"Books Do Furnish A Room..."

...The title of a novel - part of the 'Dance' series - by the late and wonderful Anthony Powell with reference to a singularly unromantic figure who was reported - presumably by the lass herself for who else but she? - to have remarked that very thought in the very midst of intense carnal congress, the one with the other, in - where else - a library.

He had a point of course, though not probably the one the woman in question most wished or needed to hear at such a moment.

It might have been no more than one of those delaying tactics early feminists used to urge of the man about to 'arrive' (I shall speak no blunter) sooner than what he oughta: think of something other than the matter in hand - something altogether removed from the sexualised scene, in front, beneath or wherever - in order to keep the mind from that fatal 'bee-sting' moment, so rapidly followed by the "Better get some kip, got an early start" closing remarks of the spent fellow, much to the chagrin of the unfulfilled female.

Quite alone in one's library at this hour - free from the distraction of any such 'performance indicators' - one is left to reflect on the nub of the thought: books are indeed a fine furnishment of any room.

The difficulty is that, over time, said furnishings tend to take over the very room itself. Were I to dare to glance over a shoulder I would surely see - for I know having placed them there - several thousands of the things in question. Most are read - many oft re-read - though there are some uncut pages among them. (What is it with me and Dante I ask? He and I ought to be made for each other, yet somehow we've never quite travelled the route from Hell to Paradise together.)

Many years back I did attempt - feeling quite swamped - to rid myself of all but a 'Desert Island Seven'. The finest refinement of literature distilled into a portable supply for an island lifetime. Sadly I could manage no more (or no fewer) than a 'Desert Island Seven Hundred' - simply must have this, couldn't do without that, never read this and jolly well have to...etc., etc.

That failing, since that time I have continued to allow books to arrive, as if coming home where they belong, from many quarters. Gifts clearly - any festal day it is safe and fine indeed to give the Parson a book. Then oddments picked up by serendipitous chance in faded second-hand bookshops (Ezra Pound's 'Guide to Kulchur' being just the latest of a long, long line acquired that way.)

Sought for purchases next - perhaps a recommended title from an accredited source, or new offerings by an author one admires. The latter is more rare as there are few living writers I do admire - not that there are not many who are both alive and admirable, it's just that I prefer to let the judgement of some decades, or of centuries even, settle their lasting repute before committing myself an adherent.

A clear exception - you may find this remarkable though I don't - is Ian Rankin, whose 'Rebus' novels deserve to be and to remain among the very highest echelons of not merely 'detective fiction' but of any literary schema one cares to invent. Raymond Chandler the alpha and Rankin the omega? There are worse ways of viewing the world (I even typoed 'the Wold' which I will, in parenthesis, let stand as apposite.)

Pairings indeed - much as one might arrange a certain lamp in a room nicely to off-set a particular 'throw' by shape, form, substance, purpose, colour, texture et al. - of books is such fun. I would never dream of arranging books on shelves in order of alphabet or subject, it is so much more delightful to let a severe Russian novel sit next to a Japanese treatise on the medieval warrior spirit, or a perfect, perfect, chanced yet so right, neighbouring, that of Carmen Callil's 'Bad Faith' and Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain'.

You must forgive the precision, but there are precisely eighty-one books currently about the Parson's - admittedly large - desk that have been striped down for consumption in the very near future. These are but the most must-do numbers, ranging from the last two volumes of Sartre's 'Roads to Freedom' trilogy to the third in a series of authoritative tomes on the European Middles Ages, or a Yeats' biography to an Englishman's journal of a year spent in modern Siberia.

Too much maybe. In Holy Week all should be set aside for simply the Psalms and the Gospels. And they will be. But come the end of time, come eternity, I do so hope that in our Father's mansion of many rooms He has provided a darn good Library with all the books one could ever wish to read forever and forever Amen.

I do feel rather confident that He has.