July 29, 2024

The theme of this fourth box will be bittersweet melancholy, a sense that can overpower the mildew. Well, actually it is the mildew that lends itself to the most basic of the melancholy. For the first time, I am going to throw out a couple of the books in the box, as they are truly beyond saving. Even more profoundly, I am struck by the cruel indifference with which many of these books (as we have seen from previous boxes, many have been gifts) got relegated to a basement, as unappreciated and un-needed as chipped crockery, unnecessary desk lamps, and mismatched chairs.

Red flag warning: these boxes are starting to come with a lot more guilt.

For some context, these last two boxes (#3 and #4) come from one corner of my basement, where they have almost certainly been since 2011, probably only elevated onto a small folding table, after a 2012 or 2013 small flood. Given where they are (the majority of the book boxes, starting with #5, are on a much larger and stabler table with significantly more access), I am not surprised their contents are almost forgotten.

The box is a Lowe's one, producing lots of shuddering in memory of my part-time job from the early 1980s. I don't think the box goes that far back, but it is a fairly standard packing box (it could sub as one of the Allied boxes), so who knows? I might have used some of those in my move from Morgantown to Bloomington, but it seems unlikely to survive all these years. The box also has "(Reviewed/Chapter) FR" written on the top, maybe in Pix's handwriting. I can't begin to explain what that means.

However, as I alluded at the beginning, upon opening it, I will find a few books beyond repair. For instance, Clifton Fadiman's "The Lifetime Reading Plan," a thin 1960 paperback, has pages that are moldy and sticking together. I feel little qualm about chucking it. Heck, I am too far into my lifetime if I haven't followed it. A really beat-up copy of Stephen King's "Christine" also gets thrown out. I suspect we have another copy on the upstairs landing, in the small bookcase we put outside of Lincoln's room to hold books that we figured he might like. King's "Danse Macabre" doesn't come out of the box. It is still in good shape, but not worthy of a place alongside his classic novels of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Overall, the box is a good history of Pix's and my IU days. Out of the 50 books in the box, 13 are Pix's, including 6 more reference/textbooks, and then 7 novels, many historical. Probably the "best" one is Edward Rutherford's "Sarum," a great historical novel about England. The truth of the matter is that we have a copy already upstairs with the fiction collection. And if memory serves me, I will find one if I tackle Lincoln's boxes from Central Michigan University, as I was appalled (after the fact) that I had purchased "Sarum" for one of his CMU history classes. My favorite part of unearthing these books of Pix's is to find "Colcord" scrawled inside on the first page, that declaration of ownership that I rarely did with my books (she did live in a communal house when I first met her, so that may be part of it). This means that when we die and someone has to sort through these boxes, the "Colcord" will scream from the copy of "The Communist Manifesto" and not Fleming. Phew, at least I am saved during the doomed revolution.

Some of the more beat-up books in the box were clearly purchased at a used book sale by the IU undergraduate library, including a Robert Heinlein and Arthur Koestler. Makes me wonder if she bought these even before meeting me, as they are typical of her interests at the time.

In terms of my books from the time, there are 9 Australian texts, several more plays (see box number two), including a copy of Le Roi Jones' "Dutchman," with notes from a Ron Parker, who must have sold the book back to the IU bookstore at some point before I bought it. There could be a fascinating "pay it forward" series if college students clearly delineated their notes in such used books.

"Dutchman" is one of 9 books (not counting the Aussie stuff) that were clearly tied to my graduate classwork. In fact, one, "Tales Of The North American Indians" does have my stake of ownership on the first page, listing my name, my office in Ballantine Hall, and my phone number. Boy, does that bring back some memories . . . or not. I can't visualize my office and the phone number is completely meaningless 35 years later. I also find "A Romantic Education" by Patricia Hampl, one of several autobiographies read for my IU seminar on Autobiography. I seem to remember liking the book, which recounts life in socialist Czechoslovakia, and pull it out for a potential re-read. It is a 1981 publication, reminding me how much that course, along with a couple of other seminars at IU, were as much about contemporary writing as the classics. I will give IU a lot of credit for that willingness to expand from the canon.

And, finally, tucked down on the bottom of the box, I find a hardback of "Poems: 1959-1975" by Yves Bonnefoy. Even before I pull it out, I struggle with a vague recollection that it was a gift to me. My instinct is that it came from a friend at IU who was in the MFA program, writing poetry and often sharing contemporary poets with me, but when I open it, I am shocked to find an inscription from a woman with whom I played racquetball a couple of times. (Here's where the bittersweet aroma is coming in again.) I knew she wanted something much more romantic with me, but I wasn't interested (maybe I should have been, I was still in a really shy stage) and the inscription is a lovely little note about how she discovered this poet and thought of me with some of the lines. At the time, I was starting to share some of my own poetry with a few people, and I do remember sharing with her once or twice when she dropped by my apartment. Our friendship, including the racquetball, did not last too long, and I really have no idea what happened to her, or how much we ever talked about this book of poems (all translated into English). Did I ever even appropriately thank her for the thoughtful (even if perhaps well-intended) gift?

My relationships, if you can call them that, with women before Pix are a painful memory of messes. Bonnefoy's book reminds me again of the difficulties I had navigating those. Not exactly what I wanted to unearth in these boxes (although I know I will find at least one more in another box). Luckily, as I look at the bigger collection of boxes to be tackled next, the initial ones are very current and my version of Pandora can be silenced for at least a few days.

Full series here.