Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The deed is done

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4 comments:

  1. Mr AshdaleJanuary 7, 2009 at 10:35 AM

    I'm in favour shredding books. In the past, I have kept campfires going with discarded chapters.

    However.

    Let's hope the borrowed copy isn't a first edition. Those are selling for up to $150 US, I see.

    http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1207010460&searchurl=an%3DWallace%252C%2BDavid%2BFoster%26bi%3Ds%26bx%3Doff%26ds%3D30%26fe%3Don%26sortby%3D2%26sts%3Dt%26tn%3D%2522Infinite%2BJest%2522%26x%3D98%26y%3D18

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  2. the Abbot of ThelemeJanuary 7, 2009 at 10:53 AM

    There's a scene (maybe the climactic scene?) in Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge in which the main character, Larry Darrell, dismembers a book in order to feed a campfire, just like Mr A's done. The scene is fraught with symbolism and metaphor, ladled on with Maugham's customary subtlety...

    Larry, the protagonist, who has spent years searching for life's eternal profundities mostly in the pages and ramblings of western philosophers, Russian mystics, and various eastern religious texts, now finds himself atop a mountain in India, at the behest of the monastery's lama (dare I say Abbot). He--Larry--has taken with him to the mountaintop naught save his little satchel of books...but it gets cold, and his supply of firewood runs out, so in this highly metaphoric act positively dripping with symbolism, Larry uses Plato, Spinoza, the epic of Gilgamesh, etc, as fuel for the fire.

    He does his dismembering bare-handed, not having handy any Henkel knives, a saw, surgical scissors, or anything sharp save his mind. Could you cut a book with your mind? Cut through, maybe... Maugham doesn't mention anything about a dilemna over footnotes.

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  3. John VivantJanuary 7, 2009 at 8:54 PM

    Mr...Ashdale..

    What a resource you are.

    Indeed, the very book I am dismembering not only belongs to The Abbot but it is worth a good deal of cash. I have checked out the link you left.

    This does indeed seem to be a calous act on my part then.

    I do worry sometimes that I take the Abbot for granted; that I take more than I give.

    And yet $150 seems a pittance when measured against the great fun and learning I have experienced since pulling apart the pork...I mean book...last Sunday.

    My only paranoia was really whether or not The Abbot would be tolerant of yet another bizarre idea of mine.

    Some folks are very protective of their "Libraries".

    As for me - and I hope for The Abbot - books go beyond the page and indeed the binding.

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  4. John VivantJanuary 7, 2009 at 9:06 PM

    Dear Abbot, you have made reference to a film that I remember did touch me when I saw it years ago. I do not know that it was a great film but something about it touched me and now that you mention it I do remember that book burning scene though I am not sure that I was mature or aware enough at the time to take out of it what you did.

    But I think that Larry and Mr. Ashdale understand the same thing really - that books go beyond matter.

    It's amazing - Larry burns his books, Mr. Ashdale burns his books, and yet somehow we still today talk about Plato, Spinoza, the epic of Gilgamesh and Thomas Pynchon, Samuel Richardson, William Gaddis, Robert Musil, Proust and William Vollman.

    How is that?

    And all I'm doing is dismembering. There's no fire burning here...yet.

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