I am currently reading MM Kaye’s The Far Pavilions. Because it is close to 1,000 pages long, and because my reading time these days is relegated to the late evenings, when I’m so sleepy that sitting down to read inevitably leads to drooping eyes and a slipping book, “currently” has been going on for a while. The thick tome, with its cover curled upwards from being held open, has been an integral part of the living room landscape for weeks, alternately on the side table, the sofa, the kitchen counter, and the third step of the staircase up to the bedroom (the first two being within the reach of the pudgy paws of a one and a half year old).
During this time, I’ve had ample opportunity to remember seeing my own mother read the very same book, about 25 years ago. One image in particular stands out in mind: my mother in a low-slung, striped chaise longue on the rough and uneven terrace of a spare, stone house atop a hill in Corsica, France. Her hair is dark, her short sleeved top is brown, maybe reddish, she’s wearing cream-colored capris, and she’s sitting in the shade of the house near a the long wooden table at which we took most of our meals. The image is vivid because of all the other impressions associated with it. A long, timeless series of beach days stretching endlessly ahead of me in the way that summer days—back when they were blissfully unstructured—appeared to me as a child. The hot, dry aroma of thyme and rosemary growing wild on the scraggly Corsican hillsides. The moist coolness of the inside of the house with its sparse and rugged wooden furniture and occasional bats. The wild hogs and ambling donkeys who came to root about the house and knock at the shutters with their snouts and muzzles. The clammy-and-rough feeling of removing a one-piece, sand-filled bathing suit after the last dip of the day in the sea, and the way the bathing suit ends up all rolled up onto itself and inside out and unpleasantly cold against sun-warmed skin. The sparkling turquoise of the Mediterranean waters lapping at the strip of golden beach at the bottom of the hill. I knew nothing of the contents of The Far Pavilions at the time, and in fact they bear no relation to this setting since they take place in 19th century Northern India, but these are my memories of my mother reading this book.
Fast forward to now. Seven-year old K has noticed the book, given how long it’s been sitting around. She’s delighted in the fact that I am using a bookmark of her creation, a white and red laminated strip of paper with her name crookedly spelled out in crayon, affixed to which is a piece of twine strung with five brightly colored plastic beads. She’s asked me “So what is The Far Pavilions about anyway?” She’s noticed that the cover has become warped with use. We are not in a locale with a particularly striking set of sights or smells, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, upon seeing this same tome many years from now, she has a sudden memory of her sister at the age of 20 months, eagerly extending her chubby fingers to try to grasp at the beads that dangle so tantalizingly from the bookmark. Or if she recalls the peaceful quiet of Sunday afternoons with her father on his computer and her mother reading, spending companionable “quiet time” together while the baby naps, and then having tea time all together, with a proper set of china cups and of course some cookies.
Perhaps I’m romanticizing the whole thing, perhaps she won’t have a single memory of it, but there are other books from my past whose physicality brings me back to very specific times and places (for example my stained copy of Watership Down which I read at the age of 11 in a train cutting through the French countryside, and on which I spilled a bottle of apple juice), and because of this I suspect she’ll have similar memories.
But only for a while. For in the age of e-books, the collection of memories associated with a specific copy or edition of a specific title—not the memories of its contents but the memories of the time and place in which one read them, of the person one was at the time—will be moot. I don’t mean to sound like a Luddite here; I’m ready to embrace certain aspects of the whole e-book wave, and it’s entirely possible that my own book will come out as an e-publication. But no one can tell me there isn’t some nostalgia in which to indulge here.
What are some of your own memories associated with your reading of certain books? Do you still have those volumes on your shelves?
Been a while since I read The Far Pavilions… twenty years, perhaps more. But memories, good book memories, you can associate only with a paper book. On a kindle, it’s just a file, a gadget that is cold to touch, unlike the warmth of a book.
The book, much loved, much dog-eared, that is still with me and with not a page torn is One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Good luck with Faint Promise of Rain *fingers crossed*
Thanks for the good wishes, Subhakar! You know, Somehow I have never read One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it’s high on my list, and I intend to read the original in Spanish. That will require a bit more effort, so perhaps for a period in my life when there are fewer demands on my time.
I remember the Far Pavilions and my mother reading it Wasn’t there a movie or a masterpiece theater – or maybe that was the Raj Quartet. In any event – those all merge together in sort of a similar experience. I’ve been reading the Steve Jobs biography for a few months now – same thing (huge book, fall asleep within 2 min). Can’t say it is very romantic, but my kids have noticed it, and asked me who Jobs was. Of course I can’t be totally truthful in my response (i.e. marketing genious, but leave out the asshole part).
I went into The Paperb ack Booksmith in West Haven, Ct with Sarah in a stroller. She was 13 or 14 months old. She looked up at the floor to ceiling rows of books, pointed to shogun by James Clavell and said “Daddy’s book!” Her Dad had been reading this thick novel (while also working on his dissertation) for her whole life! I don’t know if Sarah ever read the book, but it sure made an impression on her.
Mmmmm, reading 100 Years in Spanish! The English translation is so good, every sentence a gem, I always wonder “how do they do that?” But reading it in the original language…I can only imagine that to be a spectacular experience. I don’t like magical realism, but I LOVED this book.
[...] would love to see my book in print, a physical object, with a beautiful glossy cover and satisfyingly papery pages. Something I can bring to dance and [...]