gordonzola

This post may make the librarians hate me.

I have nothing necessarily against writing in books, even library books. When I was in college there were debates ranging in some of the political books that had been raging since the ‘70s. As long as one doesn’t make the actual book unreadable, it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes it can be really amusing. I remember reading a biography of Anastasio Somoza written by a supporter which had been mocked by student who obviously had read it for the same class I had years earlier. The author would write something like "Somoza brought modern roads and infrastructure to Nicaragua" and the literary heckler would add something like "because he found the old roads too small to fit his modern tanks and troop carriers." I’m sure it was funnier than that, but you get the idea.

So anyways, I was reading The Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford (If "spoilers" for a book published in 1971 will bother you, stop reading now). I wondered why I been able to buy it so cheap. I hadn’t noticed that the last 10 pages are filled with comments. But what’s weird is that only the last 10 pages have any writing on them. What made someone decide to comment just in the last chapter and not throughout the book?

The thing with writing in books that others will read is that one has the community responsibility to be smart or funny. I mean, I can ignore the occasional sentence like "author uses symbolism here", because it’s unintentionally amusing. I picture a future of color coded text for books. Green type for symbolism, blue for metaphor, red for plot movement etc.

But when The Scribbler is making more revealing comments it can get distracting. Especially when they are missing the point. The Burnt Orange Heresy is a noir-ish novel where the main character is an art critic trying to make it to the big time. He sees his chance when a lawyer gives him information on where to find a certain recluse artist so he can be the first American to interview him. In return the art critic must steal a painting.

The artist has never shown his work. Now, as it turns out, the artist actually has done no art at all. His reputation has been built by other critics who wrote reviews and defined periods of his artistic life, building their own reputations while depending on the artist to stay out of the public eye. It’s a sweet series of co-dependent relationships, but this American art critic has promised to steal a painting. Since there are none to steal, he paints one and writes his review of it. Then things go wrong and, as happens in these types of books, he ends up killing his girlfriend.

My book scribbler seemed to be reading the book with an eye to the psychological and is overly concerned with the narrator/critic’s reality. Here’s an excerpt: "He now is back in touch with reality – and no longer acts only on his sub-conscious but also his conscious. (His girlfriend) is dead and gone, and it is now time for James to view reality through his own eyes" I must admit that this comment stumped me a little. Mostly because the character seems very aware of what he is doing at all times. Not necessarily of the potential consequences, but certainly in planning his fake painting, his climb up the art world ladder and the murder of his girlfriend

All good noirs are, on some level critiques of capitalism, or at least what capitalism does to individuals. That’s one of the reasons I like them. The Scribbler ignores the societal pressures on Figueras, Puerto Rican outsider who has altered every aspect of his history and life in order to be accepted in the white, rich world of art. His actions, somewhat predictably for the genre, lead to his downfall. But it’s hardly because of is lack of communication between his conscious and sub-conscious.

My favorite graffito is The Scribbler’s final comment. Written under the last sentence of Willeford’s novel, Scribbler literally gets the last words.: "Finally. James Figueras last words in the book are, ‘I want to confess to a crime of passion’. Anyone can draw their own conclusions to what this means. I personally find it to be rather poetic, the passion James is referring to I believe is his passion of being a single minded character who’s only concern is for himself. , in terms of women fame, power, and money. The first and only time James Figueras demonstrates any form of responsibility is in the last line of the book. One can only wonder what the future held for James Figueras, one can only wonder."

One can only wonder what the Scribbler was reading this book for. All the notes imply a class of some sort, but who assigns an obscure Charles Willeford book? Part of the Scribbler’s notes look like they would go directly into a student paper, the others seem much more personal. One can only wonder . . .

Underlining is a different issue by the way.