Infinite Readings
by Matt
I would prefer a ‘previously owned’ book over a new one in most every instance. That musty, ‘old book’ aroma is my personal gateway, like Proust and his madeleine, to a childhood of thumbing through paperbacks at garage sales and flea markets…as well as the afternoons drifted away at Beckham’s Books on Decatur Street.
There is, naturally, a slight pang of guilt in that the author will lose the royalty that they might have received from the publisher, and I do think about that, but it is overwhelmed by the weird thrill I feel at imagining who else has owned this – who else read these words, on this page. Did anyone else get to the lines:
…I’d write “Anna” in the air – backward and right to left – so that the person I was speaking to could see, and when I was on the phone I’d dial the numbers – 2, 6, 6, 2 – so the person could hear what I couldn’t, myself, say.
…and feel the same odd little rush that I did? Maybe the rush originated from those shared moments, aligned in time around these magical objects – as if each copy of every book is a little Horcrux unto itself.
Or is it really just some internal sleight-of-hand dazzling our innate yearning for personal connections, sparked by a unique turn of the phrase that seems special and magical and all of those things that make for good storytelling?
~
[NOTE: Apologies to Jonathan Safran Foer for buying my copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close