Three Books
When I was nine, my father built a large bookcase that stretched from the smooth cement floor to just below a crossbeam supporting our rafters. You could say that the Palm house was held up by all the knowledge stored on that bookcase. Over 500 titles stood proudly on its shelves. If they were particularly large and cumbersome, they knelt pages down and spines up with their fat, attractive corners silently pleading to be grasped and opened.
Even then, I saw myself living out my days in some apartment filled with books: leather bound journals featuring my own adventures, novels that should have been read by everyone but were not, volumes of poetry in original languages, and dusty histories with photos of the author on the back of a fraying, half-torn paper cover. Scattered throughout the apartment would be all the books my father had passed onto me from his own exquisite bookcase.
Two weeks ago I arrived home to Brasil to help my parents move back to the States permanently. One of my first assignments was to help Dad sort all his books for selling. We worked quickly, spreading the books out in neat rows with their pages down on the floor and their spines facing upwards. Histories and biographies took up two rows, literature took one, and theology two more. The rest were put in short hodgepodge rows to the side. I kept thick rubber flip-flops beneath my knees to ease the task. Dad and I talked back and forth as we set up the rows.
"Why did this guy spend his entire life writing about one president? Seems pretty pointless," I said.
"He was a great historian. It's an important work, even if it is kind of boring," Dad said, handing me more books.
"Ooooh, the Tom Wolfe book."
"That was a good book."
"Yeah." I paused to examine some of the titles he was giving me and could not help smiling. "Do you think you and Mom had enough books on marriage?"
"We wanted to do a good job," he said.
The week of selling that followed barely made a dent in the book room. It looked as full as ever. We loaded the remaining volumes into boxes and barrels, and left them in the library for sorting. I had always hoped to inherit a hundred or so volumes, maybe a little less, but now I was leaving with nothing. I had to do something. Before all the boxes were closed, I managed to save three books for myself: Darkness Visible by William Styron, Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Francis Barbery.
I have reasons for saving each book, of course. Darkness Visible is a book I've quote extensively in my journals because of Styron's powerful descriptions of his near suicidal depression and eventual recovery. This past fall, when the darkness of melancholy came on so strongly, reading the story of someone else's struggle helped more than any of the answers people tried to give me. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, with its witty and cynical descriptions of life in 1960's California, has inspired me more than once. Didion and I do not think alike, which is why I like reading her. The Elegance of the Hedgehog caught my eye in a bookstore during a high school shopping trip. It was love at first paragraph, and my friends came back to find me still poring over the novel hours after they had left the bookstore to continue shopping. Later on, I bought the book for Dad as a Christmas gift.
It says something about me, I suppose, that instead of reaching for all those theology books I chose books by three secular writers. Why, when I could have chosen from all sorts of books on good Christian marriage, a pile of Christian biographies, and devotionals on different books of the Bible, why then did I choose three books that have nothing to do with my faith? Why did I choose books that I have already read, when it was wiser to choose something I had not read and therefore would learn more from? Why did I follow impulse instead of logic?
The reason, I think, is because of my fondness for the familiar. When given the choice of something new or something old, I choose what is old and well tested. Styron, Didion, and Barbery have helped me think creatively over the years, and when I have that apartment filled with books I want them there with me. I think I might give them their own shelf, too. That way, if anyone ever asks, I can smile and say, "Well, my Dad had this bookcase...
Even then, I saw myself living out my days in some apartment filled with books: leather bound journals featuring my own adventures, novels that should have been read by everyone but were not, volumes of poetry in original languages, and dusty histories with photos of the author on the back of a fraying, half-torn paper cover. Scattered throughout the apartment would be all the books my father had passed onto me from his own exquisite bookcase.
Two weeks ago I arrived home to Brasil to help my parents move back to the States permanently. One of my first assignments was to help Dad sort all his books for selling. We worked quickly, spreading the books out in neat rows with their pages down on the floor and their spines facing upwards. Histories and biographies took up two rows, literature took one, and theology two more. The rest were put in short hodgepodge rows to the side. I kept thick rubber flip-flops beneath my knees to ease the task. Dad and I talked back and forth as we set up the rows.
"Why did this guy spend his entire life writing about one president? Seems pretty pointless," I said.
"He was a great historian. It's an important work, even if it is kind of boring," Dad said, handing me more books.
"Ooooh, the Tom Wolfe book."
"That was a good book."
"Yeah." I paused to examine some of the titles he was giving me and could not help smiling. "Do you think you and Mom had enough books on marriage?"
"We wanted to do a good job," he said.
The week of selling that followed barely made a dent in the book room. It looked as full as ever. We loaded the remaining volumes into boxes and barrels, and left them in the library for sorting. I had always hoped to inherit a hundred or so volumes, maybe a little less, but now I was leaving with nothing. I had to do something. Before all the boxes were closed, I managed to save three books for myself: Darkness Visible by William Styron, Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Francis Barbery.
I have reasons for saving each book, of course. Darkness Visible is a book I've quote extensively in my journals because of Styron's powerful descriptions of his near suicidal depression and eventual recovery. This past fall, when the darkness of melancholy came on so strongly, reading the story of someone else's struggle helped more than any of the answers people tried to give me. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, with its witty and cynical descriptions of life in 1960's California, has inspired me more than once. Didion and I do not think alike, which is why I like reading her. The Elegance of the Hedgehog caught my eye in a bookstore during a high school shopping trip. It was love at first paragraph, and my friends came back to find me still poring over the novel hours after they had left the bookstore to continue shopping. Later on, I bought the book for Dad as a Christmas gift.
It says something about me, I suppose, that instead of reaching for all those theology books I chose books by three secular writers. Why, when I could have chosen from all sorts of books on good Christian marriage, a pile of Christian biographies, and devotionals on different books of the Bible, why then did I choose three books that have nothing to do with my faith? Why did I choose books that I have already read, when it was wiser to choose something I had not read and therefore would learn more from? Why did I follow impulse instead of logic?
The reason, I think, is because of my fondness for the familiar. When given the choice of something new or something old, I choose what is old and well tested. Styron, Didion, and Barbery have helped me think creatively over the years, and when I have that apartment filled with books I want them there with me. I think I might give them their own shelf, too. That way, if anyone ever asks, I can smile and say, "Well, my Dad had this bookcase...
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