I remember reading a piece by Larkin where he writes about how—forgive my paraphrase—if you allocate every ten years of lived life, say, to a weekday, say Monday is the first day of the week and it goes from nought to ten years, and Tuesday from ten to twenty, and Wednesday from twenty to thirty, and so on—then an understanding of where we are in a life will produce a pretty sober vision of the weekend. Myself I’ve gone from one end of the country to the other and from Monday to Saturday—and I’m still spending my Saturday money in Leakey’s. A couple of years ago I was searching for a copy of George Mackay Brown’s first collection of poems and I filled in one of those online alert me forms in case one ever turned up, though I wasn’t that hopeful—1954, quite rare, very slim, paperback, not very many published. Late one evening—ping—an email in the inbox. The Storm. George Mackay Brown. Seller: Leakey’s Bookshop, Church St, Inverness.
I bought it immediately. Mr Leakey, with whom I have, for forty years, been on polite nodding terms but with whom I’ve never spoken much more than a hello, a thank you and a goodbye, sent me this email back from his bookshop—one of the best bookshops of my life, now one of the best in the world. The decades are piling up around us, he wrote. And it is a nice copy. It falls into that (distressing, large) category of books that one will see once, if one is lucky, but not again.
May we all have such luck in our bookshops.
Something that Doesn’t Exist
ANDREY KURKOV
Marina Libanova has a round face and curly blond hair. I don’t know how old she is or how old she was when I met her fifteen years ago during my first ever visit to Chernivtsi, in the middle of the Bukovina region in the south-west of Ukraine, where I gave a talk in the intimate surroundings of her little shop Bukinist (from the French word bouquiniste, meaning seller of used and antiquarian books). She was about forty-nine then, and she’s about forty-nine now. I can just tell. If you’ve never been to Chernivtsi—and I’m almost 100 per cent certain that you haven’t—all I will say is that a hundred years ago the city’s bookshops used to sell books in German, Romanian and Yiddish. And the majority of the city’s inhabitants spoke German right up to the end of the First World War—it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, after all. When the empire was replaced by the Romanian monarchy, German was superseded by Romanian in terms of both the spoken and the literary language of the city. A great deal has happened since then. The only problem is that the city’s history has been chronicled principally by poets. There have always been too many poets in Chernivtsi; prose writers, on the other hand, have always been in short supply. This is still the case today, a quarter of a century after European political history, with its customary audacity and lack of manners, “drove” the city and its inhabitants out of the Soviet Union and into an independent, post-Soviet Ukraine.
I can clearly remember this time of transition to a new order: in 1991, the stark contrast between grocery shops, with their empty shelves and arrogant, ill-mannered employees, and bookshops, where the bewildered staff stood before shelves full of Soviet literature, which was of no use to anyone any more. Bookshops were the first victims of the crisis. They closed meekly and without protest, without even trying to fight for their survival. After the first couple of years of independence following the collapse of the USSR, out of one hundred bookshops in Kiev just ten remained. I was particularly upset about the closure of Poetry—the only shop in the city that sold nothing but collected works of poetry. During the Soviet era, in the late 1970s or early 1980s, I found a book there called The Ballads of Kukutis, by the Lithuanian poet Marcelijus Martinaitis. I looked through it, read a few poems and bought it straight away. It cost me 79 kopecks. Or maybe I’m getting my numbers mixed up… Maybe this happened in 1979? Memory is an unreliable thing. Selective memory is different, though. I can still remember several poems from this collection, word for word. The reason I remember them is because at the time I set those I liked best to music and turned them into songs, which I then sang, accompanying myself on the piano. I must have turned at least twenty of these poems by Marcelijus Martinaitis into songs. I still sing a couple of them, even now. I liked the poetry so much that I immediately assumed the author was long dead. It always seemed to be the case: I would discover some poems that I liked and do a bit of research on the author, only to find out that he had died. Always in that order. Which led me to the conclusion that good poetry cannot be written by living authors. So I didn’t even bother trying to find out anything about Marcelijus Martinaitis. Then in 2004 I happened to discover that he was, in fact, alive! But I’ll come back to that shortly.
For now, let us return to Bukinist, Marina Libanova’s bookshop in the centre of Chernivtsi. Originally, before Marina’s time, it was just an ordinary Soviet bookshop selling ordinary Soviet books. Then, all of a sudden, the Soviet Union collapsed, shattering into pieces and passing into history. The Soviet Union had ceased to exist but this little shop survived, weathering the crisis more successfully than bookshops in larger cities. Why? Because the crisis was like the “pause” button on a tape recorder or, in more contemporary terms, like the “pause” symbol of a digital music app on the screen of an iPhone or an iPad. Nobody cancelled it by pressing “play”. The thing is, a pause in the development of society that is brought about by crisis has certain characteristics. People run out of money, and in order to survive they start selling things they don’t need. Then they start selling things they can live without, and then, if the crisis shows no sign of abating, they start reluctantly selling things they would rather not sell at all. Domestic libraries occupied a special place in the Soviet value system; consequently they were viewed as treasured heirlooms for the older generation to bequeath to their children and grandchildren, who were expected to value them as much as the family silver and considerably more than the legacy of a twelve-place dinner set made by the German company Unger & Schilde after nationalization.
Now “unappreciative” descendants, hungry and starving as they were, set about disposing of these libraries that had been passed on to them by their fathers and grandfathers, collected over the years with blind faith and a firm belief in the idea that “books are the source of all knowledge and wisdom”.
The more industrious descendants would stand in the street from morning until night, with newspaper or a piece of oilcloth spread out on the pavement before them and masterpieces of world literature arranged on display alongside textbooks on political economy. The less industrious began carrying their books to bookshops and persuading the owners or their staff to take them on commission, on a sale-or-return basis.
This is more or less how the bookshops of the former Soviet Union became European-style second-hand bookshops and Ukraine itself became a second-hand country. Things began looking up for booksellers. Not only because of the sudden influx of a new breed of client—collectors of rare books—but also because their formerly rather dull and uneventful occupation now involved an element of treasure hunting. After accepting books on commission, the first thing the bookseller would do once the owner of the books had left would be to go through every volume page by page, extracting letters, notes, old bookmarks and sometimes even old banknotes. Not every book yielded such surprises, of course, but they were far from uncommon.
This is also how an ordinary bookshop in Chernivtsi, one of at least twenty, was renamed “Bukinist” and became to all intents and purposes the city’s main bookshop. Its location on the importantly named Holovna (Main) Street undoubtedly played a part in its popularity, as did the fact that just a stone’s throw away, at the end of a side street opposite the shop, was the Chernivtsi Philharmonic Hall. Historically it had always been the case in Chernivtsi that those who enjoyed reading books also enjoyed listening to classical music and, therefore, regularly attended concerts at the Philharmonic Hall. Sometimes they would also attend author events arranged by Marina Libanova at Bukinist, featuring guest writers and poets, but they often ended up standing in the street and listening thr
ough the open door. The shop was so small that no more than twenty people could fit inside at any one time. One day, however, somebody who loved both music and books came up with the idea of bringing these two kindred establishments even closer together. With the permission of the senior management, Marina Libanova began holding author events at the Philharmonic Hall—in the café, just five seconds away from the concert hall itself. Occasionally talks were given to the sound of music, if there happened to be a concert taking place on the other side of the thin café wall, but no books were ever signed on the premises of the Philharmonic Hall. When the event was over Marina Libanova would lead the writer or poet and their audience out of this hospitable temple of music and they would all walk down the side street and across Holovna Street, forming a queue for autographs that led into the bookshop.
Last time I was there—it must be five years ago now—I spent two hours following the same route from the temple of music to the temple of books. After giving a talk in the café of the Philharmonic Hall, I signed books for anyone who wanted one and then lingered in Marina’s shop for another half an hour. I wanted to browse, to see if I could find another copy of that collection of poetry by Marcelijus Martinaitis—The Ballads of Kukutis. The problem was that my enjoyment of this poetry had robbed me of the book itself. I had forced all my friends and acquaintances to read it, hoping to share with them my delight, and eventually somebody liked the book even more than I did. I never saw it again.
I didn’t find it on the shelves of Marina’s Bukinist either, despite searching for it with dogged determination for at least half an hour, while Marina drank tea and watched me with a barely concealed smile. Once I had given up and sat down to join her with a cup of tea, Marina told me about several characters who lived in the city, at least one of whom had come into the shop on numerous occasions looking for an imaginary book by an author that didn’t exist. This got me thinking for the first time about the existence of such eccentric urban bibliophiles, and I asked Marina more about them. She talked about them kindly, almost affectionately, as though they brought good fortune to the shop or were somehow intrinsically part of the world of books. I remember liking the sound of one individual in particular—a harmless individual who was obsessed with Omar Khayyam. He had been visiting the shop regularly for many years and would always ask Marina if she had anything by Omar Khayyam. If she happened to have one of his books in stock, this gentleman would take it from the shelf and spend ages looking through it. Then he would put it back on the shelf and leave. If not, he would express his disappointment and then leave, but not before asking her to put aside for him the next copy that anyone brought in for resale.
I have looked for The Ballads of Kukutis in other bookshops elsewhere in Ukraine, to no avail. Of course I could have looked online, in which case I would almost certainly have found it somewhere out there in the infinite reaches of cyberspace, home to millions of buyers and sellers of everything you could possibly imagine. But Kukutis, like his author Marcelijus Martinaitis, belonged to a different, pre-computer era. His world was not remotely contemporary. The tales he told were of the First World War, of Eastern Prussia going up in flames, of the Lithuanian sky and of his love for the hunchbacked daughter of a miller, whom he hoped to marry. Seeking “access” to the world of Kukutis and his author via the internet felt like sacrilege. And at the end of the day, my stubbornness paid off.
In 2004 my Lithuanian friend Algirdas, who was working in Kiev at the time, bought a white piano and invited me to his house to try out his new purchase. I sang him a few of my songs about Kukutis. Algirdas was astonished, and even more so when he learned the history of my “relationship” with Kukutis. “But he’s alive,” he insisted, when I told him that I assumed the author had died a long time ago. “Let’s give him a call—he’s a friend of mine!”
So my friend called Marcelijus Martinaitis on his mobile phone. He asked me to sing my songs about Kukutis and I obliged, accompanying myself on the piano while he held his phone to my mouth. After I’d finished singing I spoke with the creator of Kukutis for the very first time. Marcelijus Martinaitis’s voice sounded hoarse, like something from a different world. A person’s age is usually reflected in their voice. I learned that Marcelijus liked my songs but his wife Gražina Marija, who was in Vilnius with him listening to my “performance” over the phone, was rather less keen. Nevertheless Marcelijus and I began calling each other regularly, and I would sing to him several times a year. I would always drink a little whisky beforehand, just like I did the first time. I’m still not sure why! Either to improve my singing voice, which has never been any good, or to boost my confidence. I flew to Vilnius a few times in the hope of meeting him face to face, but Marcelijus was often ill and didn’t want to see anybody. On the day he died—5th April 2013—I was at home in Kiev with my family, celebrating our daughter Gabriela’s sixteenth birthday.
Although I never got to meet Marcelijus himself, I did eventually meet his widow Gražina Marija when I flew out to Vilnius in June that year. She took me to their little house outside the city, where everything had remained just as it was on the day they took him to hospital—as it turned out, his journey’s end.
I’m still searching for it, the book that I lost in the early 1980s. The Ballads of Kukutis. I look for it the way you look for something you don’t really want to find. I call into second-hand bookshops whenever I come across them, several times a year. I ask the staff and they are invariably flummoxed, because they have never heard of this book or its author. After receiving a vague, non-committal reply I inspect all the books on the shelves, or just a few of them if there are too many, and then I leave with a disappointed sigh. I suppose the sales staff might assume that I’m just another eccentric urban bibliophile, looking for a made-up book by a made-up author. But I don’t care. It’s part of my life. I love second-hand bookshops. I love old books, the musty smell of them and the people who sell them. I love looking for something that I’m never going to find.
I’m sure Marina Libanova remembers me looking for The Ballads of Kukutis in her shop too. If she does, she’s bound to let me know if a copy ever turns up. Her shop is a veritable cornucopia of rare and interesting books. Books in Romanian and German, published in Chernivtsi, but a hundred years ago, in a different country, when life itself was very different. Books in Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian and even a few in Yiddish, which was the main language spoken in Chernivtsi for hundreds of years and which, even today, seems perfectly suited to its old alleys and cobbled streets.
What I’m about to tell you now, in conclusion, is highly confidential. But you are a long way from both Kiev and Chernivtsi, so I’m willing to let you in on the secret. In January or February 2013 I asked Marcelijus Martinaitis if he would consider sharing Kukutis with me, if he would permit me to use him as a character in one of my novels—along with his biography, which Marcelijus had been elaborating in poems and ballads over the past fifty years. And he said yes! My novel featuring Kukutis—the eternal Lithuanian with his wooden leg and his love for the hunchbacked daughter of a miller—will be published in a year’s time, or thereabouts, and I will have to decide which bookshops and libraries to include on my book tour. My first port of call will be Chernivtsi, to visit the city’s best-known bookshop and its rosy-cheeked, round-faced and curly-haired proprietor Marina Libanova. I’ll give a talk in the café of the Chernivtsi Philharmonic Hall, then I’ll walk down the side street to Bukinist and sign copies of my novel for anyone who wants one, and then I’ll linger for half an hour or maybe longer amongst the pre-loved books. I’ll have another look for The Ballads of Kukutis and indulge myself once more in the pleasure of feeling like an eccentric urban bibliophile, always searching for something that doesn’t exist.
Translated from the Russian by Amanda Love Darragh
The Pillars of Hercules
IAN SANSOM
In 1991 I resigned from my job at Foyles Bookshop on the Charing Cross Road in London. I’d worked th
ere for two years, two years which may or may not have been the happiest two years of my life: it depends on how you look at it; sometimes it can be difficult to tell.
I’d written in on spec, having been drifting aimlessly from job to job, and hardly expecting a reply, but to my surprise I was invited for an interview with Christina Foyle, daughter of the shop’s founder. Miss Foyle—everyone called her Miss Foyle—interviewed prospective employees in her luxurious apartment over the shop. (The other penthouse apartment over the shop was owned by the popular female impersonator Danny La Rue, who would sometimes arrive in the loading bay at the back of Foyles in a pink Rolls-Royce, a vision in grey chiffon, and who would call out to us as we were unloading boxes from vans—“Hello Boys!”) All I can recall of my job interview is Miss Foyle sitting on a vast white sofa, surrounded by lamps and cushions and cats, and her asking me if I spoke French, to which I replied that I did, although the only French I could and can speak with any degree of confidence are the words “Je voudrais un sandwich au jambon, s’il vous plaît”, a phrase which had been drilled into us at school in preparation for day trips to France, and which certainly did the job when purchasing filled baguettes in Calais, but which I hardly thought would have passed muster in the Foreign Languages Department of the world’s greatest bookshop. Fortunately, Miss Foyle didn’t ask a follow-up about my French and I got the job, though not in Foreign Languages; maybe she sensed me bluffing. Over the next few years, working away downstairs, I often thought of Miss Foyle, perched high above us. I would think of Kubla Khan:
A savage place! As holy and enchanted
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