If you like French cinéma, particularly la nouvelle vague, you must have noticed that hardly a film can do without a scene where there is a bookshelf. A bookshelf ranged with books is a symbol of unhurried intellectual comfort of a bourgeois society and is far more important than a mere container of information or an entertainment box - it has become an element of culture. Books in French cinéma have white or yellowish spines (a traditional element of more expensive literary press) but occasionally among them you can spot a dark-spined, short and sturdy volume. It is, no doubt, from the collection ”Bibliothèque de la Pléiade” - the most authoritative and prestigious French literary edition. The collection numbers hundreds of gold-plaited volumes, printed on very thin paper which makes it possible to fit over thousand pages in each one. Seen in Rohmer, mentioned in “Pale Fire”, “La Pléiade” has also become an element of culture. These volumes, some already collectors’ items, are very expensive, with prices anywhere from fifty to two hundred dollars.
I found one in a neat little bookshop in Brooklyn that sells books of quality. I come to it once a few weeks to look for used books that I can’t find anywhere else. Prices are written in pencil on the inner cover and rarely go above ten dollars. On a top shelf, I saw a volume of “Pléiade” - it was a Jean Giono. Somebody wrapped it in a transparent film, there was a library stamp on the first page, but otherwise it was in perfect condition. The inner cover was unmarked - no price. There were only rare, expensive books on the top shelf and I put it back where it stood. Might be fifty dollars, I thought, if not more. Every time I came to the shop I saw it there, standing on the top shelf, unnoticeable to most customers and waiting to be appreciated by some discerning reader. I never owned a single “Pléiade”. I only borrowed them from the university library and treated them as you treat original Picasso paintings. When I saw volumes of “Pléiade” in bookstores in Europe they were on display behind glass, in locked stands. You would need to ask for a key to even hold the book in your hand. And there it stood - right above me, accessible, ready to be bought, my first “Pléiade”. I climbed the ladder, opened it, searched in front, at the back. No price. Don’t even ask, I thought, they didn’t want to leave pencil marks on it. Probably hundred dollars. And I left the shop in dismay.
But the little book was still there, after two months, and I couldn’t hold on any longer. I squeezed it in my hand and walked resolutely to the cashier. A skinny, unshaven youth at the check-out counter took the volume in his hand as I asked him: “How much is it? There’s no price anywhere inside”. He opened it, turned it from side to side. The book was in an unknown language, the author was unheard-of. He tossed it in the air, as if to price it by weight, and, still perplexed, finally said:
- “How about six bucks?”
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25.09.2010 22:37
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Тихо, тихо ползи, Улитка, по склону Фудзи, Вверх, до самых высот!
Хмм, но как проницательно это вы, однако! Да, если вы про последний рассказ, то теперь я вижу: экзотическое место, "цветной" абориген, белый сноб-интеллектуал. Но, клянусь, если и получилось, то несознательно. Меня Моэмом (или как его называют в англоязычных странах, Момом) знающие люди часто корили. А один "незнающий" (в той же Атланте) подошел и спросил: "We know you're Russian. Why do you speak with this ridiculous British accent? Do you think you're better than us?".
рекомендую - коль ты таки решился на публичность, (чему я несказанно рад) - заходить в нашу общалку тут
http://www.reshetoria.ru/obsuzhdeniya/kuluary/
одна из фишек Решетории в том, что там, в Общалке, есть достаточно много интересных и увлекающихся литературой людей - обсуждаются любые темы, не всегда быстро - это не чат, но местный паубличный форум - ьыстрее со всеми познакомишься
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