“This is what books should do: Carry a person
and not be carried by him; take the day off his back, not add its own ounces of
paper to his vertebrae.” –Erri De Luca Three Horses, Translated by Michael F. Moore
Three
Horses, the measure of the life of a man.
Let’s hope for long-lived horses.
Doesn't
it distress you to think of books ending up as lighted letters on a computer
screen? What has happened to the smell of old pages, the silky smoothness of
new, the stolen moments under the sheets reading by flashlight?
Writes De
Luca, "I read used books, because fingerprint-smudged and dog-eared pages
are heavier on the eye. Because every book can belong to many lives. Books
should be kept in public places and step out with passersby who'll hold onto
them for a spell. Books should die like people consumed by aches and pains,
infected, drowning off a bridge together with the suicides, poked into a
potbellied stove, torn apart by children to make paper boats. They should die
of anything, in other words, except boredom, as private property condemned to a
life sentence on the shelf."
