Traveling Softly One Winter's Night: Part 3
November 3rd 2006 01:15
Italo Calvino and William Weaver's version of If On A Winter's Night A Traveler:
In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop pas the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that amongst them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody Has Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:
the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing WIth Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You COuld Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.
Now that you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.
With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author or Subject Appeal To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New Books By Authors Or Subjects Not New (for you or in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and for the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new).
Epiphanie's Edition:
[Reproduce Calvino/Weaver text]
At least you're not in a foreign country, where the sections of the store, it's particular cadences of triumph and defeat remain unavailable to you, obstructed as you are by the language barrier- to derive at this mixture of ups and downs you would need to dedicate a relatively long section of your life buying the Books Which Will Help You Uncover The Mysteries Of Another Language. Fortunately, books can make colourful arrangements in their native environment to distract you from your lack of access to the bookstore's cultures.
In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop pas the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that amongst them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody Has Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing WIth Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You COuld Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.
With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author or Subject Appeal To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New Books By Authors Or Subjects Not New (for you or in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and for the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new).
Epiphanie's Edition:
[Reproduce Calvino/Weaver text]
At least you're not in a foreign country, where the sections of the store, it's particular cadences of triumph and defeat remain unavailable to you, obstructed as you are by the language barrier- to derive at this mixture of ups and downs you would need to dedicate a relatively long section of your life buying the Books Which Will Help You Uncover The Mysteries Of Another Language. Fortunately, books can make colourful arrangements in their native environment to distract you from your lack of access to the bookstore's cultures.
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