a lovely epitaph

i didn't write this. i found it in the new york times this morning, in answer to the question, "what book(s) have been with you and shaped your life that you could never leave behind?" (or something very like that.) this response made me laugh and tear up just a little. it reminds me of my brother gabe, my mom... and of me. here is to the reader harry, and all who are the books.


I Am the Book

There was a time, and it was quite a long time, in which I amassed books. What the wise heads nod are good books, daring books, deep books, great books. I read some, merely read from others. Some entered my bloodstream, others were a bore, but I kept on building my paper empire. Now, the question is not which ones to discard, since I’m the book, complete with spine and gray frontispiece, that will be discarded or remaindered, as the case may be, before very long. (Imagination dead. Imagine.) I once joked to a friend that my goal was to be the best-read skull in the ossuary. To an acquaintance who asked me if I read for pleasure, I replied by asking him if, as a devout Catholic, he prayed for pleasure. Between those extremities I’ve run my course as a reader. Now pious, now insolent; now real, now sham. One day soon, I’ll select the best of my books, and lay them out, for my grave clothes.

— Harry