as i see it, the mail brings good as often as bad. the other day it brought a big box, much bigger than i was expecting. the return address told me i knew what was inside. so the size of the box, the great crumples of newspaper packing... the lexington something or other... and the bubble wrap all marked this as precious cargo. and it was... to me.

i've been in the habit of visiting one of my favorite used book sites, plopping in the author and title of one of my favorite books, and seeing what turns up. for the longest time i would get quite a few hits, but the price of the desired particular edition of this book was always way more than i could imagine myself paying... never under a hundred and fifty bucks... and this for a book i've already read half a dozen times... with two copies already on my shelf. so why would i need another... especially such an overpriced other?

the book is wendell berry's A Place on Earth...

it's the current text for aplit... and the apes are largely - though not unanimously - loving it. this is a good thing for me. you know that feeling where you love a book and everyone to whom you recommend it either hates it or (worse) thinks it's just ok? that is my general fate as a book recommender. but here i've got two sections full of hardassed critical high school seniors ("been there, read that, done it all") who seem a bit more than mildly impressed with mr. berry's art. so it's a good feeling... finally, a book that lives up to my hype.

well... a week or so ago i punched the title into the machine and up came an offering for a signed first edition, 1967, at a lower price. a much lower price. the book was described as being in pretty good condition with some wear and tear on the dustjacket. i figured it's too good to be true... but i wanted this book... i wanted it bad... so i ordered it.

but why? i've already got two copies. i'm not much of a rare book collector... certainly won't live to see many of my "first editions" add up to much... never been in it for the money anyway.

but this first edition is significant because it contains about two hundred more pages than present editions. mr. berry performed some radical revisions between this 1967 harcourt edition and the 1983 north point version (the 2000 counterpoint edition has even more changes). i've been hungry for a long time to see the changes made. i'd heard there was more background on the town and the family histories. lots of interesting bits had been removed.

i completely accept the author's right to revise... and i am very happy with the aesthetic outcome of the revisions (though the current counterpoint has some glaring typos)... he made good choices, mostly. but it's very cool to see some of that older, now discarded, material. and i got to show it to the apes (look he touched this book... here's his signature... book as fetish... book as sacred site) and a very kind library lady put a fine mylar cover on the somewhat fragile dustjacket... i know i'm ridiculous...

so that's the big thing for my week... aside from the conclusion of the great emily dickinson indexing massacree... and a pleasant reconnection with an old student... and a happy day of listening to sophs recite emily d. poems... and some great chicken barbecue sandwiches for dinner tonight... and...

tech note: i just recently learned that my mail forms haven't been working. but i fixed them. so now they work. talk to me.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

Henry David Thoreau

talk to me

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