Your Local Used Book Store
Hm, smell it, there’s that rich, musty odour of antiquity and stockpiled wisdom. A used book store is a historical artifact, and here’s a treasure I found at my local venue.
The Dharma Bums
By Jack Kerouac
First off, if you’re a fan of Kerouac and haven’t read The Dharma Bums, then you’d better get to it—this book is a must read for any fan of the Beat Generation, quintessential Kerouac. But I’m not writing this review for you; I’m writing this is for anyone who has yet to dip their toes in the surf of that West Coast literary movement.
So, The Dharma Bums. The story begins on a freight train rolling out of Los Angeles and concludes on Desolation Peak in Washington state. The narrator and protagonist, Ray Smith (really just a stand-in for Kerouac himself in this semi-autobiographical novel) is on a rambling journey—both physical and philosophical—around America. The core of the story is the relationship Ray has with Japhy, a quasi-Buddha figure who acts as Ray’s mentor.
I can’t really describe the plot because there isn’t one. The narration seems as well planned as the Winchester Mystery House—Ray goes places and stuff happens…the end. (Okay, there’s a bit more to it than that.) But it’s not a tight plot that draws readers to Kerouac, indeed, a complex structure would be antithetical to what this story is all about. Chaos is the point.
It is, however, beautiful, exuberate chaos with flashes of real insight—literary jazz. (God, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to live in Kerouac’s head.) Instead of trying to describe his unique form, I’ll just quote a passage from the book: “ Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swilling wine, spitting, jumping, running—that’s the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the Ma-Wink fallopian virgin warm stars reflecting on the outer channel fluid belly waters.” Freakin’ awesome. I love that stuff. It’s difficult to not get swept up in this magnificent insanity. (I have to wonder if one should read this book stoned. There are probably levels of meaning that I’ve missed.)
As for star sparkles of wisdom, there are poignant lines from this book that I had to record in my own journals. “It all ends in tears, anyway.” Simple and true. “Are we fallen angels who didn’t want to believe that nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved?” Anyway, that should be enough. I’m sure you get the idea.
So, do you want a walk on the wild side? Visit your local used book store and then go hiking with The Dharma Bums.
Cool Places
The King’s Chamber, The Great Pyramid of Khufu, Egypt
The King’s Chamber is at the heart of the pyramid of Khufu (called “Cheops” in the Greek). Khufu is the largest of the three pyramids of Giza and was built over a span of twenty years between 2589 and 2566 B.C. At its centre is the King’s Chamber which once held the remains of the pharaoh for whom the pyramid was named. The chamber is empty now due to treasure hunters who hammered out a passage to it in 820 A.D. (I’m sure the Pharaoh’s Curse haunted them until they died.)
Although the chamber is empty, I’ve always wanted to see it. The chamber itself wasn’t really the attraction for me; it was the idea of standing at the centre of the pyramid that compelled my interest, so as soon as we planned our trip to Egypt, I knew we had to include it in the itinerary.
No one is allowed onto the pyramids, but if you have a ticket to the King’s Chamber, you get to climb a little ways up the side of Khufu. That was an added bonus. I love any tactile connection to the past, so touching those huge blocks of limestone was in itself a thrill. What was weird was that we climbed up the side of the pyramid to the tunnel that had been cleared out by the treasure hunters. The actual entrance, which was once hidden, was still above us. So, we entered the pyramid like thieves in the night. Cool.
Well, not so cool—it was smoking hot, and every step farther into the pyramid got hotter. Surprisingly, the tunnel the thieves cut out of the stone actually met with the original access to the King’s Chamber. Once there, we traded a rough-hewn corridor for a steep ascending passageway that was so low my knees hit my chest as I went up. Sweat dripped and my quads burned. I’m not ashamed to admit that the exertion had me panting. Swearing too, and I had to ask myself, “Did I really pay money to do this?”
After what seemed an interminable amount of duck-walking—my quads hurt so much, I may have actually squawked like a duck—we came to the Grand Corridor and were able to stand upright. It was still unbelievably hot, but standing was a blessing from Amon-Ra. It was so amazing to be in that passageway with the gargantuan stones gutting closer and closer to the high, narrow ceiling. Imagine the herculean task of those ancient builders; imagine the staggering weight of the rock above us. It’s easy to run out of superlatives. At the top of the Gallery, there was a small platform and a very low entrance that we had to crawl through to reach our final destination.
The King’s Chamber is one of those places that challenges your imagination to appreciate. The ceiling is high and the walls are unadorned. The lone sarcophagus is empty. Sweating tourist mill about. On top of it all, the heat is stifling, and all you want to do is get back outside to the…well, hot desert. (“Hot” being a relative term.)
Every other consideration aside, however, if you stop to consider it, you’re stuck by the realization that you are standing deep within an ancient stone structure constructed forty-five hundred years ago, and that sarcophagus you’re touching once held the body of one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs. If that doesn’t fire your imagination, nothing will.
Your Local Used Book Store
Hm, smell it, that rich, musty odour of antiquity and stockpiled wisdom—you’ve got to love a used book store. Here’s treasure I found at my local venue.
The Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka
Published in German in 1915 (its original title was Die Verwandlung), this novella justifies Kafka’s status as a great writer, but be prepared, it’s a strange one.
The first sentence sets the stage: “When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.” Now, this might read like the introduction to a dark fantasy or a creature-feature horror, but it’s nothing like that. Aside from Gregor’s original transformation, the rest of the narrative is rooted in gritty reality. Before his metamorphosis, Gregor was the sole provider for his family, and his meager wage was barely enough for them to survive. Following his metamorphosis, they are faced with a multitude of terrible life decisions.
At a literal level, I found The Metamorphosis an engaging read; Kafka presents us with an examination of the human experience that is neither didactic nor overwrought. Loneliness, love, family, ambition, despair, and prejudice are all tightly woven into a memorable story.
If this was all Kafka achieved with The Metamorphosis it would be more than enough. The novella, however, also delivers a deeper level of metaphor and allegory. Elements of the setting, for example, quietly reflect the circumstances of the characters. I especially liked how the title takes on different meanings as the novella progresses. If you don’t notice these things, it doesn’t lessen the story, but if you catch them, Gregor’s experience has an even greater impact.
The bottom line is that The Metamorphosis is a cool story. It successfully merges the fantastic with the realistic—a difficult thing to do, and if you’re a fan of Magical Realism, you should enjoy this.
It only runs around a hundred pages, and can be read in an evening. Crack the cover. It’s definitely worth the time spent, and your local used book store will appreciate the business.
Cool Places
Deadvlei, Namibia
Deadvlei used to be a shallow pool fed by the Tsauchab river. When the river flooded, the Camel Thorn Trees that grew there thrived. After a change in the climate, however, drought hit the area, and sand dunes cut Deadvlei off from the river. The trees died, and what was left was a white pan of dry, crusty clay. Because the air is so brutally dry, the dying trees did not decompose and are left as a testament to the desert. They’re estimated to be close to 900 years old.
It’s a very cool area that we got to by driving down an expansive, wind-scored, desert valley, which is about as inhospitable as any place on earth can be. On both sides of the valley, mountains of rust coloured sand rise up in magnificently sculpted dunes. The best time to go is early in the morning when the knife-edge crests of the dunes create a stunning contrast of light and shadow. Deadvlei itself is a short hike across low dunes, and the Big Daddy Dune that towers beside it makes an impressive backdrop
Your Local Used Book Store
Hm, smell it, there’s that rich, musty odour of antiquity and stockpiled wisdom. A used book store is a historical artifact. It’s printed hieroglyphics have captured thoughts long since mute on a writer’s tongue. I thrill at row upon row of encapsulated humanity curated by thousands of readers over time and judged worthy of being placed back on a shelf for others to read. Some had been best sellers; some had been banned, some had quietly built a readership over decades.
Holding a book gives you a tactile connection to all the people who read that book before you. Their hands touched those pages. Their breath rolled over those words. I often wonder if I breathe deeply enough, will I inhale some of the moisture they left behind—touch their essence somehow? I love to find a finger smudge or someone’s notes written into the margins of a well-worn book. These things really make a book come alive.
Here’s one review of a treasure I found at my local used book store.
Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death
by Kurt Vonnegut
Buckle in for a crazy ride—Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is guaranteed to be one of the strangest novels you’ll ever read. Now, don’t get the impression this means the narrative is inaccessible, it isn’t; Vonnegut’s style is immediately captivating. From the very first page, you’ll be pulled in, and you’ll stay wrapped in those pages until the story ends.
The cover identifies the book as “a novel,” meaning that it’s fiction, which most of it is, but as Vonnegut tells us in the first paragraph, “All this happened, more or less.” Vonnegut was in Slaughterhouse-Fire during the firebombing of Dresden in 1945; that’s a fact, and this experience in the foundation upon which the novel rests. It is important to remember this as the main character, Billy Pilgrim, ping-pongs through a seemingly disjointed narrative where he travels through time and meets a race of aliens. (Some call this a science fiction story, but that label does not do it justice.) It’s an engaging, often very funny story, with passages you’ll want to write down so you can return to them later. As hilarious and light-hearted as the novel can be, the terrific slaughter that took place in Dresden always hovers in the background.
I’ve never read a novel that had such a powerful, poignant, and unexpected ending. It will turn everything upside down, its impact will stay with you for a long, long time.
Cool Places
Black Rhino Reserve, Damaraland, Namibia
The tracker climbs in beside me on the safari vehicle and rests the stock of his rifle on the floorboard. He’s young. Too young, I think, to be carrying such a firearm. As I stare at the business end of the rifle, our guide—Loud—comments that if we see poachers, “then something needs to be done.” In other African countries we’ve travelled to, we’ve heard rumours that poachers are shot on sight. I assume that’s what Loud means, and I’m a little shocked at the revelation. I came to this reserve in Damaraland to see a Black Rhino. It never occurred to me that I might be in a firefight.
We are driving through a truly inhospitable landscape. There is no water, and the ground is covered with rust-coloured stones that vary in size from cantaloupes to watermelons. They make the drive a bone-shaking torment, and trekking on foot would be disastrous. The parched hills are sprinkled green with a single type of bush, and Loud informs us that not only is its milky sap deadly, but the smoke from its burning branches is also fatal. The Black Rhinoceros, however, thrives on it, so it’s a perfect habitat for the solitary beast we’ve travelled so far to see.
We have just entered a small valley, when one of the trackers calls out, and Loud stops our vehicle. I look down to the ground beside us and see where a patch of open sand has been flattened into a large, round print. It’s going in the opposite direction of us, but a rhino has recently passed this way.
Loud turns our vehicle around—much easier said than done in such a rocky landscape. The trackers now walk on the road beside us, alternately surveying the surrounding hills and then studying the ground. In a very short time, one of them calls out and points ahead. It’s a long ways away, but on the large, sloping hillside before us, we can make out the unmistakable profile of a rhinoceros. It’s reddish-grey, probably due to light reflected from the surrounding rocks, and it blends into the hillside, but there’s no question that we looking at one of the few of these magnificent beasts still left in existence.
We drive a litter farther, then Loud parks the vehicle and informs us that we are going to travel the rest of the distance on foot. On the surface, this sounds somewhat suicidal; Black Rhinos are notoriously aggressive, and their charges are often fatal. They also have highly developed auditory and olfactory senses. We have been assured, however, that they have poor eyesight, so if we approach them downwind, keeping a safe distance between us, we will be safe.
We leave the vehicle and move in single file, inching closer and closer toward the rhino. No one talks above a whisper. At first, my gaze swings between our transportation and the animal on the hillside. The rocks make it difficult to walk, and I’m struck by the thought that if we have to flee a charge, we won’t be able to run, and not all of us will make it back to the vehicle in time.
Once I reconcile myself to our situation, I focus all my attention on the rhino. It might not be able to smell or see us, but we have made enough noise that it turns to stare in our direction. The air becomes suddenly charged. It knows something is out here. The question is: How curious will it become? Will it decide to move closer? Close enough to see us? My breathing quickens, and my heart thumps in my chest.
I look at Loud and the trackers, hoping for some assurance, and they all seem calm. Time stretches, and the rhino appears to lose interest and begins to wander the hillside. I tell myself it’s okay to calm down. Calm down? The animal I’m looking at grows to a weight of 2900 pounds, and it’s almost five feet at the shoulder. Standing out on that forbidding terrain, with such a monstrous creature close by, who could possibly calm down?
I get out my camera and begin to document the encounter. I miss the days of film when I could only spare to take one or two photos and then be pleasantly surprised when I developed the film. With digital, I’ll take fifty pictures and then get bored when I have to sort through them all. Still, it’s the experience that matters the most, so after capturing the rhino in my lens, I let the camera hang at my side and try to capture it in my memory.
With the Black Rhino, holding it in my memory strikes me as a terrible necessity. Will such animals still be around if I want to come back in the future? Black Rhinos are critically endangered, and it is estimated that only 6,500 of them remain on this planet Earth. That seems like a large number, but it’s spread over the entire continent of Africa. Will this be a success story or just another tragic tale of extinction? Their numbers are increasing, so the future looks hopeful. Apart from loss of habitat, the most serious threat they face is poaching. I think again: Should poachers be shot on sight? Balanced against the survival of a species, I have to admit that I wouldn’t argue against it.
Loud waits a long time before signalling that we should return to the safari vehicle. I turn to leave, but then steal one last moment to simply stand and stare, trying to absorb it all. With the sweeping landscape, the elementary colours, and that strange creature in its skin of armour, it is all too much to take in. I take a deep breath and decide that I need to be satisfied for the moment; this is one of those encounters where it’s impossible to get enough. It’s better to touch it lightly and move on. More adventure awaits.
Your Local Used Book Store
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Get a mug of hot chocolate and settle in by the fire for this dystopian classic.
First off, is it worth the read? Definitely—what a great book. I have to admit that I love this story.
For all of its complex issues, Fahrenheit 451 is an easy read. Although, if you wish, you can slow it down and dwell on its social relevance, for Bradbury was prescient in foreseeing what Western culture was to become—and now is. There’s a lot of discussion regarding Orwell’s 1984, a classic to be sure; however, Bradbury’s predictions more accurately describe the root causes of our society’s cultural demise.
Anyway, back to the novel. From the very first page I was captivated, and the story only intensifies after that. The protagonist, Montag, is caught in a life and death struggle with his conscience. He’s an engaging character and captured my sympathy—I cared how his story would end, and that alone was enough to keep me riveted to the page. The other characters in the story are all well-developed and believable. Perhaps the most interesting character is the fire chief Beatty. There are layers of complexity to him that are fascinating.
Bradbury’s use of language is magnificent. I would number the first paragraph of Fahrenheit 451 as one of the most compelling ever written, and he maintains this level of linguistic artistry throughout the entire novel.
“It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see thing blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounding in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.”
Wow, strong stuff.
My only criticism is that I felt the story lost its focus a little near the conclusion. It’s a minor problem and not important enough to change my glowing recommendation of this story.