A Walker in the Suburbs

James Salter, I read recently, is not just a writer’s writer. He is a writer’s writer’s writer.

I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I like the sound of it. And I agree with it. Here’s why:

I had three lives, one during the day, one at night, and the
last in a drawer in my room in a small book of notes. There were wonderful things in that book, things that I am
unable to write or even imagine again. That they were wonderful was not my
doing—I merely took the trouble to put them down.    

The poets, writers, the sages and voices of their time, they
are a chorus, the anthem they share is the same: the great and small are
joined, the beautiful lives, the other dies, and all is foolish except honor,
love, and what little is known by the heart.

Writing is filled with uncertainty and much of what one does
turns out bad, but this time, very early there was a startling glimpse, like
that of a body beneath the water, pale, terrifying, the glimpse that says: it
is there.

 In the darkness the soft hum of the tires on the empty road
was like a cooling hand. The city had sunk to mere glowing sky. My own book was
not yet published but would be. It had no dimensions, no limit to the heights
it might reach. It was deep in my pocket, like an inheritance.

(These passages are from Salter’s memoir, Burning the Days. Photo: detail of wall mural from Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona)

Several years ago I began the practice of typing up notes on the books I read. An exercise in futility? An earnest attempt to bolster failing memory? Yes and yes … but more.

I like to think they are a written record of what every good book becomes — a conversation between author and reader. After all, these passages are personal, and they are a snapshot in time. Because what may strike me as important about a book I read in 2014 may not make a similar impression today.

But sometimes they hold steady. This morning I looked at notes for a book I read months ago, one that opened my mind and broadened my attitudes. The notes reminded me of why I liked the book in the first place, how rich it is in ideas. So much so that I printed off the notes and tucked them inside the book. I’m reading it again.

Some find the posture early they were meant to have. I was one of the lucky ones.

Every day one of my first acts on waking is to gather the books I read from the night before and walk downstairs with them in my arms. Today it struck me how long I’ve carried books in my arms. That is an activity and a posture I’ve had early and long.

The book titles have changed, the weight, the topic, the number of pictures therein. The arms, too. They have grown longer. And sometimes they have held other things along with the books. Babies, for instance, and file folders and, lately, a computer thin enough to slip into one of those folders.

But books, always and forever.