[ilds] Boris Pasternak's library

[Charles Sligh]

On 6/22/11 9:22 AM, Richard Pine wrote:
>
>         To see: two vols. of the AQ on the shelves of Boris Pasternak.
>
>
Thanks for this photo, Richard.  I wonder what others make of it?  
Especially those well-read in Pasternak.  I am ill-equipped there.

I am very voyeuristic about these things -- about role-playing, reading 
one writer's work through the eyes of another writer.  For example, I 
once spent a very pleasurable week at Brasenose College reading 
Rossetti's poems in the volumes owned by Walter Pater.   Tiny pencil 
scratches in the margins were very eloquent in the stillness of that 
attic lumber-room. . . .

That said, I suspect that much of our reading already happens this way 
-- reading literature gives us pleasure because we imagine that we are 
in conversation or companionship with some fondly remembered friend, 
hero, teacher, or lover.  Having a physical medium -- something pressed, 
earmarked, cup-ringed, annotated, or inscribed -- closes the gap.  Very 
mortal.  Wonderful fellowship.

C&c.

-- 
********************************************
Charles L. Sligh
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
charles-sligh at utc.edu
********************************************


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