WHILE THE new technical innovations have made books much easier and more convenient to access, and while some of these innovations may even threaten the very future of the physical book as we know it today, they have not yet managed to compromise the element of surprise and sheer delight that an unexpected book find will bring, or replicate in any way the full ‘Book Buying Experience’.
This experience was touched on some years ago by the renowned Irish artist, the late George Campbell, when he was asked the difficult question: “What is art?” He barely hesitated before replying with an incredible confidence and surety:
“Art is when a person walks into a room where there are many paintings and as that person wanders through the room, he or she suddenly stops for no reason at all in front of a painting. It doesn’t matter why the person stops, it doesn’t matter if the painting is good or bad, it doesn’t matter if what the person sees in the painting is what the artist wanted to be seen, it matters that the person stopped…that’s art.”
Similarly when a person walks somewhat aimlessly through a bookshop with the mind, as it were, in neutral, and suddenly out of the blue stops and takes down a book that, too, is art. Where the real magic occurs is when the book surprises and delights the customer, is bought, taken home, read, enjoyed, and becomes an essential part of that person’s cultural armoury and experience.
That is the full ‘Book Buying Experience’ and is still a moment that is untouched by technology and therefore to be cherished.
Recently on a buying trip to our main distributors Argosy I was wandering through the mountains of palettes and shelves full of books selecting two of this, three of that, 10 of the other and the odd 50 of a special one, when suddenly out of the blue I stopped.
Sitting (if that is the word ) on the shelf in front of me was ‘The Book’, solid, strong, comforting, screaming to be picked up and opened. At that moment, the volume Presence - Collected Stories by Arthur Miller entered my life.
The feeling was bizarre and inexplicable. There was a compulsion to drop everything and start reading the book immediately, but before reading a line there was the necessity of enjoying the physicality of the book, its cover, the texture of the paper, the font of the type, the jacket design, the book’s totality.
Although aware of Arthur Miller I had never either seen or read any of his plays. I was also, of course, aware that he had been married to Marilyn Monroe but that had nothing to do with my sudden enthusiasm for the book and the desperate need to read it.
From the moment I began reading the stories I became immersed. To say that the quality of the prose is amazing is an understatement. There is an extreme confidence present here that is rarely achieved by even the most accomplished masters of prose. Even more amazing than the word power though is the breadth and depth of the human experience and the humanity itself that emanates from the pages of the book.
Perhaps the richest aspect of all is Miller’s surprising empathy for and understanding of the characters that people his stories. This is perhaps emulated best in the story Misfits where his ability to sound the depths of a man’s soul and his motivations for living echo the wonderful lines in Seamus Heaney’s poem The Birch Grove:
“ ‘If art teaches us anything’ he says, trumping life
With a quote, ‘it’s that the human condition is private’”
Arthur Miller’s Presence - Collected Stories is a witness to the privacy of our own humanity and a sheer delight and pleasure to read. Without hesitation it is my book of the year.
