The Gentle Solace Of Books

Before I heave a pair of black-plastic trash bins into the back of the Windstar, along with bags of recyclables and other assorted detritus that five people living together under one roof produce, and haul them off to the town dump,  I want to post a new entry.

It is, after all, the beginning of a new week.

There are times when just looking at the television news, hearing a bark of derision from some haughty host, or even reading the news in our little town paper, can be too much. I am depressed beyond the meaning of the word.

Mans inhumanity, (and I include women, for no gender is free of these moral ambiguities) his pride, his arrogance, his apparent ability to have the answer at all times for all things, is a crushing, boorish attitude that leaves me limp with despondency and grief.

There are also the inconsolable stories of horror, like the recent terrible disfigurement of a woman by a drugged chimpanze.  The networks have been unveiling the horror. I'm sorry, though I feel pity and pray for her complete healing, the image of what is left of that poor womans face drives me from the room. I am ashamed to say I cannot bear it.

So, what do I do?

I read.

And in books I find solace and independence of thought.

There are only a few writers of fiction that I pursue with relish. One is a writer of fantasy and sci-fi (I refuse to use that new fangled word bite from the channel of the same name-to wit-"syfy"). Good Lord! Our generation gave comfort to that genre at it's birth! I will not strangle it with a tiny spelling tic!

Gee. I'm really cranky today. Must be the weather or something.

Anyway--where was I? Oh yes. Authors of fiction.

His name is Jack Vance. He is probably crankier then myself, were you to meet him on the street. Although I doubt he goes out much anymore. He is in his nineties and blind. But his stories are the sweeping images that thundering epics are made of. They are diamonds of discovery and emeralds of erudition.

Jack was a sailor during the nineteen-forties and early nineteen-fiftys in the merchant marine and wrote voraciously, willing himself into the realm of those who write a million words a year. His books take you to planets only brought forth in fevered dreams or chemical induced reveries. His hero's are bright, intelligent, and thoughtful to the point of severtiy. And his use of the English language-well, let's just say I always keep a copy of Websters New Word handy.

But don't let that drive you off.

Even if some of the things he describes are fantasmagorical in the least, and undecipherable at the most (which is rare) the way they are described forces you to believe you are there, with him, at that moment of description. I have read and re-read almost everything he has written, "The Dying Earth" series (about our word millions upon millions of years from now that is bathed in the soft pinks and reds of a sun reaching it's last vestiges of power and creeping across the sky, in Jack's words..."like an old man tottering to his bed.") having the most thumb prints and dogears. But the "Lyoneese Trilogy" is right up along there, as is the "Planet of Adventure". 

I heartily endorse a log on the fire, your most comfortable pajamas, a cup of hot lemon tea, some type of non-distracting music in the background and an icy wind hissing snow onto your bedroom window in the dark of winter and one of Jack Vances books. I guarantee your troubles will vanish as quickly as the sun in mid-December.

Another author who takes me away and will me, like no other, to read his books from beginning to end in one eye-ball bending sitting, is E.L Doctorow. I must admit I have not read everything he has written. But I am working on it.

His latest tome is called "Homer and Langley". It's about a blind man and his half (or all, perhaps) insane brother who live on Fifth Avenue in New York city. They reside in wealth and luxury at the beginning of the novel and, over the years-covering pre-World War 1 right up to the present-though they wish to be reclusive and left alone- the world and the real people that live in it cascade into their lives.

Much of Doctorow's work has to do with a ferocious rendering of the past and a glimpse of life as never before envisioned-I think of "Ragtime" or "Billy Bathgate"  as an example. But it is always written with brittle brilliance.

I believe a good movie, or a book should take you somewhere you have never been and lead you home again with words, lines, paragraphs or images, like mental packages neatly wrapped for you to open later.

These two authors do that to me. But there, of course, are many others. A.Conan Doyles razor thin detective S. Holmes rates a place on my bookshelf as well as my non-fiction section which includes a history of the world in several volumes by Will and Ariel Durant. Great reading.

My latest prize from the town library is a visual beauty called "Strange Maps-An Atlas Of Cartographic Curiosities" by a fellow names Frank Jacobs and published by Viking Press. It contains just what the title implies; odd, fascinating maps of odd fascinating places. Picture the map of the earth where the continents have turned into 'oceans' and the oceans into sprawling land masses. For example, where once was America and Canada is now "The North American Ocean" with the "Great Islands" in place of the "Great Lakes". This book is worth a look-see.

Anyway. As you can see, reading and books are far better then vicadin and aprazolam. They produce in me comfort without the "little gray cells" as Agatha Christies detective Peroit would describe it, being shocked with chemicals.

Well. So. I am finished for the morning and the dump awaits for a vigorous assault. 

"Once more into the breach, dear friends. Once more into the breach."

© 2009 George Locke

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