There are many 'worthy' jobs in the world. You know, like...nursing, care for the elderly, the emergency services, policing, surgeon, charity work rubbish collection...checking out food in supermarkets...street cleaner...no, I'm not joking about the tail-off into unskilled labour because...well...you should know why. But what I intended to include were jobs that give 'satisfaction' in the traditionally accepted sense; those that get recognition as 'important', as in helping humankind directly, therefore, presumably, giving the most satisfaction.
Since working in the bookshop, as I've said already, I do feel I'm doing a service to people because where would the world be without books? OK, I know that's not necessarily what everyone thinks. After all, I do see people wander into the shop, look around at apparently alien objects and quickly walk out again. Yet when I sell a book I feel good. That's partly satisfying because I'm new to the job, of course. A thousand sales later I'm sure I'll feel more blasé. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, during a quiet spell, I decided to tidy up the Travel section. It is, I realised as I began shifting the books about, the least in-demand of all the genres since The Plague ruined overseas travel. Normally, I presume it would garner a lot more attention, with people planning to go to Vietnam, for instance, or Venezuela. If you think it doesn't look incredibly tidy now, you should have seen it before! I really should have done Before and After shots. Yes, I felt extremely satisfied.
Why people take an interest in books they know nothing about is a mystery. If the covers are eye-catching, I suppose it makes sense. Or the title, of course, as in Why Sex Is Evil...or You Are Stupid. Actually, I hate eyebait titles. Whenever I see them on novels I curse and want to burn them. Stupid, I know, but I keep seeing titles like We Are All Incredibly Wonderful And Alone or You Are An Arsehole But I Still Love You, or You Don't Need To Believe In The Goodness of the World to Break My Heart...all by women. All aimed at women, presumably. Besides, when reading the blurb of any novel, if I see the words 'heartwarming' or 'moving' or 'joyous' I put it straight back on the shelf. I must be a heartless bastard.
Anyway, on Tuesday a guy came to the booth and showed me two books that he'd picked up from the table outside. One was The Doors of Perception (the Vintage imprint) by Aldous Huxley and the other was Orwell Essays (Penguin Modern Classics). He knew nothing about either of them and wondered which I would recommend. OK, you don't know about Huxley or Orwell...hmm. I should have asked why he picked them out, that might have been an interesting conversation. Instead, I said:
"I haven't read the Huxley but it was influential on 60s counterculture and the band named themselves after it...you know...The Doors."
Blank face. He was middle-aged,,.possibly foreign, although without a strong accent that I could identify. Quiet smartly dress with blonde hair neatly parted and a sun-soaked skin tone.
"The band, The Doors?"
Blank face.
"But the Orwell essays are great."
"A bit difficult though?"
"Oh no -", now here I had to tread carefully for fear of insulting him by saying something like "Any idiot could understand them". Instead, I continued: "His style is very plain, easy to read...he talks about books, English life, the war...politics." Did he know Orwell was a socialist? I doubt it. I didn't mention the s-word, not wanting to gamble on his political leanings. He went with the Orwell essays in the end. Good choice. The right one, I hoped. After all, he didn't seem like the type who wanted to throw open his doors of perception and end up stoned, possibly immaculate, or bearded, berating square society from a wigwam on Ibiza.
I'm not 'a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison' in my loins and 'a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow' in my subtle spine, but when the young girl wearing short cut-off jeans approached me in the shop...oh, the 'ineffable signs - the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limbs, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate - the little deadly demon among the wholesome children;'. She stood, 'unconscious herself of her fantastic power' and asked: "Do you have Lolita?" Ha-ha! None of what Nabokov described, as quoted, applied to me, but she did ask the question and, rather oddly, I thought, was the second young girl to do so this week. Is Nabokov trending on Twitter, or something?
Black Gull Bookshop, 70-71 West Yard, Camden Lock Place, London, NW1 8AF (I'm there Tues, Weds, Thurs).
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