{"id":8197,"date":"2011-06-10T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8197"},"modified":"2011-06-08T16:55:33","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T20:55:33","slug":"a-conspiracy-of-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/a-conspiracy-of-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conspiracy of Pages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Etching: “The Hall of Planets,” by Erik Desmazi\u00e8res<\/a>, #5 in a series of eleven illustrating\u00a0 an edition of “The Library of Babel,” by Jorges Luis Borges; click to enlarge]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not in<\/em> them, it only came through<\/em> them, and what came through them was longing. These things — the beauty, the memory of our own past — are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not visited.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(C. S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy?… Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Franz Kafka [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em> (regarding a (fictional?) library of infinite size, in which every room is hexagonal in shape):<\/p>\n

When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proffered dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad… The Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man’s finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jorge Luis Borges, from “The Library of Babel”)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Against the Evidence<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I reach to close each book
\nlying open on my desk, it leaps up
\nto snap at my fingers. My legs
\nwon\u2019t hold me, I must sit down.
\nMy fingers pain me
\nwhere the thick leaves snapped together
\nat my touch.
\nAll my life<\/span>
\nI\u2019ve held books in my hands
\nlike children, carefully turning
\ntheir pages and straightening out
\ntheir creases. I use books
\nalmost apologetically. I believe
\nI often think their thoughts for them.
\nReading, I never know where theirs leave off
\nand mine begin. I am so much alone
\nin the world, I can observe the stars
\nor study the breeze, I can count the steps
\non a stair on the way up or down,
\nand I can look at another human being
\nand get a smile, knowing
\nit is for the sake of politeness.
\nNothing must be said of estrangement
\namong the human race and yet
\nnothing is said at all
\nbecause of that.
\nBut no book will help either.
\nI stroke my desk,
\nits wood so smooth, so patient and still.
\nI set a typewriter on its surface
\nand begin to type
\nto tell myself my troubles.
\nAgainst the evidence, I live by choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(David Ignatow [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Secret Life of Books<\/strong><\/p>\n

They have their stratagems too, though they can’t move.
\nThey know their parts.
\nLike invalids long reconciled
\nTo stillness, they do their work through others.
\nThey have turned the world
\nTo their own account by the twisting of hearts.<\/p>\n

What do they have to say and how do they say it?
\nIn the library
\nAt night, or the sun room with its one
\nCurled thriller by the window, something
\nIs going on,
\nYou may suspect, that you don’t know of. Yet they<\/p>\n

Need you. The time comes when you pick one up,
\nYou who scoff
\nAt determinism, the selfish gene.
\nWhy this one? Look, already the blurb
\nIs drawing in
\nSome further text. The second paragraph<\/p>\n

Calls for an atlas or a gazetteer;
\nThat poem, spare
\nAs a dead leaf’s skeleton, coaxes
\nYour lexicon. Through you they speak
\nAs through the sexes
\nA script is passed that lovers never hear.<\/p>\n

They have you. In the end they have written you,
\nBy the intrusion
\nOf their account of the world, so when
\nYou come to think, to tell, to do,
\nYou’re caught between
\nQuotation marks, your heart’s beat an allusion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stephen Edgar [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

One more item: pulp fiction covers return to frightening, exciting life in the work of Thomas Allen<\/a>, in whom the words artist<\/em> and photographer<\/em> converge in a deliciously non-mutually exclusive way:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

That’s Nina Simone on the soundtrack, singing “I Put a Spell on You”:<\/p>\n

I Put a Spell on You<\/em><\/strong>
\n (by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins; performance by Nina Simone)<\/em><\/p>\n

I put a spell on you
\n‘Cause you’re mine<\/p>\n

You better stop the things you do
\nI ain’t lyin’
\nNo I ain’t lyin’<\/p>\n

You know I can’t stand it
\nYou’re runnin’ around
\nYou know better daddy
\nI can’t stand it ’cause you put me down<\/p>\n

I put a spell on you
\nBecause you’re mine
\nYou’re mine<\/p>\n

[instrumental break]<\/em><\/p>\n

I love ya
\nI love you
\nI love you
\nI love you anyhow
\nAnd I don’t care
\nif you don’t want me
\nI’m yours right now<\/p>\n

You hear me
\nI put a spell on you
\nBecause you’re mine<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are moments in those lyrics, I swear, when it almost sounds like a book — fiction to be sure, pulp or not — is singing to its reader. I can’t stand it ’cause you put me down…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Etching: “The Hall of Planets,” by Erik Desmazi\u00e8res, #5 in a series of eleven illustrating\u00a0 an edition of “The Library of Babel,” by Jorges Luis Borges; click to enlarge] From whiskey river: The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,223,250,5,50,36,251,372],"tags":[1459,1818,1877,1914,2177,2405,2406,2408],"class_list":{"0":"post-8197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-books-as-books","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-reading","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-style-and-craft","15":"tag-jorge-luis-borges","16":"tag-pulp-fiction","17":"tag-franz-kafka","18":"tag-stephen-edgar","19":"tag-c-s-lewis","20":"tag-erik-desmazieres","21":"tag-david-ignatow","22":"tag-thomas-allen","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-28d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}