Bookshelves and other thoughts.

It is always dangerous to wake up one morning, and then decide: okay, today I gonna put some order in my bookshelves. Too many stories that, beyond the printed words, have such more tale to tell. In general I can recall where I bought this book, why, where did I open its pages for the first time. Some books are about 20 years old.

Children stories I picked out from my mom's shelves. They actually are the only books she ever owned ever. Thing is, my folks are not book persons, and all I discovered was, so to speak, all by myself. Then, add some more kids book, "grown up "ones without images. They all now stand indisturbed in an old dish cupboard, up there in the attic. I seldom go there anymore, because I am afraid of ferrets (a common thing in old houses), and because seeing myself at 8, 9 year old, back there in our former house, former room is a thing i cannot take.

Then, back to current floor. Most of it, fiction stories, where good and bad books stand together with Russian dictionaries and a Catholic Bible. Here's the main shelf, standing in the middle of the room (thus making some convenient wall) with its Russian litterature (only for decoration, I have a rejection for it since the end of College), Japanese litterature, Tolkien, Stephen King, and some other misc. fictions, Harry Potter included. Also the diary of Anais Nin, and some Simone de Beauvoir. Nicola Sirkis' novels together with Kurt Cobain's diary. Rachel's tears, and gone with the Wind.

Behind this one, in between two doors (my room has three doors, and three windows), lies the comic section (the adventures of Tintin, completed), manga's (the third of 'em all), the Dragonlance serie, and a few DVDs. I am not much of a film person, I think I read more all in all.

And finally, the pristine sanctuary, leaning against the opposite wall: My first Bookshelve, the one my dad made (well actually, all bookshelves are made my dad, but this one was the very first, what a symbol). There lies all the French classics that acompanied my Highschool years. Hugo, Zola, Druon, Sade, Sartre, Pennac, Baudelaire, Proust, Flaubert, Voltaire, Yourcenar, Duras, Celine, Laclos, Labro; Stendhal, writers that had me love the beauty of a written sentence, and also taking the measure of my own limits (pretty limited ^^). Together with them, Auster, Eco, Goethe, Kundera, and later on, Dickens, Bronte, Alcott or Salinger...

And in the bottom of the shelf, a paperback copy of "Da Vinci Code", abandoned on chapter 99, out of boredom, I remember, about 2 years ago. The strange thing is that I can never give a book, or dump it, even if I hated it. Same goes with Sade's 120 journées de Sodome or Hugo's Quatre-Vingt Treize. Or some other books reminding me too painfully of persons I wish I could forget, but can't.

There's a mistery with bookshelves I cannot help but like: like a living memory, it keeps track of all my secrets, desires, or unspeakable thoughts, only know to me, and to those silent pages. A way to remind myself that's where I came from. And most of the time, no one but me know the importance of that "useless stack of faded paper".



And, as usual, the mess is still there: think I'll need another day to tide it up again.