NOTES OF A USED AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK DEALER

#11 August 16, 20001

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Here we investigate, in articles and stories, books as objects, as media, as commodities. Books in circulation like gigantic herds of buffalo, books almost as rare as the dodo. Also books and book people, mint to well-used; stained and torn; comic, romantic, erratic, exotic, informative, astonishing.

Here we wander the stacks, corridors going on and on, rubber heels squeaking against the glass brick floors. Titles and authors beckoning from bindings, handsome or shabby: "Read me," each whispers or shouts according to mood, "Read me now."

1. The Book Trade. An Elmer Conshohocken story, #5, Confidence
2. Book Collecting. A few more technical competence titles, albeit not Nevil Shute
3. Question for your consideration. Invent your own parlor game

Elmer Conshohocken and a Poet Share Half a Glass of Tea and Ponder Where It All Leads.

1.
Elmer Conshohocken is a composite book dealer. His stories are fictional elaborations of real events. He is, perhaps, most famous for his succinct advice. When his eyes cleared after his morning coffee Elmer would frequently announce, "Always check the title, you might be reading the wrong book."

2.
Lank Whitmanesque, the greatest poet born and nurtured in the Ohio Valley since Tecumseh, became elusive in person over his years of increasing success and renown, even as his poetry clarified and became more accessible. Elmer Conshohocken, an old friend, had to buy a $25.00 ticket to get into one of Lank's readings and had to wave a first edition copy of Lank's latest book frantically to get Lank's attention.

So there they were drinking tea and eating cookies at the local cafe when Lank fell into a confessional mood which sounded to Elmer a lot like bragging. "I was the first one in my family to go to college and the first and only one to become an active, practicing poet. My father, Shook, was a small time confidence man running going-out-of-business bookstores up and down the East Coast and the Mid-West. I worked with him as a youngster. Can you imagine how close I came to wasting my talent on banner headlines like "We Lost Our Lease, Every Book Must Be Sold" or "Going Out of Business, Gigantic Colossal Sale of Entire Stock."

The going-out-of-business book business is an offshoot of the more general going-out-of-business-business. Everyone knows that when a merchant falls into desperate circumstances he throws a blow out sale called variously a fire sale, a lost our lease sale, an estate sale, where every item is sold at rock bottom price, and sometimes even lower than that. And every customer is very eager to help by buying up all the good stuff cheaply. In the going-out-of-business scam the announced "sale" is not an act of necessity but a scheme to convince customers to buy cheap goods at their regular prices. You get a value but not the bonanza you anticipated. When a bookstore opens up and immediately places a "Lost Our Lease" banner over the front door, rub your index finger along the side of your nose. Be, that is, a little suspicious. Some going-out-of-business shops go on for years, replacement merchandise coming in the back door at night. One store even changed hands, the new owner shouting in his initial banner: "Under New Management, Still Going Out of Business More Than Ever."

"I don't know," said Elmer, "It might not be all bad. The scammers work just as hard as they would if it were a regular shop. The buyers get fair, if not extravagant, value. Then the competition to get the better goods, the fear that this might be one's last chance at a bargain. The crowds and the action, the roiling. The pleasure of looking into the mouth of the gift horse. It's a little like a village fair, a big colorful to-do."

"I felt I had escaped," confided Lank verging on the distraught, "A Louis Untermeyer poetry reader turned me round, showed me the way out. But now I am not so sure. If you think of the going-out-of-business-business as a metaphor, and you think of metaphors as wildcat oil well speculations, my father had a gusher. When you look at it straight on, unblinkingly, we are all in the going-out-of-business-business, like it or not, conscious of it or not. My poems are really more banners shouting for attention. Don't all of our exchanges have this last chance cachet? Isn't there a scam within the scam? I left the shop but unknowingly took the metaphor with me."

"Metaphors smetaphors," consoled Elmer. "There is another way. Going out of business doesn't mean you have to turn a trick. You can open a going-out-of-business bookstore and have your banner say 'Bargains Galore But Ordinarily Expect to Pay for What You Get."

"I like it," said Lank, "'Expect' and 'get' almost rhyme."

"OK," said Elmer taking a deep thoughtful breath, "All this philosophy is making me dizzy. I am still in business right?" Lank nodded yes. "Right," said Elmer, handing Lank his book opened at the front end paper, "Then kindly inscribe and sign your book for me. In fifty years, if your reputation holds, its price will skyrocket, and I'll be happy to wait."

Note.
Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief who lead a confederacy of tribes against the U.S. government in the period 1811-1812. He is considered a great American rhetorician now but we choose here to treat him as a poet. A bit of Tecumseh advice to the warrior in all of us can be found on the Shawnee web site. See http://www.sunflower.org/~hdqrs.

Note.
There are a lot of Untermeyer books around; he was popular sixty to eighty years ago. See http://continentalbooks.com/books.cgi?bk=7168 for our copy.

Not Nevil Shute But Still Nailing Things Together

You may remember that we promised is Issue #7 to take up the theme of the literature of technical competence again. In the previous article Nevil Shute and Edward Ellsberg were identified as exemplars of the genre, Shute in his novels and Ellsberg in reports of his undersea salvage work.

No way we can keep Daniel Dafoe "The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" out. Once he swims ashore onto the people-empty island and then salvages the tools from his wrecked ship his life is totally dependent upon his technical proficiency. It's a survival story so it doesn't meet the pure love of skill and craft that you get from Shute But there is enough clobbering and digging to keep a Shute affectionado's attention.

You can find a free copy of this book with N.C. Wyeth illustrations on-line at http://www.thegrid.net/fern.canyon/pirates/robinson/crusoe1.htm

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss ((1743-1818), first published in German in 1812. Some critics charge nautical inaccuracies. Survival of a shipwrecked family of Mom and Dad, four sons and two dogs. Free copy on the net at http://www.ccel.org/w/wyss/swiss/ Unfortunately no illustrations.

Richard McKenna. THE SAND PEBBLES, 1962. A novel of an U.S. naval gunboat on Yangtze River patrol in revolutionary China in 1926. An adventure story against historical background. Hero is a machinist with great affection for his steam engine. The arc of the story has him weaned to an equal but tragic affection for human friends and lovers. Made into movie in 1966 by director Robert Wise with Steve McQueen in lead role. The movie overshadowed the book. Richard McKenna (1913-1964) the author served in US Navy for 21 years, 10 in the Far East. His other writing was in science fiction.

Togetherness of Selves, the makings of another parlor game

If we think of an author's name as a tag, we can see that it points in three directions--first his writings, and second his public life, which can be thought of as his persona. The third direction, which with luck is accessible to his biographers, is his actual life. Interestingly these three "selves" can be in various stages of congruence, they can match exactly or take any range of contradictions, or even seem divorced, one from the other, as though belonging to different authors.

Henry Miller appears all of a piece. Life, stories, essays, drawings, persona all come out of the same pot, are part of the same stew.

Check this paradigm against other authors (i.e. Norman Mailer, Paul Auster, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Graves, Philip Roth and so on.) and see how they come out. Catch a good one let me know.

If you share any of this material with others please attribute to Alvin Katz at http://continentalbooks.com

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Take a book to lunch.

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Copyright Alvin Katz 2001