An old book I found in my favourite bookshop opens a fortuitous link with other writer and the past. First published in Daily Maverick.
Can one ever have enough books? My father never thought so. My mother couldn’t wait to clear the bookshelves in her house after he passed away. I follow my father and his precious memory in this matter. I have a very packed library – mostly of secondhand paperbacks. Books that I can afford to buy, and crucially, books that I cannot wait to read. As a writer, my library is an essential part of my craft. I come back to books that I have had on my shelf for 20 years, or even longer. I flip through the pages to find the exact wording of a barely remembered phrase or idea. I sometimes google of course, but there is deep value in turning the pages. The old sentences and paragraphs coming alive again in memory, showing you things you never expected to rediscover.
Recently I went through a Flaubert phase – as one does. He was certainly eccentric and sometimes even misogynistic, but his prose is captivating and his insights into human character often take us beyond his 19th century male limitations. It was with this in mind that I set out to look for a collection of his letters to help me understand him, his insights and his books better. I came across one at one of my favourite shops: Bookdealers. The owner, Doron Locketz, is an old friend whom I met at his first shop on Rockey St in Yeoville, back in the early 1990s. Doron had the only copy of Flaubert’s letters that I could find in Joburg.
“It’s from Lionel Abrahams’ library,” he told me. He couldn’t quite remember exactly how he had come to possess the precious book, but he thought it had come from the library of Jane Fox, Lionel’s wife. She is a well-known writer and cultural figure who wrote “Letters to Lionel” – a deeply moving tribute to him after his death in 2004.
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