Empty Shelves
"The bookcase glows, backlit in crimson light—tall and broad, its shelves empty—"
This singular sentence is all that survives of the fourth draft of something I have been trying to write for a month. Thirty or more pages of my notebook are filled with attempts to articulate the impression I had on leaving the Casa Fernando Pessoa, where said bookcase glows, backlit in crimson light—tall and broad, its shelves empty—the contents on display behind archival glass. The image of the bookcase followed me from Lisbon to a village outside Santarém, where the days burn hot and the breeze doesn't rise till almost nightfall; followed me to the Silver Coast, where, looking out over the flat turquoise mirror of a lagoon, my mind's eye saw the empty shelves, every bit as dominating in memory as they are on exhibition. Why is it that on a hot summer day, looking at the water and wondering how cold it is, and would I maybe like to swim, I should carry the image of a long gone writer's empty bookcase—or the image of the missing books lined up in four long rows, two on either side of the room where the bookcase lives now—denuded—it and the multilingual library safely behind archival glass. Softly lit. More like objects of devotion now than mere books and bookcase.
Not that there is anything mere about books and bookcases. The sight of a bookcase, empty or overflowing, fills me with a sense of wellbeing I can't explain. An empty bookcase is a place that will fill with volumes read, volumes treasured and shared with other readers. It is a place waiting to hold all that you are still to learn and love and cherish, until it is no longer empty but solid—weighty evidence of that with which you feed your mind. A full bookcase is a store of knowledge and inspiration, waiting to slip out into the world every time a new set of hands slides a volume from its place and decides, yes, it's time. How many hours have I spent standing in front of bookcases, carefully examining the titles, reading summaries, author's statements or the opinion of the New York Times? How much time have I spent with a small pile of books, reading first pages, trying to make a decision while leaning against a nine foot tall bookcase in a musty second hand bookstore, or crouched in front of boxes of books at yard sales, or discarded on the street? The same day I visited the Casa Pessoa and became besotted with the bookcase, I rescued Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which had been abandoned next to a garbage bin.
I suppose some of this pondering must be because I am searching for a new home—one for me and my books. As I am picturing Pessoa's empty bookshelves, I am wondering what my next home will be like? And my next bookcase? I know, as I continue house hunting, that a home without books isn't a home—or, rather—it is an incomplete one. If one has books and nothing else, one still has the world and all its wonders right there—lined up alphabetically or arranged by some more occult method. As a time of transition swirls around me, I daydream about arranging my books, and of the book stalls I will visit in the coming year—and the unknown treasures and inspiration that lie ahead.
I love reading your essays. They are so beautiful.