...like the moon needs poetry...

I loved Sewer, Gas and Electric by Matt Ruff. Apparently there are different titles. I read a library copy eons ago, and liked it so much that when I saw a hardback in a book sale for $1, I was thrilled to snap it up.

It is among the few (less than 150?) books to make the 3,000-mile move with me. I’ve tried once or twice to explain to people about the vast shedding of possessions that I engaged in for the last year. Actually, I’ve been shedding books for the last ten years. At the time I divorced my then-husband, we owned upwards of 7,000 books. I sold or gave away his books after he left. (I also gleefully sold his Led Zeppelin albums!) Then I moved, and got rid of my “not worth keeping” books. I took on the philosophy that “thou shalt not buy books. Thou art public librarian and thou shalt borrow.” OK, I made a few exceptions: any new Jennifer Crusie; any Sheri Tepper paperbacks found for under $3; occasional high-interest pubs that will never be available to circulate. Then I moved again, and again, and again, and again. The collection became well and truly weeded. Meanwhile, my daughter began binge purchasing of manga, plus gifts and reading copies kept squirming into the house, so it is not like we suffered from lack of materials.

Moving to California meant a further purge of the collection. The college reading list stuff that I thought might be useful to my daughter one day—talk about acidity! The so-so paperbacks picked up for plane rides. Some of the 25-odd dictionaries, including the compact OED, given to a close friend. I kept all the Crusie, the Tepper, the Gibson, the Pynchon. Some Woolf, Didion, Austen, Yeats. The absolutely necessary reference, which does include the Bantam-Scribner English Dictionary, the Merck Manual, the dog health handbook. The Bible; the Koran. The children’s books I’ve been lugging since 1965? A Child’s Garden of Verse, A Little Princess, A Wrinkle In Time, Understood Betsy, An Old-fashioned Girl. OK, I am a college-educated middle class, middle-aged white woman. But these are books I love. So I am philosophically opposed to purchasing books (like beer, we only rent them). To me, owning books is fraught with peril. It is a commitment. Why do I need the collected works of Jennifer Crusie? I can tell you I won’t part with one of them willingly, but also, offhand, I can’t remember which one she signed. It matters not. But I did keep Sewer, Gas and Electric.

I remotely wondered for a few years why I hadn’t seen any new books by Matt Ruff. But I was not ever vigilant. Then, in the course of something-or-other, I saw that he had published another book in 2004, for gods sakes. I run, do not stop, to place a reserve on it. Get it in just a few days. Not really ready for it.

If you had told me, “there’s this really great novel about multiple personality disorder”, I probably would have said, “that’s nice” and completely disregarded it. Yeah, I read Sybil in high school. I thought that was as much as I ever wanted to read about MPD. Well, Set This House In Order is about not one but two people with MPD. It is beautiful and haunting and compelling. I now feel about Andy Gage and Penny Driver (and Adam and Sam and Maledicta and Thread and even Gideon) the way I feel about Meg Wallace. I thought about explaining this to a non-reader.

I do not actually understand how anyone can be a non-reader. I understand about terrible childhoods, and parents who are non-readers, lousy teachers, lousy schools; intelIectually, I do get it. But emotionally? Why didn’t the penny drop? I try to open my mind to the idea, but I do not get it. I may have stopped wanting to own as many books as possible. But the worst thing about my new life and commuting by car every day is the lessened time for reading. I cannot turn to audio books, as I am completely incapable of changing disks or tapes (or glasses) while hurtling down the freeway. I can just barely change radio stations. I often wish I could somehow blog while driving. I know my posting rate has slowed to down below crawl. It is not that I don’t have thoughts to posit and share; I don’t have time to spare for typing. How pathetic.

[I have been working on this post for a week. I am starting to think there is also something at work in terms of not having time to post, but thinking WAY too much about posts.]

Books, and their characters, have always been my best friends. There is a librarian poem somewhere that starts, “I have loved a thousand men.” (Well, not exactly. Scary I found that!) I have loved more than 10,000 books. I love Set This House In Order, though it is nothing like my usual reading. The very best books take me both outside and inside myself. There are voices in my head to whom I do and do not listen. Not my own multiple personalities, but mom, dad, siblings, good teachers, bad teachers, bosses, kid, ex-husband, lover. When I read a good book, its characters chime in with the other voices is my head. Sometimes it is a choir, sometimes a wild cocktail party, sometimes a riot. I do not feel that I am giving you a much of a review of Set This House In Order. Or even working out much of my feelings about it.

I am not so sure that it is necessary. The boyfriend recently opined that I should talk more about library issues and worry less about books. I think I will post some of my library thoughts soon; of course, you should not hold your breath, but don’t fall over if I triple last month’s post count, either. But expect more about books!