Buddy, we're at the bookstore again
Shelf perusals and lost dog dishes
Once more unto the shelves
I’m in Ottawa and at Black Squirrel Books, which, if you’re from here, means, “Ooh, the good stuff,” and which, if you’re not, I guess means diddly squat.
Listen: there is an honourable place in the used bookstore pantheon for both the completely non-selective, disorganized, “bookhoard-type” used bookstore and its well-curated cousin. The former suggests the possibility that, jumbled in amongst alarmingly dated self-help books from 1989, you might find an otherwise impossible-to-track-down work by your favourite author’s favourite author. (Sadly, you almost never do.) Possibly it also threatens to bury you under a toppled heap of obsolete Encyclopedias Britannica, but this is part of the fun.
The latter promises this: If the bookstore owner has a Philosophy of Book at all sympatico with yours, you are in for a treat. Black Squirrel is one of the latter.
I came in maybe intending to buy a Mary Midgley book if they had any. (They did: Evolution as a Religion.) I then did what I knew I shouldn’t, i.e. investigate the medieval studies, lit crit and kids’ books sections in the basement. Instantaneously I had spent my grocery budget for the week. There were still a few bucks left in the actual book budget, though, so we checked the sci-fi shelves as well. I have now done my part to stimulate the local economy and ask to be excused from further expenses.
Not going to take you through the whole trip alongside me (please visit me for the full Natalie-looks-at-books experience), but here are some tidbits:
I saw this book on the shelf and thought, I swear I’ve heard of that. Who was discussing it in their writing?
I was wracking my brains when suddenly it occurred to me that, while I might or might not have heard something about this book, what I was actually responding to was the fact that the author’s name was two Jane Austen heroes in one.
I took a picture of the back of this book (The Evolution of Medieval Thought by David Knowles)…
…and, as I was looking at the photo just now, I couldn’t recall why. Then I remembered: I really liked the typeface.
I recently presented a paper on C. S. Lewis’s ideas of medieval chivalry at the International Congress for Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo. I did a sort of mediocre job on it and still have a bunch of questions about what I was trying to get at, so I’m ultra-primed to detect books that deal with the topic.
One of Lewis’s letters I poked at when developing a thesis was his friendly reflection on how much he liked Jean Froissart’s Chronicles. I wondered if I should grab a copy while I was here. But this book failed to pass one of the key Do you need to buy this book? thresholds, which are as follows:
Are you sure you don’t already have it (if for yourself)?
Is this a book you need to own, or is it one you could happily borrow from the library?
Do you really want this copy of this edition?
Can you (ethically) get it for less money someplace else?
Are you happy to patronize this bookseller?
Are you sure you couldn’t easily buy it next week, if you wanted to? (I.e. is this an urgent purchase?)
Is it remotely probable that you’ll read this in the next three months? Think about your existing to-read pile.
Do you need this money for eggs?
Froissart fell down at #6.
I also didn’t buy this Gene Wolfe book because we were here for the $8.99 books and this puppy was $30.
Realized I have no idea what Northrop Frye has to say about William Blake, but did not buy this. (If you know what he has to say, post a teaser, please.)
I was intrigued by this…
… and by the fact that it was important to T. S. Eliot. Maybe I was a bit trepidatious about the fact that it purportedly built on The Golden Bough, which to the best of my knowledge has been a big ol’ stumbling block for studies in mythology since its publication (but what do I know). Ultimately I released it back into the wild on the basis of “I probably won’t read this anytime soon.” Nice cover, though.
Also ended up getting some kids’ books and books about kids’ books. These are a weakness for me, partly because I can make the excuse that they’re for my nieces or other kids in my life. If I’m honest, it’s mostly that I enjoy reading them.
Further to this, though, it struck me today that I will soon be married and it is not impossible that I will soon have a child living in my own house who might enjoy a book. My bank account quivers at the thought of this further excuse for book-buying, but besides that, it is an idea sufficient to make little exclamation marks, question marks and hearts dance above one’s head, Looney Toons-style. If you’re the praying sort, please pray for me.
The art of losing, etc.
About three weeks ago, in the moments before I got in the car with my dog to drive down to eastern Pennsylvania (where my fiancé lives), I realized I’d forgotten a few items: Gus’s food dish, Gus’s water bowl, and the navy-blue toiletry bag packed with my phone/headphone chargers and sports watch.
I duly went back inside (with Gus), stuck his food and water dish in a large Ziploc baggie (so I could dump the remaining serving of kibble in too), and scooted upstairs to grab the aforementioned toiletry bag. (I should note that this toiletry bag is identical to two others I have.) I zipped it up with all the expected items safely inside it. Gus was on a leash with me this whole time.
Why this meticulous level of detail? Because I am now facing a mystery and trying not to discount any potential clues. Let’s proceed.
When I got to John’s house, neither dish-baggie nor pouch full of chargers, etc., seemed to be in my car. I immediately concluded that after I’d grabbed the items, I must have placed them down by the front door while I put on my shoes and then forgot to load them in the car. It wouldn’t have been the first time I did something like that. No harm done.
But then: Upon my arrival back home in Ottawa… none of the items were inside my front door. In fact, none of the items were anywhere to be found.
It’s now been well over a week and I’m still no closer to figuring out where these things went. John has been up to visit and has looked in some likely places, as well as peering into the darker recesses in my car, and he’s had no luck either.
This is an inconvenient loss (especially of the sports watch), but much more than that, it’s incredibly mysterious. It’s like the moment I put the items somewhere has been deleted from my memory. I have no idea where they might be.
Under these circumstances (in fact, far sooner), any reasonable Catholic asks St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, for his intercession. I do ask it: St. Anthony, help!
But doing so these past several days also has me reflecting on the strange mercy of a saint whose life in heaven is dedicated (in part, at least) to helping us find lost stuff. Losing a physical item is rarely (never?) a matter of one’s eternal salvation. I also note that God, omniscient and omnipresent as he is, cannot lose anything.
The capacity to misplace an object belongs to us, with our limited knowledge and our being constrained in time and space. In this life only can I misplace a dog dish and have no idea where it might be. Our Lord considers this a sufficient challenge to our existence, and one sufficiently deserving of compassion, that he commissions one of his creatures with the grace to help us with it.
I realize you, reading this, might not be Catholic, or might be a Catholic of the sort who isn’t sure we still ask for saints’ help now the we can all read and drive cars and work on spreadsheets. Either way, I highly recommend the exercise of reflecting on what it means that we, as human beings, can lose objects, and be distressed because of this, and then sometimes find them again. I think it bears an important relationship to what a human being is.
And if I do find that dog dish, etc., you better believe it’ll turn up in a Substack post.
Business arising
Most of you have been with me through some weird posts already. (See: Typewriter metafiction; burrow-drawing activity.) I’m very grateful for your continuing readerly presence.
More importantly, I’m grateful that a young reader (or perhaps young daughter-of-reader) sent along a version of a burrow she’d drawn after reading my post:
The colour is a fantastic upgrade! I hope she enjoyed drawing it as much as I enjoyed receiving it. Keep making wonderful and weird stuff, friends.
Hits du jour
A few things I’ve been enjoying recently:
It’s basically summer (if oddly cold here in Ottawa), which means it is freezer pop season. I consume a frankly troubling quantity of freezies. I highly recommend stocking up on them to avoid dying of heatstroke and/or no-sweet-treat sadness. Just remember that they take a while to freeze: if you want some soon, take a few out of the package and lay them individually in your freezer so they freeze quickly. Top tip!
You might be aware that philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre recently passed away. I pointed out in a note that the audiobook version of his book After Virtue is included in your Audible membership, if you have one, but I just wanted to reiterate that here. On the one hand, I question whether this is the kind of book that makes sense to consume aurally. It’s certainly beautifully written, but it is very dense. I find I have to listen to each chapter two to three times (and who knows if I understand it even then). On the other hand, it is wonderful to think alongside someone in this way while, e.g., gardening or doing dishes. Just be warned that if an argument involving, for instance, a work by Kierkegaard gets going, you may find you want to pause the book and go find some Kierkegaard to review before you continue. But I suppose one always faces this challenge; books are always talking amongst one another. You try to keep up with the conversation.
Last post was about radio plays, and I’ve been enjoying more of them. Most recently, I liked Plaintiff in a Pretty Hat (though… bad title?). It’s a vintage romantic comedy, and while a bit Taming of the Shrew-ish, it’s still a fun hour and a half. Very good rom-com formula—you could easily repurpose it for your own rom-com writing needs, if those are a thing you have.
Let me put in a plug for rhubarb season. If you know, you know, but it seems like so many don’t! I keep running into American transplants going, “What is this fancy celery growing in my yard and why are you insisting I turn it into a pie?” Free your mind. Please your tummy. Cook with some rhubarb.1
That’s all for now, pals.
Also an option, if you don’t like cooking: A stick of rhubarb, a bowl of white sugar—dip and munch. Don’t tell the dentists.