A longer WORK today (maybe the longest ever). But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that the Clamor is full of bookworms who will appreciate Calvino’s rumination on the infinite reading list.
WORK
In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven’t Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn’t Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You’ll Wait Till They’re Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:
- the Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages,
- the Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
- the Books Dealing With Something You’re Working On At The Moment,
- the Books You Want To Own So They’ll Be Handy Just In Case,
- the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
- the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
- the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.
Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time To Reread and the Books You’ve Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It’s Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.
With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author Or Subject Appeals To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Not New (for you or in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new).
—Italo Calvino
—from If on a winter’s night a traveler
WORD(S)
finical /FIN-ə-kəl/ adjective. Overly particular; excessively fastidious. In architecture: inordinately delicate and detailed. Likely derived from fine, possibly from Dutch fijnkens (accurately, neatly). See also: foppish, finicky and perjink.
“While he ate, which he did with the finical niceness of an aged and dyspeptic gourmet on the umpteenth course of an imperial banquet, he would glance up at me now and then with a speculative and, so it seemed, drily amused expression.” (John Banville)
“Time was when I was thought entitled to respect. But now, debauched by this Frenchified rascal, they call me rude, surly, a tyrant! It is true that I cannot talk in finical phrases, flatter people with hypocritical praise, or suppress the real feelings of my mind. The scoundrel knows his pitiful advantages, and insults me upon them without ceasing.” (William Godwin)
“Now, the wry Rosenbloom is dead
And his finical carriers tread”
(Wallace Stevens)
“Scrupulous to the last, finical to a fault, that’s Malone, all over.” (Samuel Beckett)
“Now, mark you, I was devilish sharp set. I was in no mood to quibble about trifles: I was not, shall we say, in a finical mood.” (Philip Larkin)
WEB
-
“There are thieves in the archives and we don’t even know it.” → The Unseen Theft of America’s Literary History [Thanks, Reader B.] And this reminded me of the great Criminal podcast episode “Ex Libris”
-
These Are Words Scholars Should No Longer Use to Describe Slavery and the Civil War
-
Keith Houston (you have read Shady Characters, right?) strikes again, this time with the counter-intuitive history of the “%” sign. Hint: it has nothing to do with the digit zero. → Miscellany № 59: the percent sign
-
Because there just aren’t enough covers of songs using the stuff of the songs themselves → [“99 Red Balloons” played with red balloons]
-
Today in 1923, journalist, novelist and short story author Italo Calvino is born in Cuba. Calvino’s range was vast, but he leaned toward the challenging end of the spectrum. Even his most traditional stories have a touch of the fantastic about them, as you would expect from pioneer in metafictions that are sometimes as much puzzle as narrative (this was, after all, the man who said, “most of the books I have written and those I intend to write originate from the thought that it will be impossible for me to write a book of that kind: when I have convinced myself that such a book is completely beyond my capacities of temperament or skill, I sit down and start writing it”). If the names Borges, Beckett and Carroll arouse your interest, Calvino’s work will too. If you’re new to Calvino I recommend (in this order): The Baron in the Trees, Cosmicomics and If on a winter’s night a traveler. And if you haven’t read it yet, the Paris Review “collage” or “oblique interview” is required Calvino-related reading.
WATCH/WITNESS
The “origami inspired” cardboard Lexus that took a team of five designers more than three months to assemble out of 1700+ laser-cut pieces.
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
-
Reader H. on last issue’s WORD: “I could tell you how much I love paraprosdokians, but if I did I’d have to kill you.”
-
Reader W. noticed: “Logocopia! Why have you been hiding this!?” — I keep thinking I’ll find time to fill in all 220+ historical words first…
-
Reader F. shares a follow-up: “The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has responded to the controversy over its ‘translations.’”
I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.
And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.