“In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with
the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have
forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You
Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves,
trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be
awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You
Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read
Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books
Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of
ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If
You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But
Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass
them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There
Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll
Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In
Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's
Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you
come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are
holding out:
the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified,
Now
you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array
that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite
number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the
Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've
Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really
Read Them.”
(Italo Calvino - If on a Winter's Night a Traveler)
*****
Aniversare Italo Calvino - omul care s-a insinuiat in sfantul
pentagon (Boris - Milorad Pavic - Thomas Mann - Wittgenstein/ Borges -
Marguerite Duras) si l-a transformat in hexa-.
Si nici macar nu
i-am aprofundat scriitura; stiu doar bucati de scrieri, citate, idei,
structuri de roman. Insa de fiecare data cand ne intalnim, ii zambesc ca
unei bucati din sufletul meu, iar el imi zambeste ca si cand ar fi ar
fi traversat timpul ca sa il cunoasca.
Exact ca acum, cand imi citesc nebunia cartilor in cuvintele lui.
De cate ori m-ai observat la targuri de carte, in biblioteci si
librarii, Italo Calvino? Si de cate ori nu te-am vazut? De cate ori
ti-am zambit? De cate ori mi-ai soptit in suflet sensuri neauzite? De cate ori mi-ai mangaiat gandurile? Si de cate ori ai fost Tu, cand credeam ca sunt Eu?
