Book Lust

My book-as-object fetish was mostly dormant until I started learning Spanish. I have too many books in NY (ask Bobby) and I no longer get waves of physical yearning for dusty old books. Well, not that often, anyway.

But now that I have bookshelves to fill in Buenos Aires and reading is new again, seeing some books will trigger a violent bloodrush. This is what happened when I was at Victoria's last week and she offered to loan me her copy of Puig's The Buenos Aires Affair (it's in Spanish, but the title's in English). I couldn't borrow it because a) I don't have time to read it before I leave and b) I knew I'd never give it back.



That typeface! That artwork! (Is it Erté or mock Erté?) I want it!

Now there's a perfectly acceptable, even attractive version currently available here. It's got a nice cover with a pic of Bette Davis in All About Eve. But as soon as I saw this early edition paperback, I felt a book lust as urgent as those I used to feel at Six Feet Under, the now-defunct used book store on Cleveland's west side where I accumulated (among other purchases) a weird, nearly-complete collection of mismatched tatty Shakespeare paperbacks because I don't like reading plays in thick anthologies. This isn't about worth. In fact, a first edition is more daunting than appealing to me. I want to read these things. Or at least be able to should the urge strike me.

Anyway, last night we had a lovely empanada dinner at Victoria's (at which I took that picture of my unrequited love.) Victoria happens to live two blocks away from the best used book market in town, a wonderful sprawl of stalls hawking books, magazines, and cheap copies of DVDs and video games. (The slang for a copy is "trucha," which also means "trout." Go figure.) Whenever I visit, I arrive at least half an hour early so I can browse and ponder. I didn't score a full-body hit, but I did find this charming copy of Puig's Boquitas Pintadas from the same publisher.



Now, I own a copy of Boquitas Pintadas in NY and have even read it. (Loved it). Realistically, the most I might do with this one is review favorite passages once in a long while. Needless to say, I bought it anyway. It wasn't expensive and I love having it. It really is just an object, one that happens to be filled with words arranged on pages.

Hopefully this will wear off eventually, as I am somewhat against this sort of thing, on principle. Accumulating things is a bad answer to the wrong question. But for now, it makes me happy and I'm willing to indulge this habit a bit longer.

(Speaking of Erté, did you know that his real name was Romain de Tirtoff and he took his pseudonym from the French pronunciation of his initials? I didn't until just now.)