This is their gift, the gift of any writer to the reader. Regeneration by pure esoteric thought.)

I think of Hemingway . . poor Papa. No longer could he write, he could not think after they strapped his brilliance to the electro shocks and stripped him of his gift. It is no wonder he took one of his prized shotguns, ironically purchased at Abercrombie & Fitch. It used to be a sporting goods store. I knew I despised that
place for a reason.

Kerouac. Oh, how I want to lie his wearied brow in my lap and let him cry. The thing with Jack is that he saw so much fucking beauty, had traveled so far, so young, ran with bums, slept in alleys, walked in below freezing temperatures in order to FEEL life beat in his veins as his own blood, becoming one and he did just that. Jack set out what he meant to do. Jack had a purpose and when it was met he was done. Tired. Down.

Jack was beat.

I could sit here with you for hours speaking of writers gone home. I wish I could but fear boring you right out of your mind.

Besides, you really should be reading something of worth.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti must be lonely.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars . . ."

—Jack Kerouac's On The Road

© Susan Marie 2007