jmc_bks

It's a holiday Smart Bitches Day! Labor day!

I tried to come up with a post that was semi-relevant, without success. I wandered into the kitchen for sustenance, lamenting my lack of imagination. ::sob:: How can I be a proper Smart Bitch and live up to my title if I cannot find something to bitch about? I went through my fridge, cleaning out leftovers and looking for something to eat for brunch. Mmmm. Chicken korma and Kashmiri naan from Saturday night's dinner. That works for me. I can't eat Indian food without thinking of Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes. For those who have not had the pleasure of meeting Lucy, there is a scene in the book in which she and her friend Daniel have lunch at an Indian restaurant and play a word game, matching the item menus to song lyrics. Korma becomes Karma Chameleon, bhajia becomes "lay your warm and tender body", etc. After deciding that leftovers would work for brunch, I had to go get my copy of Lucy Sullivan to reread that scene and the ending of the book. And lo, an idea was born. The act of reading as a consumptive pleasure, and as it relates to the sense.

The act of reading links to all five of the senses for many readers, I think. The look of the book, the typeface, the cover art, the layout. All of that matters. It matters more at the beginning, when the book first sucks you in as a reader, than later. Tell the truth: covers matter, the way the book looks sitting on the bookstore display or the library shelf matters. But once it is yours, once you've bought it or even after you've read it, the appearance's importance declines only a little. The cover matters not so much, but the typeface and layout stay critical. Who's going to read a book if the font is too small or the layout is wonky?

Smell. Well, this is going to seem a little freaky, but many bibliophiles will admit to enjoying the smell of books. Bookstores have a distinct aroma, as do libraries. And the smell of the fresh cut paper and ink can be almost aphrodisiacal. It fades, like all perfumes, but is replaced by the old paper smell.

And the way a book feels in your hands makes a difference. Otherwise readers wouldn't be complaining about those Venti books. The size, the paper quality. How easily the book remains open in your hands or how hard it is to read with one hand while eating or lounging in the bath or holding a drink in the other hand. How heavy a hardback is to hold up in bed.

The way a book sounds seems a little more amorphous for me. Well, books on CD clearly come into play here. Until I stop and think: language is about the spoken word. In the world of things, written language and reading are relatively new. The spoken word, the oral history, the bards and minstrels all came first. Today's writers are the descendants of those storytellers. And however the word may look on the page, it needs to sound good aloud.

And taste. Well, it isn't as if one can literally consume books. [Although there was an episode of Grey's Anatomy in which an aspiring writer did just that, and promptly poisoned himself because of the chemicals on the paper and in the ink.] But many books are linked inextricably to food for me. Even Anne Shirley in Anne of the Island admits to a similar problem -- after reading The Pickwick Papers she always wants to eat because of the lovely descriptions of food. Lucy Sullivan to Indian food. There's an old Loveswept by Jan Hudson in which the hero woos the heroine with chocolate covered strawberries. Every time I read it (not too often), I break out the double boiler to melt some chocolate of my own. Deborah Smith's A Place to Call Home has a couple of scenes (holiday meals, mostly) that are all about the food. I always want to eat a slice of pecan pie after reading that book. Marian's Christmas Wish -- Christmas pudding...well, that's what they make, but I end up with bread pudding, my version of a Christmas pudding.

Am I the only reader who links certain books to food? Is there any particular book that makes you crave? Is there anything that you eat that puts you in mind of a particular book, sending you off to do a quick reread?