I never read a book in America

I like every kind of book, though I draw the line at the poems of Alexander Pope. I still have fond childhood memories of Biggles, Bulldog Drummond, Sax Rohmer, and Roderic Graeme, whose collected Black Shirt stories I recently re-purchased on Kindle.

I particularly like old books; the language, their archaisms and rhythm. The language demands patience, something easier to say than attain in a world of instant gratification. There’s the initial struggle, like pushing a reluctant door into a dark and dusty room, until the author’s voice takes hold, and you find yourself in the mindscape of earlier centuries, and you become part of it. 

There’s real joy wandering through the world of Fenimore Cooper, the muscular, sometimes over-pious language transcending the limits of film. I remember reading Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond, struggling with it at first, until gradually drifting through deep-hedged lanes, cow parsley and wild roses. 

It was the same with Middlemarch, read when I was seventeen trying to impress my first girlfriend who went on to press Crime and Punishment into my hands, introduce me to Rachmaninov, and then moved on to a boy with better prospects.  

That’s the peculiar things about books, the significant ones at least. You remember who gave or suggested them, and you remember where it was you first read them. Middlemarch and the Brothers Karamazov I read in our freezing cold front parlour—the fire only put on when we had guests. 

I remember reading Romany Rye, Lavengro, and Rookwood in a sunny Uplands flat in Swansea, Joni Mitchel’s Blue playing in the background. 

 

 On a darker note, I remember reading Great Expectations in the middle of a break-up. The Brittany cycling holiday pre-booked and paid for, we cycled some distance apart and I read Great Expecations in a small tent alone. The irony didn’t escape me.  

I still have my James Bond paperbacks, Thunderball of especial significance. School-yard rumours that an obscure newsagent two and half miles away had copies in stock. (In pre-Amazon days you depended on such rumours along with a degree of commitment) After school and through pouring rain I cycled there and returned home late but triumphant, and wet.

Then there's my collection of 'Saint' paperbacks bought in competition with Billy Shaw, the son of our 

local chemist. Boys tend to be completist, and some like to hoard.

 It’s why I can’t get rid of books, even those I may never read again. They each tell a story. 

Then there’re the books bought, but never read; harder to defend perhaps, unless like me you’re quietly convinced you have decades yet to live. Four years ago, I won a vicious bidding war in an auction and returned home with the collected works of Sir Walter Scott—twenty-two beautiful blue leather volumes and all for £32. I stroke them now and again, occasionally open a page at random and admire the quality of the paper or browse several evocative engravings before closing the book with a sigh. One day.

Walter Scott - still to be read

                                               A book at random, Quentin Durward

Gilded pages gleam a pale gold

Published in 1904, these editions boast thin, but pristine white pages and evocative engravings. Book porn. Mea culpa.

At this point, you may be wondering about the title of this piece—I never read a book in America.  You may be tempted to think it was some kind of snide and ill-informed comment on American culture. Far from it. The truth is that my year teaching in America was the culmination of a childhood dream. (Teaching not so much.) The experience of just living there meant I had no time to read! Escapism wasn’t called for. I had escaped. The weekend edition of the New York Times for which you needed some serious weight training and accept grey fingers from the ink, was more than enough.

When I am really old and perhaps blind, I’ll know where my books are shelved, and touch will bring back memories.