Remembrance of Things Past.

Old books are some of my greatest loves. You may often see me trawling through church-run op shops, not only for spice jars and warm winter scarves, but for books, whether well-kept and pristine or abused and tattered. There is an amazing sense of history, of purpose, wrapped up in an old book. Not only the history of the work, of its author, its context, and its place in the world of literature. But also the history of the book itself: where it was published, where it was first bought, by whom, for whom, and how many hands it went through before it ended up on my well-stocked bookshelf.

There is a mystery behind old books, a story completely separate from the story found within. One of my few criminal acts while travelling was to steal a copy of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way from the exchange library at a Stockholm hostel. (I had nothing with which to exchange it.) Not only is this a classic piece of early-twentieth-century French literature, but the book itself has a story, a gift from Rachel to Lucy in December 2006. The book may have changed Rachel's life, but through Lucy it somehow found its way to a small shelf in a Sweden, and then with me throughout Europe and back to Australia.


This is one of the great things about old books - in our modern, consumerist, price-mechanism world, old books appear to have no currency. How is it that I could find a copy of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, one of the classics of contemporary literature, in a Vinnies' store for the princely sum of $1?



And last night, just as I was about to reach the thrilling conclusion, out dropped this note.


What Father Angelo thought of this now-discarded treasure is anyone's guess.

Many of the books I bought while travelling are now lost to me. They were bought as gifts, and although regrettably none of them were inscribed, I did send them away in a box with a hand-written letter. I wonder what might have happened to that letter. I wonder how long they will stay on that bookshelf. I wonder whether anyone will ask their current owner how she came to have so many books, from so many countries she has never visited, in so many languages she has never spoken. And I wonder how much of the story she may tell, and whether her story will be told with sadness, with pain, or even with the memory of joy.