Henning Mankell: The Man From Beijing

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell (New York: Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson. 368pp.

Mankell's new book has been sitting on a wooden chair in a corner for a couple of weeks. The bold white type on red background of the cover quietly reminding me of its prescence each time I pass. I knew if I started to read the book, I would have to put other books aside for awhile. Well, the time has come. Here is the book trailer.

Morbid Callaghan and Earle Turvey

A recent post at the interesting blog The Dusty Bookcase concerning the New Canadian Library series reminded me of an incident only last week. My wife was telling me she wanted to reread the novel Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham and wondered if we had a copy. I believed I had two hardcover copies somewhere, but I knew I had a paperback copy in the New Canadian Library series and knew precisely where it was. A little while later she called me and asked me to look at the cover of this paperback issue. I duly looked at the cover but couldn't see anything unusual other than the drab brown abstract image. Look at her name, she prompted. Again, I didn't see anything unusual. Look at the spelling, she added. Then I understood. The author's first name was spelled "Gwenthalyn."

My wife has a keen eye when it comes to misspellings, typos and such. She constantly finds them in newspapers, magazines, and perhaps most often in restaurant menus. Some of them can be fairly amusing. To get an author's name wrong on the cover of a book, however, doesn't seem amusing. You have to wonder how many copies were printed with that error. This printing is the 4th, dated 1970. Perhaps this error is well-known to collectors of the series.

Who knows, there may be a plethora of misspellings out there. Maybe I should be looking for The Nymph and the Lamb by Thomas H. Raddall, Birney by Earle Turvey, As For Me and My Mouse by Sinclair Ross, or Such is My Beloved by Morbid Callaghan. I sort of like that last one.

Montreal Book Shops No. 3: Nebula (and William Gibson and Sting)

My memory seems a bit nebulous at times, but I definitely remember lining up on St. Mathieu Street in Montreal in front of the specialty bookshop, Nebula to buy William Gibson's new book, Virtual Light (released September 1993) and to have the pleasure of having it signed by him. Befitting the name of the bookshop, it was a grey overcast, cool--possibly cold--misty day of showers. At the time, I was busy working two jobs and attending university courses most nights, so I can't quite remember the exact date, but I think it was sometime in October of 1993.

The bookshop was in one of the older attractive stone row houses on St. Mathieu, west side, just down from de Maisonneuve Boulevard, huddled in the shadow of a high rise block of no memorable feature. I seem to recall that these old houses, though commercialized, still retained a fair amount of their gingerbread architectural detail in 1993. Using Google Street View today, the section of the street appears slightly different, the buildings have been modernized and the architectural details removed for the most part. There is an interesting restaurant, Pho Nguyen, in the address of the of old bookstore. Also interesting, the police station across the street, a building whose walls must have absorbed much stress, distress and anxiety, is now a commercial building with a company called BattleNet.24, an Internet café. An all night cyber café in an old police station. There must be some form of Gibsonian irony there.

The Book Signing:

Joining the line on the sidewalk outside in the rain, bumping umbrellas and trying not to poke some passing pedestrian's eye out--pedestrians bereft of comprehension of what could possibly draw people to line up in the rain--I found myself moving step by step as the line made its way slowly into the warmth of the upstairs shop. The bookstore was quaint, but cramped for space. William Gibson was seated at a table of modest dimension. He had a pen in his left hand. It looked promising. Thank god no beverages were involved. The line shifted forward like an assembly line for quality control. Murmur of small talk wafted backwards, voiced pleasantries with charming undertones. Perhaps a trill of light nervous laughter. The pressure to come up with something witty or urbane mounted within me. All of a sudden it felt quite warm. With the wet furled umbrella hanging over my left forearm, I advanced like some minion approaching his lordship with the latest telegram on a small silver tray, or a waiter with the soup of the day. I humbly mumbled a greeting and handed him the book. I recall he had a most discerning eye as we exchanged eye contact. I doubt mine was as discerning. He signed the half-title with panache, and finished by placing an audible period, or dot, in the middle of the "O" of his last name, closed the book and handed it to me. I duly thanked him and moved on allowing those behind their opportunity. I believe he said thanks for waiting in the rain, but whether it was to me or a friend who accompanied me, I can't recall.

I think it was one of the few specific book signings I had attended up to that date. I generally hesitate when it comes to asking authors for a signature. I remember a Martin Amis reading at the Centaur Theatre in old Montreal a few years later but I hesitated at approaching him in the lobby after his droll one-man performance. It takes a certain moxy to approach authors cold. I believe I would feel more at ease with a serendipitous meeting. Like spilling a drink on their suede shoes or something.

Looking at William Gibson's signature now, I realise I had forgotten that he had also underlined the "O" with three lines, creating an ideograph or logogram of some interest. A casual search of the Internet for his signature reveals examples of variation. Some are just plain W.M.Gibson. Some have a little circle within the "O" of his last name. I did come across a youtube video of him signing a book and I could see him underline the defining letter three times. There may be other variations. For the number of books he must have signed over the span of his writing career, variations must breath life into his well worn letters, and allow for a wider expression of his personality and character.

The bookshop Nebula, later moved to 1832 St. Catherine Street, the south side, (now an interesting Korean Restaurant called Towa) a larger space, but of infinitely less charm and interest, and here they continued to offer an excellent choice of science fiction, fantasy, crime, graphic novels, and magazines. Hard times must have hit them, for I then remember that it moved into the back of Mélange Magic bookstore for awhile. Then in the summer of 2000 it closed shop. Their letter of goodbye can be found here.

It is not quite a defunct bookshop as it continues in, dare I say with no disrespect, a nebulous form on-line.

Thinking about the year 1993, it certainly helps to jog the memory with music. The stream of popular hits that played in the shops and on the radio were probably dominated by Duran Duran, The Cranberries, Pet Shop Boys, U2 and perhaps overwhelmingly by certain songs by Sting off his Ten Summoner's Tales, especially Fields of Gold. For me, Sting's Fields of Gold dominates the year. The song and William Gibson's Virtual Light are connected in a an unusual juxtaposition, the pastoral romantic and a world of subtopian redeemers, their very substance seemingly at opposite poles, but spun together in a dance of time and place.

Montreal Bookshops No. 2: Defunct Part 1: Huis Clos / No Exit

Defunct is an odd word. Not a word that one would hear bandied about in the press these days. A bit old-fashioned, a bit dusty, unlikely to come up in everyday conversation. A word edging its way towards a glossary of archaic words perhaps. It is a strong, ham-fisted type of word with that stiff ended "ct". Looking it up in the OED, I have to say I like Coleridge's usage: "This ghost of a defunct absurdity." This figurative use is quite appealing and breathes life into the word--no irony intended--and is perhaps the future for such words for it seems to retain a usefulness for poetry and the pulpit. Perhaps a rock band could incorporate the word into their name, The Defunct Wallabees, or the Defunctives. In a song, it could be rhymed with adjunct, something a defunct Noel Coward could pull off. Then again, it would work well in a rap song.

As an owner of a defunct bookshop myself--well, at least in the brick and mortar type, for I still sell on-line, check out the sidebar for the links--I feel a certain affiliation with bookshops that have called it a day. Some lasted many, many years, while others had a brief existence. It seems appropriate that the first defunct bookshop I will discuss was called Huis Clos / No Exit.

Huis Clos / No Exit

This secondhand bookshop I remember being at 3636 St. Laurent, the west side, just up from Prince Arthur. It was in operation in the mid-1980s (83-86?). A fairly open space that had previously been Salamander Shoe Shop for many years. If I remember correctly, there was a set of stairs to bring you up to an open area literature section overlooking the shop below and I still have a sharp visual memory of passing on half a dozen hardcover copies of the collected works of Arthur Hugh Clough in what I think was a modern Oxford edition. I hesitated at the price, and when I went back to buy a copy, the shop had closed. One of many regrets of a book collector with limited means and wavering resolve.

Near by was the Androgyny Alternatives Bookstore at 3642 St. Laurent, which actually moved into the Huis Clos / No Exit address once they closed down. The bookmark pictured above, complete with stylised drama masks and barbed wire, lists the shop at 4318 St. Laurent, but I have no memory of ever visiting that location, and strangely enough, I cannot locate a listing for the shop at that address in the street directories.

Of course the name of the shop comes from the play by Jean Paul Sartre. No doubt someone uttered the phrase, "L'enfer, c'est les autres" but I never heard the words spoken, although I may have thought them if scooped by another buyer. I do recall, however, that one of the owner's siblings used to be in the shop from time to time, and they were heavily into the Boy George Culture Club look of the day. (As I type these words, I can hear that Karma Chameleon song.) There was a quirky vibe to the shop. I guess it was the mix of Culture Club fashion, existentialist homage, the proximity to the alternative bookstore and being on a street which was trending nicely upwards. The book selection was quite good as well.

note: As to the Coleridge quote, it comes from his 1809 essay On the Errors of Party Spirit: or Extremes Meet in his periodical The Friend. The subscribers of the day were apparently irked by the obscurity of some of these essays, though as Richard Holmes writes in his biography Coleridge: Darker Reflections, "Within its Amazonian jungle of tangled, unparagraphed, discursive prose, lay limpid pools of story-telling, criticism, memoir-writing and philosophic reflection." And perhaps a defunct word or two.

Penguin Books Ephemera Addendum: the Penguin Donkey

This specially designed penguin bookshelf unit called the Penguin Donkey MK 2, certainly seems a retro piece today. Probably collectible if one survived from the early 1960s. As the advertising insert states, "this helpful creature" was designed by Ernest Race, and was 16" high by 21" long. The size seems rather small. Could one possibly place a table lamp, a decanter, coffee cups or drinks on the "Donkeytop"? So it says. Also holds 90 Penguin paperbacks and your Guardian Newspaper. I can see it sitting on white high pile carpet beside an orange molded chair and an interesting floor lamp designed by Achille Castiglioni.

The Isokon Design Company began in the 1930s and re-emerged in the 1990s. If you can't find a 1963 Penguin Donkey at the local thrift shop, you can always purchase a new version of the Penguin Donkey. Not quite my style, but I can appreciate the design even if I can't appreciate the new price.

Montreal Bookshops No. 1: Classic Book Shop

Having recently posted about Penguin Books, I began thinking of my own interest in this publisher's offerings and I began to recall my visits in the 1970s and early 1980s to a Montreal retail bookshop on St. Catherine Street West called Classic Book Shop, or Classics as it was referred to by many people including myself. Little did I know, as I browsed the shelves for, among others, the small green Penguin Modern Classics, and the small black Penguin Classics, that this store had such a long history. I still have vivid memories of moving about in that shop and certain faces of the employees are discernible. I can still see the various subject sections and the modern staircase in my mind, and the shelves with the majority of the books with their front covers facing the customer, an innovation developed by the store and followed by others.

Of course there are many who knew the history of the bookshop while it was still in operation, and knew of the owner Louis Melzack (1914-2002) and no doubt many people have pleasant memories of browsing the shop during the earlier decades, but I was just a young customer who experienced what I now see was but the tail-end of the book shop's fairly long existence. Only now, looking back , and using Street directories (complete with occasional mispellings of information) and other reference sources, can I appreciate the background and developement of this bookshop.

The roots of the book shop can be traced back to The Universal Book Store which first opened its doors in 1928 at 1055 Bleury with the proprietor listed as one Jack Melzac, the father of Louis Melzack. Bleury was of course a completely different street from today, with many small shops and businesses including quite a few book shops; certain buildings that survive such as the Southam Building (now gentrified into condos) reflect a long forgotten era. In 1930, the book shop moved to 1122 Bleury (between Dowd and Carmichael streets) and was renamed Classic Book Shop, proprietor J. Melzack. The book shop remained at this address until 1938 when it was relocated to 1380 St. Catherine Street West, the south side between Mountain and Crescent.

So, Louis Melzack, born in 1914, the son of the owner, presumably started helping out in his father's book and magazine shop in 1928 when he was 14 years old. By 1938, Louis Melzack was in his early twenties and listed in the directories as "emp" or employee of Classic Book Shop. By looking at the home addresses of the family, I can surmise (conjecture on my part of course) that it was Louis who was interested in moving westwards. His father's residential addresses were close to the original bookshop location, such streets as de Bullion, Pine Avenue, Waverley, Querbes, Bernard and St. Joseph Boulevard, while the younger Louis first moved to 1811 Dorchester West, and then much further west to Ponsard Avenue. This westward movement was quite typical as the areas of Cote-des-Neiges and Notre Dame-de-Grace were freshly developing residential districts from the 1920s to the 1940s and I think of my own grandfather who first lived in the Plateau Mount Royal area back in the 1920s before moving to Notre Dame-de-Grace in the mid-1930s.

Moving the shop in 1938 to St. Catherine Street West was a bold commercial step. There were already many well-established book businesses in the area:

Brown Foster Ltd. at 1240 St. Catherine Street West.
Burton's Ltd. at 1004 St. Catherine Street West.
Lyon's Book Shop at 1480 St. Catherine Street West.
Montreal Book Room at 1458 McGill College Avenue.
Poole Book Store at 2055 McGill College Avenue.
Toronto Book Store at 1344 St. Catherine Street West.
VanGuard Book Company at 1170 St. Catherine Street West.

In addition to these establishments, there were the book departments of the various Department Stores.

In the year 1941, the directory lists the proprietors of Classic Book Shop as "J. & L. Melsack", the first listing for Louis as a partner in the business. In the year 1956, Louis Melzack, though still listed as partner in the original shop, is also listed as running Classic's Little Books Inc. at 1373 St. Catherine Street West (he opened it in 1955 and it was the first paperback shop in the country) and it is from this point that the expansion of this business develops, with stores on Rockland Road and one at the Dorval airport, and eventually to shopping malls such as Alexis Nihon Plaza, Place Ville Marie and others until approximately 60 stores nationwide by the year 1980.

In January of 1981 Louis Melzack sold the business to his son and essentially retired. But he was back at it again and opened an antiquarian book business in Toronto in 1981 revealing his life long interest in collecting books and manuscripts.

In 1985 the Classic Bookstore chain, now 110 stores, was sold to the Canadian branch of the British book chain W. H. Smith. This then was later purchased by Chapters Bookstores, and as we know, Chapters was then taken over by Indigo.

In browsing these new mega stores today, I can appreciate the influence and importance of the innovation that Louis Melzack and his family brought to the business of book selling in Canada. There is a hidden legacy there.

The bookmarkers pictured here are samples from the 1960s to early 1980s. The name Allan Harrison is printed sideways on the bookmarks, left to right, 2nd, 3rd & 4th in the top row, and I gather he was responsible for the design. The lettering captures the 60s early 70s "groovy" zeitgeist, and triggers vague memories of similar lettering for movies, music and advertising of the period.

A Small Selection of Penguin Books Ephemera

This year marks the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books. They have come up with a "decade-defining" list of books and a new logo which you may have read about. Five books for each decade from the 1950s to the 1980s will be published with new introductions, the Penguin Decades.

With Penguins on the mind, I thought I would post a selection of ephemera from the publisher.

1. The Penguin Books fold-out catalogue (for the Canadian market) for April 1959 along with an earlier order form insert which states "more than 250 titles now available." For a collector of Penguins, it was a period when it was still possible and conceivable to collect a complete run, including those that had fallen out of print. For a Canadian, I must say some of the titles listed in this catalogue would prove a challenge to locate today, such as Penguin Specials, Crossword Puzzle books, Periodicals for New Biology and Science News, various Reference Books and Handbooks and the Puffin Cut-Out Books.

2. The Canadian advertising inserts must be from the early to mid-1950s or perhaps even earlier as they list basic issues at 30 cents, compared to the 1959 catalogue which lists them at 70 cents. The Penguin logo by Jan Tschichold is also an earlier design, the Penguin on the move so to speak.

3. In 1960, Penguin's 25th Anniversary, this little fold-out insert, "A Feast of Penguins" was issued. I shall quote the front cover text in full:

Penguins Progress

Since their first appearance twenty-five years ago, Penguins have grown from a shelf of ten books to a library, from a library to what has been aptly called, for its quality and range, the Penguin University. Today there are more than 1,200 Penguins, Pelicans, and Puffins in print: among them representative works of almost every living author of note.

Some of the books on their list of 25 books for the anniversary reflect the era, such as William Whyte's The Organization Man, and J. Bronowski's The Common Sense of Science.

Various Bookmarks from the 1960s to 1980s.

The University of Bristol is home to a Penguin Archive, more information can be found here.

The New Year's Resolutions of a Secondhand Book Dealer

The New Year's Resolutions of a Secondhand Book Dealer:



1. Sell complete book stock to a wealthy accomplished soul to help fill out their country house library.


2. Use funds from no. 1 to finance a new perspective on life--or pay old bills.


3. Attain gainful employment. (Decent writer, half-decent after 5. Have worked many lowly jobs in life, so will likely do windows if asked.)


4. Write script for [the star of your choice] that will make kabillions, retire and raise Arabian sea horses.


5. If no. 4 does't pan out, write a book entitled: "How to write a script for [the star of your choice] that will make kabillions, retire and raise Arabian sea horses."


6. Answer that ringing in my ears.


7. Gain weight and ease up on the exercising.


8. See if Paul Shaffer can get me a job as a writer on Letterman, using the fact that I could fill in on guitar if someone calls in sick.


9. Find out who this Walter Mitty is that my wife keeps making reference to.


10. Make a pilgrimage to Pat Sajak re: the meaning of life, for he has been in a state of near Vanna for so many years.


11. Refrain from inadvertently annoying my dear wife with my overuse of the phrase: "My God, is that the time?" (Apt words for my epitaph, and a good choice of words for anyone's Less-than-famous-last-words.)

12. Find the feather duster.

The Night After Christmas: A Visit from Stephen Fry and Co.

The Night After Christmas:

A Visit From

Stephen Fry

&

Co.

Twas the night after Christmas at Hugh Laurie's house,
His dear wife was screaming, "a Mouse! it's a Mouse!"
And Hugh in his stockings jumped up on a chair,
Thinking if only his friend, Stephen Fry had been there,
But he was probably in Norfolk all snug in his bed,
With visions of ipods and downloads in his head.
So the Lauries sipped eggnog on their chair in nightcaps,
And were soon fast asleep, snoring in their laps.
When out by the pool, they heard such a splatter,
They sprang from their chair with the force of dark matter.
Away to the window they flew in a trice--
Followed by a family of adorable mice.
The garden gnomes glistened in the moon's afterglow,
While the swimming pool rippled with hints of white snow.
When what to their wondering eyes should appear,
But Stephen Fry in trunks and red snorkle gear.
With his ipod roistered, lively and quick, he managed an inpromtu twitpic--
With his Santa hat, he looked a veritable St. Nick.
More merry than beagles his dear friends they came,
And with a Baaahhh! and a trimble, he called them by name,
"Bill Bailey! Alan Davies! Jo Brand! and Phil Jupitus!
Sean Lock! Jimmy Carr! Rob Brydon! and Trefusis!
To the springboard climb up, climb up one and all,
Together we'll create one massive cannonball!"
Like dry leaves they did shed their clothes and did fly
Over to the springboard, hands raised to the sky,
And up they did mount, like coursers they flew
And with ipod and vodie, St. Stephen Fry too.
And then in a twinkling, they heard a great creak,
The board was too slender, the board was too weak.
The eyeballs of the Lauries--and the mice--rolled around
As their friends fell forward with a flubbering bound!
A bundle of bodies, some tight, some slack,
A veritable Moby spewing water from the wrack.
Their eyes--how they twinkled! their dimples how merry!
Their cheeks were all rosy (for the water was dam icey!)
Then Hugh and his wife brought them cotton terry towels,
As their friends bibble-bobbled and shivered their vowels.
Stephen, with magic, procured bottles of fine Port,
And they all raised a glass to Peter Kingdom and his Court.
Bill Bailey tickled ivories, and Bryden talked behind his teeth,
While Hugh got his head stuck in the old advent wreath.
Jimmy Carr told a joke bout garden gnomes and lubricant jelly
While Jo Brand watched David Tennant's Doctor on the telly.
Dear Jupitus sang a song bout a princess and an elf
While Trefusis and his dongle laughed in spite of himself.
Alan Davies and Sean Lock mimicked and told stories,
And had everyone laughing, including mice and the Lauries.
Then Stephen recited a moving stanzaic work
About a lingerie shop owner, Pumbleby Quirk.
Oh, the tears they did fall, they fell from each eye,
(Including the writer of this ditty, Ralph Patrick Mackay.)
They embibed some more port, and each blew their nose,
Arranging for photos in a jumbled group pose.
And then with a whistle, Hugh did show them their beds,
And told them breakfast was at seven for any sleepy heads!
Stephen visited each guest, and as he turned out each light,
Said, "Happy Dreams to all, and to all a good good night."

-by Ralph Patrick Mackay aka Chumley

Love and Summer by William Trevor

Love and Summer by William Trevor (Knopf Canada)

A Reader's Preamble
Unknowingly, memories began to stir when the new book arrived. As his hands felt the shape and texture of the dustjacketed hardcover, his eyes were absorbing information from the cover image and the four blurbs on the back. Gazing at the author's photograph taken by Lord Snowdon, the idea of senescence was roused, those aged creases and wrinkles holding shadows of experience. After having read the front flap with its succinct storyline overview, the memories began to surface, his mind initiating a recall of sensory data, emotional responses, textual and visual memories. 'When was it that I first came across the author?' 'Where was that sale?' An image of his hand holding a penguin paperback of The Old Boys, kneeling he was, a box of books under a table, a church sale, 1981, or 1982. He saw a younger self sitting back in a comfy chair, legs up, reading the penguin copy. Then, a fleeting image of himself reading the paperback on the Metro, hunched in dim light. Opening this new book, he scanned down the impressive list of titles by the author. Where was his copy of The Love Department he wondered? Oh, yes, Mrs. Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel, two copies he had, somewhere. The American and the British editions. What an odd place to have found that second copy he thought, remembering the fly-by-night remaindered shop that appeared around the holiday season one year. He really must find those books, it would be interesting to revisit them. However, a sigh of frustration waffled out of him as he realised how much effort, energy and time, priceless time, would be required to search through shelves and boxes. His eyes turned to the title page, Love and Summer by William Trevor. Best to rest lightly on those memories of past reads, he mused, and he turned to the first page and began to read.

Halfway through the novel he found himself searching for a piece of music. It was only after having listened to the music did it occur to him that his post-prandial rummaging amongst older cds was unconsciously driven. He didn't know the meaning of the words, for the rich voice of Heather Rankin was singing in Gaelic, a song entitled Walk With Me, but it didn't seem to matter. He felt the tone of the music fit the mood of the novel he was half-way through. How and why his inner mind could reach back to a cd he had been passing over not only for months, but for years, left him feeling greater respect for such inner processes, and wondering if his conscious mind was but a feeble and poor assistant.

After having finished the novel, he placed it aside. He was a slow reader. Returning to the novel after a few days of unconscious gestation, his musings began to flow with the alacrity of honey. He began to make notes on the characters, the setting, the situation. What could he possibly say that had not already been said? He had yet to read another review for he tended to avoid them until he had set his thoughts on paper. His responses were not always robust, but at least they were his own. In the curiosity of discovering insights and nuances he had missed, providing colour and shadow to his understanding--or at least, a not unwarranted respect for another's style or turn of phrase--he would finally seek out professional reviews.

Love and Summer
Although firmly set in rural Ireland of the late 1950s, he found such a shared human story that he could easily imagine it to be set in rural Japan, Canada, Botswana or any other country on the planet. A sad, poignant tale told with clear yet subtle poetic lines that possess a rich silence between the words.

The story opens in the month of June. It begins with a leave taking and is rounded off with one as well. Florian Kilderry, a young man from a neighbouring house in the country, bicycles into the nearby town of Rathmoye to take photographs of architectural decay, his new found passion. Unfortunately, it is the day of a funeral for Eileen Connulty, the once domineering matriarch of the Connultys of Rathmoye, owners of the coal works, the cinema, and a well-respected boarding house establishment. She was predeceased by her husband who died in the fire that consumed their cinema, The Coliseum, the remnant of which Florian Kilderry finds ideal for his photographic desires.

We are introduced to the small cast of characters, all seemingly marred by the circumstances of life, single or alone in their relationships with others, the memories of the past, and the irredeemable present. There is the daughter, Miss Connulty, unloved by her mother, betrayed when young by a man who was a "traveller in veterinary requisites" and now a dour older woman, and new mistress of the boarding house. Her brother, a twin, Joseph Paul Connulty, is unmarried, a sober, honest member of the "Pioneer Movement" and the operator of the coal works. His early hope of a religious vocation "lost beneath the weight of his mother's doubt." The twins are adult children locked into inherited roles, trapped by the vestiges of the their parentage. There is the farmer, Dillahan, burdened with the guilt of having accidentally killed his wife and child in a farming mishap, a man gripped by the past and yet forced by the demands of tending to land and animal, to live in the present. There is Ellie, an orphan, brought up by nuns and now married to Dillahan, a younger sensitive woman who manages to live with a man who treats her well, but, whose grief has withered his passions. Their is Florian Kilderry, the young carefree spirit, a late child--possibly a mistake--of older parents who were both artists, his mother coming from a well-to-do Italian family, and his father from a penniless Irish background. There is Bernadette O'Keefe, the secretary for Joseph Paul at the coal works, a woman of a certain age with an eye for her boss, but one that is unrequited. And finally, the cast is rounded off by the Protestant librarian, Orpen Wren, wandering about the town and country, confusing figures of the present with those of the past, his mind reliving the experiences of his youthful prime. He was once the librarian to the St. John of Lisquin family and lived at the big house cataloging their library and personal papers. The house is long gone, now but an outcrop of stone amongst weeds and overgrowth.

The figures of Florian and Orpen are rather symbolic of the future and the past. Florian cycles into the town of Rathmoye, a symbol of positive movement and creative imagination. His parents have recently died, the inherited homestead is in decay and up for sale and he dreams of immigrating, possibly to Scandinavia. He discards his past, his laissez-faire upbringing, his parent's artistic heritage. What household furniture and belongings that are not sold or given away, he burns. He even burns his early attempts at writing fiction. He has spent his remnant summer preparing his departure, reading F. Scott Fitzgerald and exploring the world of photography having found an old Leica camera amongst his father's belongings. Orpen Wren is the opposite, a relic, emblematic of the past no one wants to remember, an old man whose thoughts have found comfort in the retreat and attachment to memories, memories reenacted in the present. He confuses Florian for a member of the St. John family and insists he take the family papers that Orpen carries with him.

This dance of the past and future is accompanied with the dance of present love between Florian and Ellie. Ellie first saw him while she was in town on the day of Mrs. Connulty's funeral. Ellie is a gentle creature who delivers eggs to the Connulty family for their boarding house, an overt yet natural symbol of birth and the feminine. She has a habit of using double negatives in her speech such as "you'd never not want to go," phrases which anchor her to the countryside and yet also seem to point to the psychological weight of her upbringing in the foundling hospital, raised by nuns. Their gentle love is one of bicycles, country lanes and lavender meadows, and glimpses of the past like the long shadows of trees in the rays of a setting sun. Their dance of emotion and memory is very poignant and moving and brings us full circle to another leave taking as the dog days of summer dwindle to the cooler September and their love of a summer becomes a memory in this beautifully told novel.

Yacht Sybarite or, a Minor Bibliographic Digression

Caught by the Nose:
How fortunate for the youth of today to have access to astounding online collections of printed materials. I think of my youth in Montreal and how difficult it was to access books. It was a world of closed stacks and memberships. Much time and effort was required to look at a book--if you could even find the desired volume--and many of the books, due to age, scarcity, and crumbling condition, were for in-library use only. Oh to have been able to browse the Internet Archive when young, and discover scarce books in presentable scans of the original pages and to have been able to read them on a portable device when and wherever I desired. I may have lost myself in such examples as these random choices: Isabella Bird's Among the Tibetans , Ford Madox Ford's The Brown Owl , Abydos by W. M. Flinders Petrie, or The Ipane by R. B. Bontine Cunninghame Graham,

As it was, I supplemented my library use with second-hand bookshops and all the major and minor booksales throughout the city. I have many memories of attending sales, and one in particular comes to mind.

In the fall of 1978, I arrived early one Saturday morning for the annual booksale at The Fraser-Hickson Institute, but a few minutes' walk from where I lived. One hour and a half later, 9 a.m., the doors opened and the few of us early bookscouts, pickers and book dealers led the now long line of book fanciers on up to the auditorium. My purchases were always modest. A small box or two depending on the combination of my financial situation, the selection of books for sale, how quick my eye to hand coordination was that morning, and how willing I was to jostle and scrape in the mild scrum that was to ensue. Luck sometimes helped. The book that holds this sale in memory is one which I picked up for a lowly 10 cents, a copy of Virgil's Aeneid translated by John Dryden. It was an edition issued by George Routledge & Sons, full red pebbled leather, raised bands, gilt titles and ruling, marbled endpapers and gilt all round. The half-title and title page were headed "Sir John Lubbock's Hundred Books." A short introduction was initialed "H.M." and dated March 1884. At the time I knew nothing of Lubbock and his list of books. Hadn't a clue who "H. M." was and why they were hiding behind their initials in so old fashioned a way. Since the title page and its verso lacked a publication date, I had to judge the 1884 as an unreliable witness. Finding information in 1978 entailed a bit more time and legwork than today. Reference books had to be sought out. Wooden library catalogue drawers had to be consulted, the stiff cards perused, their corners yellowed by many a thumb and finger. Requesting closed stacks materials was often greeted with heavy sighs, raised eyebrows, head scratching and the occasional "hmm, yes........". "The Pleasures of Reading by Sir John Lubbock, hmm, yes......". "The Life of Sir John Lubbock by Horace G. Hutchinson.......hmm, yes...". Dust had to be disturbed.

It was fairly easy to find out about Sir John Lubbock, one of those extraordinary polymaths of the Victorian period, but to discover bibliographic information about this particular edition of Virgil's Aeneid, was however, a bit more of a challenge. More dust to be disturbed. Consulting those large brown cloth volumes of Bookman's Price Index was painfully tedious and slow, but occasionally they offered up some useful information. Auction records, bibliographies, and periodicals were not as easily available. I seem to remember spending a few moments of time on trying to pin a date on this relatively unimportant volume, a finely bound issue of a standard text in a series initiated by Lubbock's then, influential list. As it was, Lubbock didn't publicly conceive his list of hundred best books until the autumn of 1885, so the 1884 introduction by "H.M." was no doubt from a previous Routledge edition, and brought out to get a piece of the action swirling around the controversy of Sir John Lubbock's One Hundred Books. [An essay on the subject can be found here.] I figured it was published around the 1890s to the turn of the century and left it at that.

The introduction was in fact written by Henry Morley, a prolific editor and writer perhaps best remembered, if at all, for editing the "English Authors" series. He also edited a series of texts called "Morley's Universal Library" which were issued by George Routledge and Sons. Morley must have known Lubbock, or at least, known of him. The London literary milieu must have been fairly tight at that time. However, since Morley died in 1894, it is likely he wasn't alive when the publishers availed themselves of one series introduction for another. Posthumous recompense was unlikely at the time. Publishers had to be versatile, innovative and thrifty; they had to know how to cut their coat according to their cloth to use an old phrase.

John Dryden's publisher, Jacob Tonson, was fairly innovative. Dryden's translations of the works of Virgil were published by Jacob Tonson in July 1697 when Dryden was 66 years of age. The first edition sold out in a few months. Henry Morley's short introduction is very good and he provides a brief bibliographic backcloth:


In modern form there was only John Ogilby's very poor translation of the works of Virgil, which had been first published in 1649, and reproduced in 1654 as a handsome folio, adorned with plates by Hollar, Faithorne, and Lambert. Jacob Tonson, Dryden's publisher used for his edition Ogilby's plates touched up, and published Dryden's Virgil by subscription, engraving under successive plates the arms of one hundred and one subscribers of five guineas, who contributed towards the adornment of the work with engravings; besides these, there were heraldic honours in part payment. The profit from the work to Dryden himself seems to have been about twelve hundred pounds. A generation later Pope earned very much more by translating Homer. As Dryden would not make friendly advance to King William, by dedicating the translation to him, Jacob Tonson, as publisher, did his loyal best by directing that, in retouching the plates, the Roman nose of the pious "Aeneas" should be made to conform to that of William III. And so Tonson hoped that His Majesty might be caught by the nose.

Whether William III was "caught by the nose" is a question for scholars, but I was certainly caught by the nose in that the smell of this volume still infuses me with the initial pleasures of reading Dryden's translation, and makes me remember how his anastrophic sentences and heightened style, were, and still perhaps are, subtle influences upon the way I write a sentence. For quite awhile I carried this volume around with me. Not the most practical edition for such reading. How much more practical are the portable devices to read ebooks today. Not just the Aeneid, but a complete library could be had in one slim device. I can imagine that the batsmen responsible for Napoleon's travelling library might have eased their weary bones with dreams of such magic.

Diversional Voyage:
There is one peculiarity to this 10 cent volume. In the red leather of the upper board are the words "Yacht Sybarite" blind-stamped in gilt. I didn't know what the words signified. Strangely, in my ignorance, it struck me at the time as some kind of Latin phrase. The thought that the book might have been from a collection that once found a home on a yacht called Sybarite occurred to me but to pursue such a tangent seemed as darkly unpromising as Childe Roland's seeking out the Dark Tower. While the gilt letters of 'Yacht Sybarite' figuratively faded from my conscious mind, I went on to enjoy Virgil's narrative and Dryden's vigorous and influential style.

I had quite forgotten about the gilt inscription on the upper board, until this past week, when, doing some casual research related to George Jay Gould, I came across a reference to a yacht named Sybarite. I remembered the book and wondered if there could be a possible connection.

George Jay Gould was the son of Jay Gould, and he inherited much from his father, including the steam yacht, Atalanta, originally built for his father and launched in Philadelphia in 1883. The New York Times reported in July 1900 that George Jay Gould was selling The Atalanta to the Government of Columbia where it would be converted into a gunboat. It was later revealed that the South American country was in fact, Venezuela. So, George Jay Gould, an active member of The Atlantic Yachting Club during a period that was a golden age of yachting--he was their Commodore in the 1890s--was in the market for a new steam yacht.

Almost one year later, June 1901, the New York Times reported the he had purchased a 924 ton steam yacht with a water-line measurement of 220 feet. It was originally built for Lord Ashburton in 1893 and named Venetia. Lord Ashburton sold it but a few years later in 1897 to Whitaker Wright. The New York Times mentioned that Wright had renamed it the Sybarite. It was in London, in December 1900, that Whitaker Wright's financial empire collapsed and he was first accused of misuse of investment money. A good overview of the scandal can be found here. His sale of the Sybarite to Gould six months later is telling.

[A few odd facts: George Gould's daughter, Edith Gould, was born on the Sybarite in 1901. George Gould's wife, the former Edith M. Kingdon, died in 1921 of a heart attack on the golf course of their estate in Lakewood, New Jersey. Doctors discovered she had used a rubber body suit from neck to ankle to maintain her figure. Since George married his mistress not long after and acknowledged his illegitmate children, one wonders at the pressures Mrs. Gould suffered. And then George Jay Gould died of pnemonia on May 16, 1923 on the Riviera after having visited the tomb of Tutankhamun and contracted a fever. This no doubt helped to fuel the concept of the Mummy's curse since Lord Carnarvon had died on April 5, 1923 in Cairo. For all I know, George Gould could have been reading this very copy while visiting Egypt in 1923. It would make for good dinner conversation at least.]

So, from these few scraps of information from very casual research, I could possibly conclude that this volume of Virgil's Aeneid, was part of the library aboard the yacht Sybarite, a collection that probably contained the complete Hundred Best Books as listed by Sir John Lubbock, all bound in uniform red leather with gilt edges all round, and all with the blind-stamped gilt words on the upper board, "Yacht Sybarite." It seems likely, considering Wright's proclivity to excess that it was he who ordered such a collection for his yacht, though I can't rule out the possibility that the books came with the ship and Wright had them blind-stamped in gilt to show ownership.

The answer to the question of how the volume ended up in a library sale in Montreal in 1978 seems to live in the realm of speculation. Books have lives of their own. Most outlive us. They can pass through many hands and reside on many shelves in their lifetime. This Aeneid is an orphan in a way, a stray from a larger collection. More the rule than the exception since so many book collections are sold off at some time and dispersed among various owners. Most likely, when the Sybarite was sold or broken up, the library too was broken up and auctioned off. Or perhaps the collection was passed down through the family. Perhaps there is a descendant of George J. Gould who this very day is sitting in their library wondering where that hundredth volume in that collection had gone and how. Perhaps it was a guest who availed themselves of the library for some bedtime reading and their servant inadvertently packed the volume in the luggage upon leaving. Perhaps it was with George J. Gould as he passed away in the Riviera, and was misplaced in the aftermath of his death. Any manner of stories could be conjured up. Any one of them as likely as the next.

An ebook reading device will never enjoy a long and diverse provenance like that of old bound volumes, but these devices allow us to connect with books that do have interesting backgrounds. To be able to peruse old library volumes from the comfort of our homes is an extraordinary accomplishment. Library stamps, librarian's pencil annotations and call numbers, creases, foxing, markings in the text and marginalia are revelations of the books character. I can see how many will find ebook devices perfect for reading the latest bestseller, but I tend to see them as devices to explore the closed stacks of great libraries.

Considering the death of George J. Gould, perhaps a little archaeology concerning Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon.

Making an Elephant: Writing From Within by Graham Swift

Making an Elephant: Writing From Within by Graham Swift (Random House of Canada, 2009) 401pp.: ill.

I clearly remember first coming across Graham Swift: it was a Montreal Bookshop, early 1984, a damp winter day. A stack of books at my feet as if brought in by the tide and I were at the seaside, and on top, Waterland (Heinemann, 1983). The dustwrapper cover image was very striking and certainly made me pick it up, while the back panel of the dustwrapper was an expanse of black water-beaded mystery. The picture on the rear flap revealed a young author seemingly with an expression of having seen someone in the distance and wondering whether to proceed or change direction. I read, with a slight feeling of frustration of not having heard of him, that it was not his first book, but his fourth.

The confidence of the plain back panel was impressive.

After reading the flap cover, the first lines, and glancing here and there, I bought the book--without a blurb in sight. As I hurried to the metro station where no doubt Bowie's Let's Dance or The Police's Every Breath You Take penned by Sting, emanated from the little shops trying to catch commuters as they passed, I was fueled with that sense of excitement of having come across a new author, a new voice; and each time a new book by Graham Swift was issued, that initial sense of excitement was recalled like the scent of sand and salt water. And so it did when I heard that Graham Swift had a new book out, Making an Elephant: Writing from Within, a collection of non-fiction pieces.

There is an alternating flow, or tidal rhythm within the structure of this collection. The tide is out, and the book opens with childhood memories, then moves on to the story of his becoming a writer while in Greece ostensibly working on his graduate degree. Then the tide rolls in and we are provided with memories of good literary friends and occasions in the public domain: there is the Booker Prize evening; an interview by Patrick McGrath concerning Waterland; Swift's interview with Kazuo Ishiguro, and with Caryl Phillips; an interesting long piece about seeking out Jiri Wolf in Prague; and then his experiences of the filming of Waterland where a good writer friend of his who had experience in the film business told him he liked movie people, "They stab you in the front." The tide shifts out and we are back in the very personal with a memoir of his father which gives the title to the collection; then a selection of his poetry and an interesting insight before we find the tide coming in and we have his short piece about Salman Rushdie coming to visit, followed by a short piece of journalism about reading aloud, and a longer lecture on the spirit of place in fiction, specifically the Fens (Waterland), the West Country (Ever After) and the Garden of England, Kent (Last Orders). There is a poignant memoir of fly fishing with Ted Hughes, his piscatorial acquaintance on the Torridge River in Devon, and then another piece about film, this time Fred Schepisi and his take on Last Orders. The tide shifts out again and we have an unusual essay concerning the local history of Wandsworth and an interview with himself concerning his methods of writing. It is rounded off by his introduction to a collection of essays of Montaigne, a favourite of Swift and appropriate, for after finishing Making an Elephant: Writing from Within, I have a greater sense of the man, the writer, and his world.

All things Graham Swift at the Guardian.