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Finding treasure...
Jan. 20th, 2001 08:37 pm...sort of.
I have found, tucked away in the recesses of this house, about a dozen boxes filled with books, and one box filled with old, reel-to-reel tapes. There is a part of me that realized, over the past five years, that certain items were missing among my possessions, but I never made the connection that they might be still here.
Galina left for Houston today around noon, and I shall take my time exploring the boxes to help dissipate the ensuing depression. Tonight's box unearthed one of a few surviving books that once belonged to my father, J. K. Huysmans Against the Grain, translated by John Howard. I value this book, which is now falling apart with age, precisely because it belonged to my father and is punctuated with annotations made in his small, neat hand.
I do not remember my father well. Of the facts surrounding his relationship with my mother, suffice it to say here that they were divorced when I was an infant. My father, a newspaperman, moved to Florida, while my mother remained in New York. I saw little of him and heard from him only intermittently, by mail.
The last time I saw him, he had traveled to New York to see me, and paid his way by talking to some old cronies at the Daily News, who arranged for him to work at the city desk while he was in town.
During his visit, he took me to the small playground that used to be (or may still be) south of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, near the Elmhurst Hospital on 79th Street, if memory serves. I remember him pushing me on the swings. I remember little else.
Two weeks later, back in Florida, he rose from his desk at the St. Petersburg Times-Independent, fell down in the middle of the city room, and died. The newspaper printed a fine obituary.
His life is almost a total mystery to me. There are a handful of letters written to a little boy that say little other than how fine the weather is in Florida, how he'll always be a Yankee fan (because I was a Yankee fan), and similar items. There are a handful of photos, which likewise tell little of the man. And then there are a handful of books that may, if I can ever find the common thread among them, reveal something of the man that read them.
Take the Huysmans book, for example. I've sat down several times to read it, with no luck. I find little in it that engages me. I am more interested in the annotations. One, inscribed on the back page, in pencil, reads:
Now that I've found the book again, I'll make another attempt to read it. Who knows? Maybe this time, something will click.
Cheers...
I have found, tucked away in the recesses of this house, about a dozen boxes filled with books, and one box filled with old, reel-to-reel tapes. There is a part of me that realized, over the past five years, that certain items were missing among my possessions, but I never made the connection that they might be still here.
Galina left for Houston today around noon, and I shall take my time exploring the boxes to help dissipate the ensuing depression. Tonight's box unearthed one of a few surviving books that once belonged to my father, J. K. Huysmans Against the Grain, translated by John Howard. I value this book, which is now falling apart with age, precisely because it belonged to my father and is punctuated with annotations made in his small, neat hand.
I do not remember my father well. Of the facts surrounding his relationship with my mother, suffice it to say here that they were divorced when I was an infant. My father, a newspaperman, moved to Florida, while my mother remained in New York. I saw little of him and heard from him only intermittently, by mail.
The last time I saw him, he had traveled to New York to see me, and paid his way by talking to some old cronies at the Daily News, who arranged for him to work at the city desk while he was in town.
During his visit, he took me to the small playground that used to be (or may still be) south of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, near the Elmhurst Hospital on 79th Street, if memory serves. I remember him pushing me on the swings. I remember little else.
Two weeks later, back in Florida, he rose from his desk at the St. Petersburg Times-Independent, fell down in the middle of the city room, and died. The newspaper printed a fine obituary.
His life is almost a total mystery to me. There are a handful of letters written to a little boy that say little other than how fine the weather is in Florida, how he'll always be a Yankee fan (because I was a Yankee fan), and similar items. There are a handful of photos, which likewise tell little of the man. And then there are a handful of books that may, if I can ever find the common thread among them, reveal something of the man that read them.
Take the Huysmans book, for example. I've sat down several times to read it, with no luck. I find little in it that engages me. I am more interested in the annotations. One, inscribed on the back page, in pencil, reads:
To be as honest as possible with oneself, and as deceitful as necessary with others is the accomplishment of an artist whose medium of expression is the business of living.It's an interesting formulation, though not necessarily one with which I entirely agree. (That I can not categorically agree or disagree with the statement is interesting in itself.) I wonder, though: were these lines something that occurred to my father as he read the book, or something he had read elsewhere that he found apropos?
Now that I've found the book again, I'll make another attempt to read it. Who knows? Maybe this time, something will click.
Cheers...
