Inscriptions Found in Used Books
In the dim, paperwhite light of a used bookshop, dust floats past windows unwashed, I suspect, since Hemingway wrote about that fish.
I am looking through volumes of literary criticism previously frowned upon by college students desperate to know things like how far into Joyce’s “Ulysses” they had to read before feeling justified in giving up. Some of these pages have been marked with yellow or pink highlighters. Notes scribbled in margins offer gems like, “This means they had sex.”
Sometimes, I become more interested in the scribbler than the essay. Who was this person? Would we have gotten along? Did this person ever pass a literature exam with interpretations as awful as these? Then I remember my own undergraduate scrawls were no more insightful.
Other times, personal inscriptions inside book covers, from a grandmother to a grandchild, a sister to a sister, an old friend to an old friend, are tender and a little heartbreaking. What was it about the recipient that made this book seem the right gift? Did the recipient ever read it? How did this end up in a used bookstore? I like to think these books were passed along and read again and again, long past anyone caring about their provenance.
I hold one of these books in my hand now, momentarily bringing it back to life. If a book can hope, then this is a good day for this one. Someone, for a moment, cares.
The inscription shown in the photo of this book, pictured above, is something I may never see again. I’m glad I didn’t miss it. It was written by the author to his mother, to whom, a few pages further, he dedicated this work. I showed this to the bookseller, and he smiled, too.
When I got home, I searched for information about the author. He had been a professor at the University of Houston. If he were still around, I would find him and tell him of this discovery. I learned he died in 2004 at age 82.
I didn’t buy the book. On a shelf, near the window, it waits.
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.