Today I was frustrated that I was not able to buy a book online, for a mere $5.99, because I don't have a Kindle (e-book reader), and that was the only form in which it was published. Had I bought the book I would have supported the online blog 'community' that was promoting it, which would have been a bonus, but still I don't have a Kindle and don't really want one (yet).
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When I get the camera working I will take a photo
of the real thing in my hot little hands |
As I write this I am reading - at intervals - Kafka's classic
The Trial, a present from my husband in beautiful hard-back Collector's Edition given to me yesterday, for no particular reason, other than to say, in a way, I love you. I'd just finished reading a very different, 2013 book (another gift from my husband) written by an African American woman, and so my husband knew I was in need of a new book. Most of the books I own he has bought for me, being intimately aware of my ever-expanding wishlist.
Beginning this classic that I have wanted to read for some time, feels like an experience
more than reading, in a sense. The silky smooth cover caresses my finger tips like the finest fabric; the deep red cover and place-marker ribbon evokes an older time and depth of experience that feels transportive, taking me in body and mind back to Kafka, walking and reading through the blood on the tracks of time since he published his powerful, prophetic work in 1925.
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Even my (average) photo of the book proves the point that
the value is more in the touching, than the seeing. |
We don't have much spare cash to spend on books, but nor do I want to read Kafka cheaply. Indeed the e-editions of these classics are free. I want to read the letters richly on the same stuff (paper) on which they were written by the great man himself. To let this beautiful book, that fits so neatly into my small hands, almost as a prayer book would, if I ever held one, is to experience a book powered by prose, as Kafka intended.
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| Powered by prose |
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