Carolyn Piper
Copyright 2001
How many a man has dated a new era in his
life from the reading of a book.
The book exists for us perchance, that will explain our miracles
and reveal
new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere
uttered.
Henry David Thoreau
Most dedicated readers have books that for
one reason or another stick to their ribs and remain friends for
life. Books that they keep close by in a favored spot in a favorite
bookcase --that simply make them feel good knowing they are there.
One of these for me is "A Fine and Private Place" by
Peter S. Beagle.
It has always seemed to me that how, and when, one meets people,
or important things in one's life, composes a part of how we come
to feel about them, and I remember clearly the day, some 20 years
ago, that I stumbled on "Private Place."
It was a gorgeous afternoon in early spring. I was coming off what had seemed like the world's longest pregnancy, followed by an even longer time cooped up at home with a two year old and a newborn. We didn't have much money in those days, and what we had was going into house repairs, as we slowly renovated what had once been a maple sugar-making shack. At one point, we all lived and slept in one small room, as the second story lost its original roof. At another, we were weeks without running water, a time, now blessedly blurred in memory, that coincided with having both boys in diapers. Plumbers and roofers were definitely on our need to have list. Baby sitters were not. I was tired. It seemed in fact, like I had been running in place forever, surrounded by sawdust, dirty dishes, and dirty wash. Into this, on this perfect spring day, walked an angel in the person of a neighbor who offered me a day of free child care. I jumped a mile in the air and landed in the car on the second bounce.
I knew exactly where I would go first.
Have you ever noticed the smell in a bookstore? It's hard to define. It seems full of newness and discovery. Full of things you don't know; redolent of infinite unknown possibility. It's there still today, despite the attached cafes so in fasion, which spew out entirely different fumes. When I entered a small neighborhood bookstore on that long ago day, I stood in the aisle for long minutes just inhaling that delicious aroma. Drunk on it. Slowly coming to life, I began to move through the aisles, and soon, for unknown reasons, for my preference is strongly for non fiction, I found myself in the fantasy section. There at eye level, I spied a book cover that immediately made me smile, and then, laugh out loud.
It showed a man standing with his back to the viewer, holding an out-sized, purple pansy behind him. A fedora adorned his head, and a large raven sat upon his right shoulder, as he faced a fancifully drawn cemetery featuring a mausoleum in the forefront.
Picking it up I turned to the first page and read:
"There are people who give, and there
are people who take.
There are people who create, and people who destroy,
and people who don't give anything and drive the other kinds
crazy. It's born in you, whether you give or take..."
I spent $40 that day. That was a lot more money twenty years ago than it is today, and it was a HUGE amount of money for us then. I don't recall at all what else I bought. I do know I staggered out of the store with full arms-- books, especially paperbacks, being a lot cheaper in those days-- not knowing, to borrow a phrase, when, or if, I would ever return, envisioning, as I did at the time, being chained forevermore to sink and washing machine with one child attached to my leg and another perpetually in arms. Who knew, I rationalized with myself about the money spent, when I might again have a day such as this?
Dumping the package in the car, I slid behind the wheel, and rummaged through my loot, and extracted the pansy carrying man. His name it turned out was Mr Rebeck. He lived in a cemetery in an abandoned mausoleum, was fed by a thieving, wisecracking raven, engaged in long philosophical debates, as well as chess games, with the quick and the dead, and lived in fear of the world outside his self-imposed boundaries.
The author I soon discovered, was a precocious nineteen year old poet of prose, who knew precisely how to create a world of wonder, laced with fear, and sprinkled with the possibility of love both revealed and withheld. He knew the boundaries of magic that I sense lies just beyond our ken. He knew the loneliness of us all, even when surrounded by fast swirling life; the longing for connection to meaning; the desire for belonging and fear of our differences, the happiness of new love; the heartbreak of its inevitable loss by a thousand possible means; the fear of failure; the dread of risk; the whimsy of humor, and, above all, the mystery that encompasses life and its living.
He knew, in short, the kaleidoscope of human life served up in a garden of glowing purple pansies.
Am I waxing too poetic here? Probably, and I wonder at times if the strong connection I feel with this story-- a man hiding from life, while connecting with it's shadows, in the form of those already departed, is not a symbol of how I feel about living in a soundless world--apart from the high notes, apart from what most would call reality, linked with a shadow world, of muted noise, and happenings that defy understanding?
I don't know. I only know that the book, the
story, the words, the whimsy, the questions, the final daring
escape of Mr Rebek from long ingrained fears touch me deeply in
ways I cannot quite articulate, forming "an axe" of
sorts, to quote Kafka, "for the frozen sea inside of us."
And when I look at this book, the cover still makes me laugh.
When I reread it, as I have done many times, I am just as engaged
as I was the first time. And always, always, I recall that fine
spring day, the generosity of a neighbor's rescue, the babyhood
of now grown sons and reflect on the swiftness of time, and the
magical beauty of large purple pansies that are there for our
viewing if we but choose to bring them out from behind our backs.
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