On a dark, rainy day
many years ago, my mother was preparing to return home after a
visit with my family. The rain was so fierce that she decided
to delay the trip for a while. We sat on a window seat and had
another cup of tea as we watched the relentless downpour. Mother
leaned her head against the glass, peering up, and said in a dreamy
voice: "It's coming down so hard that it reminds me of that passage
at the beginning of Bleak House. You know, the one with
the marvelous description of rain."
I was embarrassed to
admit it, but I'd never read Bleak House, a revelation
that shocked my literary mother. But then, it wasn't the first
time that I'd had to admit to a limited exposure to 19th century
writers. My high school class may well have been the only American
students of my generation who didn't have to read Silas Marner.
I do recall a bit of Hawthorne and Emerson, a smattering of Dickens
(David Copperfield and Great Expectations), with
a pit stop for Stephen Crane and Lafcadio Hearn. But nothing that
I read in those days encouraged me to pursue the authors' other
works, perhaps because my mind was full of the confusions of my
own teenage life.
Eventually the rain
stopped, and my mother went home. A couple of days later, a small,
well-wrapped parcel arrived at my house. It was a copy of Bleak
House, Mother's very own copy, bought, according to the date
inscribed under her name on the bookplate, during her freshman
year in college.
It was small (about
4x6 inches) and bound in supple, smooth navy blue leather. The
pages were parchment, so that the entire book weighed very little,
and it was so flexible that it seemed to nestle into my hands.
It was a joy to hold, and a joy to read. The print was crisp and
clear despite the small type size.
I guess I had become
so accustomed to modern books with stiff covers and porous, flimsy
paper that I had forgotten how truly a beautifully made book enhances
the experience of reading. A book that is easy to hold, bound
with a cover that is a pleasure to touch, printed in type that
is easy to read, entices the reader and predisposes him or her
to enjoy the process.
I've long had a physical
relationship to books, one that involves all five senses. When
I was a child in school, I loved the days when we were given our
new readers. We were taught how to open them carefully, laying
back the covers left and right, and holding the pages together,
upright. Next we turned down a few pages at a time, first left,
then right, running our hands gently along the crease at the binding,.
Even during those WWII years when materials were not easy to come
by, our books were printed on high-quality paper that was smooth
and clear. Rubbing the pages down was a tactile delight.
As soon as the teacher
turned her back, I would thrust my nose down into the book, and
take a good, long sniff. I suppose what I was smelling was the
ink as much as it was the paper, but to this day, I love the smell
of a new book.
I would also feel of
the corners of the cover, and riffle the pages several times,
proud of my ability to run them smoothly from back to front. Now
and then, I'd even succumb to an odd urge to taste a book, never
a hardbound book, but a workbook like my speller. I knew that
I wouldn't have to turn a workbook in at the end of the year.
It was mine to deface. I'd furtively bend back the corner of a
previously used and graded page, rip it off and chew it like gum.
I must have been a sneaky child, because nobody ever caught me
at it.
From a very young age,
I have clear memories of the visual impact of some books:
