Jean-Baptiste Sartre marries Anne-Marie Schweitzer
5 May 1904, in Paris, while the young man is on leave from the navy. Jean-Paul Sartre is born in June of 1905. Jean-Baptiste dies in September of 1906 of entercolitis, contracted during a voyage to China.
Caravaggio. Narcissus.
"The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks." Jean-Paul Sartre, rethinking Descartes' famous line, as quoted in Eckart Tolle, "A New Earth," p. 55.
Yesterday I drove out to Panorama City, which is pretty far out (to me) in the Valley, on the way to Chatsworth. I was meeting a book dealer for a little buying and selling, and we had a very pleasant visit. He showed me around his offices and I admired his extensive reference library while we both admitted how probably most of these catalogues and indexes are available on line nowadays.
The beauty of printed books is their repetition. Except for the extraordinarily rare, they show up more than once in your life, sometimes even quite often, if you are in the right place or line of work. Librarian say, or book dealer. Not exactly old friends (although books are that too) as much as relatives and cousins -- some rich and some poor, depending upon their condition. I've seen, for example, pristine sets of the periodical "The Yellow Book," (famous for its Aubrey Beardsley illustrations, published between 1894 and 1897, 13 vols, 4to), and I've seen sad tatty sets with missing volumes, and then more than one or two respectable sets available for sale, not to mention the 1967 reprint.
Books repeat, by definition. And they have their own history and lives, passed from hand to hand, reader to collector to collector. We were looking at the price index of the sale catalogue of the Library of Lord Amherst of Hackney (1908 and see Here for more) and my host noted what Quaritch had paid for a Hebrew bible printed on vellum at the time: two hundred pounds, which was no small sum in those days. Not strictly speaking a unique item but certainly rare; Hebrew incunabula tend to be less prevalent (and consequently more valuable) than their equivalent in Latin,, given periodic papal decrees for burning the former, and not just when firewood supplies ran low.
I looked about and admired a number of familiar works on the shelves, copies of books I knew from other collections and my former life, in which I had catalogued a few of them (not these specific examples, although one never knows). We chatted (as book people do) about collectors and collections and book dealers we've encountered and known and it was a curiously satisfying experience. Not exactly like a visit to old friends, but close. Not quite deja vu, but in the ballpark. Not really consciousness aware of being conscious, but rather a part of me observing the me who might have been, had I, for example, pursued a career in books the way my host had done. How might my life have turned out. Not to mention the books I might have owned, or that might have passed through these hands, or comparable copies, or perhaps finer, earlier (or later) printings or editions; or just old friends, slightly chipped and worn.
Caravaggio. Narcissus."The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks." Jean-Paul Sartre, rethinking Descartes' famous line, as quoted in Eckart Tolle, "A New Earth," p. 55.
Yesterday I drove out to Panorama City, which is pretty far out (to me) in the Valley, on the way to Chatsworth. I was meeting a book dealer for a little buying and selling, and we had a very pleasant visit. He showed me around his offices and I admired his extensive reference library while we both admitted how probably most of these catalogues and indexes are available on line nowadays.
The beauty of printed books is their repetition. Except for the extraordinarily rare, they show up more than once in your life, sometimes even quite often, if you are in the right place or line of work. Librarian say, or book dealer. Not exactly old friends (although books are that too) as much as relatives and cousins -- some rich and some poor, depending upon their condition. I've seen, for example, pristine sets of the periodical "The Yellow Book," (famous for its Aubrey Beardsley illustrations, published between 1894 and 1897, 13 vols, 4to), and I've seen sad tatty sets with missing volumes, and then more than one or two respectable sets available for sale, not to mention the 1967 reprint.
Books repeat, by definition. And they have their own history and lives, passed from hand to hand, reader to collector to collector. We were looking at the price index of the sale catalogue of the Library of Lord Amherst of Hackney (1908 and see Here for more) and my host noted what Quaritch had paid for a Hebrew bible printed on vellum at the time: two hundred pounds, which was no small sum in those days. Not strictly speaking a unique item but certainly rare; Hebrew incunabula tend to be less prevalent (and consequently more valuable) than their equivalent in Latin,, given periodic papal decrees for burning the former, and not just when firewood supplies ran low.
I looked about and admired a number of familiar works on the shelves, copies of books I knew from other collections and my former life, in which I had catalogued a few of them (not these specific examples, although one never knows). We chatted (as book people do) about collectors and collections and book dealers we've encountered and known and it was a curiously satisfying experience. Not exactly like a visit to old friends, but close. Not quite deja vu, but in the ballpark. Not really consciousness aware of being conscious, but rather a part of me observing the me who might have been, had I, for example, pursued a career in books the way my host had done. How might my life have turned out. Not to mention the books I might have owned, or that might have passed through these hands, or comparable copies, or perhaps finer, earlier (or later) printings or editions; or just old friends, slightly chipped and worn.
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