30 June 2006
I’m trying to read more. Whenever I’m in Australia I go through long phases of ‘being busy’ when I feel like I don’t read anything more substantial than the Saturday newspaper (usually the entertainment and travel sections only), a gossipy women’s magazine from the stack at my mother’s house or a financial bulletin released by Queensland Treasury. Ironically I often have three or so books that have caught my eye tucked under the bed, or piled up on the bedside table. Most of these have endured some of my night time attention, but soon they begin to gather dust as my interest wavers, eyelids drooping, the book crashing into my chest as I fall asleep before finishing the same page I started the previous night.
My life away from the nine to five grind, where I get lost in the routine of work, cook, clean, sleep and racing against the clock, is a completely different matter. I read to escape the language barriers, the frustration of watching incomprehensible television, and to fill the gaps where I am accustomed to not having time for myself.
It’s different this time though, now I’m reading to be a better writer. Consciously aware of the story structure, the vocabulary, character and setting descriptions, I study as a read. I’m also seeking unfamiliar authors, for while they may be household names, I will not have previously read their books. To this extent Gi and I have both devoured four Dan Brown books since arriving in Italy. I resisted the pull of the ever popular, highly publicised "Da Vinci Code" for a long, long time. But, with the release of the movie splashed across billboards and the internet, I could resist no longer when I spied it in the English section of a brightly lit bookshop in northern Italy. I treated myself, the €12 being no bargain, and soon lost myself in the story, Brown’s storytelling almost turning the pages for you.
Back in Naples we have to my complete joy and (financial) relief discovered a bookshop with a good selection of second hand novels. I would guess that most of these are the cast offs of holidaying Brits, with many of them originally purchased at major bookstore chains. Walking down Via Costantinopli into the historical centre, you turn right at Port’Alba, an imposing city gate built in 1625. This leads you down a short street almost completely occupied by bookshops, selling old books and new, school and university texts, language, history, travel, art and fiction. Each store, its glass windows crudely jammed with enticing volumes, rolls out a number of large display units in which they present the cheaper second hand books. Flicking through, some wrapped up in plastic, others weary from the humidity and dust, you’ll find classics by Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Jonathon Swift and Jane Austen mixed with Ian Flemming’s James Bond epics, Jackie Collins works of sex and scandal, cook books from the 1980’s, old travel guides for Ireland or California, an old battered book about yoga, another on philosophy. All in Italian, yet reminding me of the city council library book sales we would trawl through one weekend a year at home, seeking out treasures that are now packed up, hidden in the darkness of a storage unit.
The bookshop that receives most of my attention is on the left, almost at the end of the street before you leave the shade and burst into the sunshine on Piazza Dante. Up the back, on the top two shelves, so you have to climb the stairs to the staff area to look, is an array of international language titles. Sometimes the French and German novels get mixed up with the English, but I put these aside as I spend time carefully selecting my next target. For €3 I walk out with a new prize, a new friend, and hopefully some new ideas.
At the moment I’m reading ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf, the author’s imagination and prose both inspiring and intimidating. Yesterday I bought ‘The Island Walkers’ by John Bemrose, and am surprised to find myself already halfway through it. I’ve also been reading a second hand book I bought at home years ago, and never had the heart to start. Eric Newby, another of those authors you recognise only by name, first published "On the Shores of the Mediterranean" in 1984. As I read I suspect much of what he and his wife witnessed and experienced as they travelled by land round the Mediterranean hasn’t changed a lot in the subsequent twenty years. Living in Northern Tuscany, before it was wildly fashionable to do so, they actually start their journey in Naples. I was motivated to bring the book with me to Naples, hoping that someone else’s eyes might open mine to something different. It’s slow reading, Newby presents greatly detailed descriptions of the places and significant insight into the history and his cultural assumptions. They are now near the coast in eastern Turkey, the title of the next chapter tells me they’ll soon be in Jerusalem. As I read though, I feel a pull to follow in their footsteps, throw a mattress in the back of an old van as they did, and check the path for changes.
Life is a circle. I still find myself with three books in progress, but with the luxury of time to read, knowing that I will get to the end of all three in time. Some will be devoured like a bride on her wedding night, others will be lingered over as a good red deserves. I’m trying to read more, and it’s working. The once empty bookcase has one shelf of ‘read them’ books. I have more books like Newby’s in a box I sent to myself some five months ago, but alas, the mockery of sea mail means I continue to wait.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to choose carefully and purposefully from the Port’Alba shop, and might even consider doing what I’ve never done before; reading the same book twice. I can only assume it’s a bit like watching a good movie more than once. Different details jump out at you once you become more familiar with the story and its characters.
Read on.
I’m trying to read more. Whenever I’m in Australia I go through long phases of ‘being busy’ when I feel like I don’t read anything more substantial than the Saturday newspaper (usually the entertainment and travel sections only), a gossipy women’s magazine from the stack at my mother’s house or a financial bulletin released by Queensland Treasury. Ironically I often have three or so books that have caught my eye tucked under the bed, or piled up on the bedside table. Most of these have endured some of my night time attention, but soon they begin to gather dust as my interest wavers, eyelids drooping, the book crashing into my chest as I fall asleep before finishing the same page I started the previous night.
My life away from the nine to five grind, where I get lost in the routine of work, cook, clean, sleep and racing against the clock, is a completely different matter. I read to escape the language barriers, the frustration of watching incomprehensible television, and to fill the gaps where I am accustomed to not having time for myself.
It’s different this time though, now I’m reading to be a better writer. Consciously aware of the story structure, the vocabulary, character and setting descriptions, I study as a read. I’m also seeking unfamiliar authors, for while they may be household names, I will not have previously read their books. To this extent Gi and I have both devoured four Dan Brown books since arriving in Italy. I resisted the pull of the ever popular, highly publicised "Da Vinci Code" for a long, long time. But, with the release of the movie splashed across billboards and the internet, I could resist no longer when I spied it in the English section of a brightly lit bookshop in northern Italy. I treated myself, the €12 being no bargain, and soon lost myself in the story, Brown’s storytelling almost turning the pages for you.
Back in Naples we have to my complete joy and (financial) relief discovered a bookshop with a good selection of second hand novels. I would guess that most of these are the cast offs of holidaying Brits, with many of them originally purchased at major bookstore chains. Walking down Via Costantinopli into the historical centre, you turn right at Port’Alba, an imposing city gate built in 1625. This leads you down a short street almost completely occupied by bookshops, selling old books and new, school and university texts, language, history, travel, art and fiction. Each store, its glass windows crudely jammed with enticing volumes, rolls out a number of large display units in which they present the cheaper second hand books. Flicking through, some wrapped up in plastic, others weary from the humidity and dust, you’ll find classics by Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Jonathon Swift and Jane Austen mixed with Ian Flemming’s James Bond epics, Jackie Collins works of sex and scandal, cook books from the 1980’s, old travel guides for Ireland or California, an old battered book about yoga, another on philosophy. All in Italian, yet reminding me of the city council library book sales we would trawl through one weekend a year at home, seeking out treasures that are now packed up, hidden in the darkness of a storage unit.
The bookshop that receives most of my attention is on the left, almost at the end of the street before you leave the shade and burst into the sunshine on Piazza Dante. Up the back, on the top two shelves, so you have to climb the stairs to the staff area to look, is an array of international language titles. Sometimes the French and German novels get mixed up with the English, but I put these aside as I spend time carefully selecting my next target. For €3 I walk out with a new prize, a new friend, and hopefully some new ideas.
At the moment I’m reading ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf, the author’s imagination and prose both inspiring and intimidating. Yesterday I bought ‘The Island Walkers’ by John Bemrose, and am surprised to find myself already halfway through it. I’ve also been reading a second hand book I bought at home years ago, and never had the heart to start. Eric Newby, another of those authors you recognise only by name, first published "On the Shores of the Mediterranean" in 1984. As I read I suspect much of what he and his wife witnessed and experienced as they travelled by land round the Mediterranean hasn’t changed a lot in the subsequent twenty years. Living in Northern Tuscany, before it was wildly fashionable to do so, they actually start their journey in Naples. I was motivated to bring the book with me to Naples, hoping that someone else’s eyes might open mine to something different. It’s slow reading, Newby presents greatly detailed descriptions of the places and significant insight into the history and his cultural assumptions. They are now near the coast in eastern Turkey, the title of the next chapter tells me they’ll soon be in Jerusalem. As I read though, I feel a pull to follow in their footsteps, throw a mattress in the back of an old van as they did, and check the path for changes.
Life is a circle. I still find myself with three books in progress, but with the luxury of time to read, knowing that I will get to the end of all three in time. Some will be devoured like a bride on her wedding night, others will be lingered over as a good red deserves. I’m trying to read more, and it’s working. The once empty bookcase has one shelf of ‘read them’ books. I have more books like Newby’s in a box I sent to myself some five months ago, but alas, the mockery of sea mail means I continue to wait.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to choose carefully and purposefully from the Port’Alba shop, and might even consider doing what I’ve never done before; reading the same book twice. I can only assume it’s a bit like watching a good movie more than once. Different details jump out at you once you become more familiar with the story and its characters.
Read on.
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