Memories Between Pages
These days, as I look around me, it seems everyone is reading on some electronic gadget. That makes me feel sad. What happened to choosing a book and curling into a comfy armchair with it on your lap. You experience the weight of the book. Your fingers gently caress the cover, then the pages as your eyes drink in the words and you digest the tales. There is nothing like that feeling’s. Then when you are done with the book, you hold it lovingly in your hands as you bid it in a reluctant farewell and place back into the bookshelf.
One book that stands out in my mind is Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. I love that book and I read my copy to exhaustion, literally. One day at the library, I came across a copy of it. I checked it out and brought it home. I immediately fell in love with it! It was an older edition and very well made. The paper that it was printed on had turned to an ecru shade in age. The paper was of good quality. It almost felt like an expensive satin duchesse fabric. I caressed each page lovingly. I read the words as slowly as I could. I was reluctant to part with it! The words, the feel, the whole experience gave me so much pleasure. I yearned to own it, but it belonged to the public library. I toyed with the idea of saying I had lost it, but that would have been dishonest. With a heavy heart, I returned it to the library. I was quite friendly with one of the librarians. Months later I told her how very much I had yearned to own that copy. She said they sell many of their books and probably they had sold that one as well. That was about twenty years ago. I still think of that book with longing.
I always had a great love for books. Perhaps it is because from a very early age my father encouraged me to read. I still have the books he bought me then. I cherish them. At the age of eight or nine, I read Great Expectations. I have a very old edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Andersen. I have a book of Russian Folk Tales printed in the USSR that my father gave me when I was small. And Little Women! All old friends that date back to my childhood. So many books, so many old friends! During the Revolution in Iran when we had to leave in a hurry, we packed a container with my parents and our belongings. Of course, my books came along, for who deserts old friends? When I feel lonely and alone, I sit by my bookshelves and visit with them. Sometimes I take one of them out. I curl up on the armchair in the bedroom and gently open the book. “Hello old friend,” I whisper as I start my visit…