Stuck inside a bookstore, with those nothing-to-read blues again

Oh, you get them, too; I know
you do. Trolling through the
novelties, tapping on their
spines, studying endpapers for
a pairing with your wines. What
to read, what to read, nothing
there is quite one's speed, e-
ven the dust jackets boast of 
dust.

     

 The curious
 samenesses
 of publish-
 ing strike
 one almost
 as much in
 a book, as
 in a tablet.
 Symbols all
 lined up,
 to navigate.

     I don't think this condition
     threatens the instinct to in-
     habit a story, not merely to
     be told one. To be stuck in-
     side a bookstore, with those
     nothing to read blues again,
     is not to inhabit a story at
     all, but a misuse of taste.
     
     It wants a counter-irritant;
     and if there is any route to
     the restoration of taste, it
     is the one that inhabits it.
     
     

   

Jed Perl
Magicians and Charlatans
  Essays on Art and Culture
Eakins Press Foundation, 2012©