Lost Covenant [an open letter to our bookshop customers, March 17th, 2004]

Lost Covenant [an open letter to our bookshop customers, March 17th, 2004]

about books



I met a man the other day. Not a great man perhaps, but at least a very good one, I can tell you. Cyril P. Foley played first class cricket for Cambridge (right-hand bat, right arm slow), fought in the Boer War (Jameson Raid), was a crack shot, enjoyed auto racing, fly-fishing, tennis and golf, went on a serious search for the Ark of the Covenant (the Parker Expedition), spent twenty months in the trenches of France and Salonica without leave during the Great War, liked to play the tables at Monte Carlo, and wrote a wonderful memoir about a world long vanished which is filled with incident while never telling a story about himself that is not at his own expense.

Great men seldom have time to write their memoirs, and good men usually refrain out of modesty, but thankfully there are some of those who have a talent for words and realize they were present when things happened that are worth remembering.

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Greed!

an essay



If I were to suggest that no author should be paid more than, say, $100,000 per book, some readers would actually accept the premise, if not the exact amount. I have spoken to such people. I have listened, not very patiently, to a proposal that great books should be paid a higher advance than lesser books. This was by a literature major who had graduated from Harvard, a renowned local college which has recently lowered its standards. I have even read a proposal that there be a minimum placed on what a publisher can pay per word. This was in a promotional brochure for a proposed “writers union.’

The absurdity of all of these ideas relegated them quickly to oblivion. But nevertheless, they will be proposed again, and again. It is a smallness of mind which is tightly bound to an egocentric view of the universe. It is a verbalization of the thought that if I cannot get such rewards, then no one should have them.

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In the theft of time

about books



The theft of time has always been a primary fascination and pursuit. Beyond my own conceit, the subject is more commonly known as history. But I have always seen the subject both more broadly and more personally than would be accepted by, say, the typical academic.

Usually, pedagogic prejudice does not openly admit its failings and weakness. Needing fortification against the untaught masses who might otherwise question the tattered cloak, the academic will often throw up a screen of minutia and assumed fact and bellow its affected knowledge loudly. ‘Do not look behind the curtain.’ Information is buried in the labyrinth of libraries and ‘off-site’ storage facilities. Few professors are true scholars and anyone who approaches the citadel without first accepting the self-perpetuating rules of academic engagement will be denied entry to the sanctuary of the academy.

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Look…The story told.

Look…The story told.

a short story



Look. I’ll tell you the story. But you have to appreciate the situation first.

You know, I used to say it all the time. People aren’t any better than they have to be. And let’s get this much straight. It’s still true. With most people.

The golden rule was stolen a long time ago and melted down to make pinky rings for crud who like to use other people for sport.

Crud comes in all flavors.

Every guy who gets soft on a gal wants to think she’s better than he is—wants her to be the true thing. But women are no better than men. They have a little less muscle, so they make up for it in other ways.

Your mother was not a saint. She married your father. Isn’t that proof enough? If she hadn’t married him, that would have made her smarter, not better.

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