Douglas Day’s work is done; I’ve set him free
Book Purge Twenty — October 30th 2016
There are a number of books this week that it took more than a few minutes to get from holding in my hand to sitting in the purge pile. For almost 20 years I practised T’ai Chi at an advanced level — including five years in Singapore with a teacher who spoke no English — and was a passionate reader of all things connected to martial arts.
Some of the books in the pile reflect that and I was sad to see some of them go but I recognise that I haven’t looked at those books in an awful long time. That part of my life is most definitely over.
The remainder of the 55 books this week are the usual mix — from marketing to self-help to biography to fiction.
One book stands out, however, as being symptomatic of how my attitude to keeping hold of them has evolved. The Douglas Day biography of Malcolm Lowry has been — since 1981 — a book that I carried with me on travels and always kept on a shelf close by.
Lowry’s Under The Volcano is one of may favourite novels and Day’s biography of Lowry was the book I used to help me unlock some of the more arcane references in that novel and in his other autobiographical writings.
I still love Under The Volcano but I no longer need the biography. In fact, I have another, more recent biography of Lowry. It is probably more accurate and contains more recently unearthed information. It will never replace the thrill I had when reading the Day and how Day unlocked some of the mysteries of Lowry and his books but, at the same time, I can’t see myself reading the Day again.
If I need to read it, I can borrow it from the London Library. End of story.
