6500
In honour of the purchase of my 6500th book (incidentally, a folio edition of the absolutely surreal The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien), I hereby present an interesting resource for those who, like me, are occasionally tempted into that dark art of literary analysis.
It is also here that I must introduce Sue. Sue is a very old friend of mine. She has known me longer than I have been a reasoning human being, and is occasionally tickled by that fact. She is deathly afraid of termites, having more books than I, and has a morbid interest in rare diseases. She is the elder sister I never had, and she is the person who spends the most time discussing peculiar literary phenomena with me.
What's unique about her is that she has a singularly fiendish ability to activate the higher analytical centres of my brain. It always begins innocently. "My child, have you a few minutes for your dear old Susan?"
I almost always say yes, especially when taken by surprise. The next line will then be something like, "If Apollo and Dionysus are symbolic opposites, can you think of Hermes as a third point of a triangle?"
My brain struggles for a second or two, shuts down and reboots. This sometimes has spectacular consequences, especially if I have just woken up and tried to stand up. Once in a while it leads to a particularly odd and provocative lecture, either delivered by her to her university literature class or by me to whatever class is unfortunate on the next occasion.
Some of my students will understand this phenomenon, as I have invited her to speak at my school before. Some of her students will understand this even better, as they get her more than once in a row.
Life is richer for people like her. So are bookstores.
It is also here that I must introduce Sue. Sue is a very old friend of mine. She has known me longer than I have been a reasoning human being, and is occasionally tickled by that fact. She is deathly afraid of termites, having more books than I, and has a morbid interest in rare diseases. She is the elder sister I never had, and she is the person who spends the most time discussing peculiar literary phenomena with me.
What's unique about her is that she has a singularly fiendish ability to activate the higher analytical centres of my brain. It always begins innocently. "My child, have you a few minutes for your dear old Susan?"
I almost always say yes, especially when taken by surprise. The next line will then be something like, "If Apollo and Dionysus are symbolic opposites, can you think of Hermes as a third point of a triangle?"
My brain struggles for a second or two, shuts down and reboots. This sometimes has spectacular consequences, especially if I have just woken up and tried to stand up. Once in a while it leads to a particularly odd and provocative lecture, either delivered by her to her university literature class or by me to whatever class is unfortunate on the next occasion.
Some of my students will understand this phenomenon, as I have invited her to speak at my school before. Some of her students will understand this even better, as they get her more than once in a row.
Life is richer for people like her. So are bookstores.
etched with acid at 4:00:00 am
3 Comments:
certainly. i hold her in high esteem since she taught me in university - and besides, i remember most distinctly, one tutorial session for which i arrived early and she chimed,"are you an acs boy? you remind me of someone i've know..."
Wee question: how do you keep track of your books? A ledger? A program? I suspect I'm not far behind you - though the only way I can estimate the number of books I have is by shelf space, and my burgeoning shelves aren't far short of 3500 at a conservative estimate.
Database. But clunky. There aren't many subprofessional ways to keep track of mid-sized personal libraries like mine...
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