The Book Burner

I remember, my dad used to sit in a tiny room filled with books and I mean filled, piles of books right up to the ceiling and there was just enough space in the room, right in the middle amist the high-rise of pages for a smallish arm-chair and a little table, home to a single ceramic plate (which I had made in primary school); he used it as an ash-tray, but to be honest the entire table was an ashtray along with the floor and the shorter piles of hard-backs. He would sit in that room for hours, even days to smoke, drink and read, and I forgot to mention the empty gin bottles scattered on top of the books were also filled my cigarette stubs. I remember the door was always slightly open and leaning against the outside of the door-frame was his 1977 national championship cricket bat (he lost the game by half a run and could never let it go), so you knew he was there, you were always good, always aware of his presence and if you ever forgot, the cricket bat would leave it's resting place for a few minutes; but swiftly returned with a few additional 'cherries'.

Being from the Canary Islands we cook our food outside. Always. Sunshine, outside. Raining, outside. Snowing, outside. So there was nearly always a fire going. And whenever my dad finished a book, it went in one of two places. It either joined a pile in the room or was marched purposely out of the room and was thrown onto the roaring fire. Every single time a book was thrown on to the fire my dad would announce only to me, never to anyone else, 'Amy. A book should never be read more than once. If it is great enough, the message will never be forgotten. A good book should be kept, a great book should be burned.' I would nod politely and he would promptly turn and march back to his room. He would say that same phrase every time he threw a book on the fire, sometimes in English, sometimes Spanish, sometimes Portuguese, in fact he said it in many languages but I always knew exactly what he was saying. 

He must have burnt thousands of books in his lifetime, but when he died he left a room full of books, a room full of books that weren't great enough to be burned, so I gave them all away, there wasn't much point in keeping them and they weren't great enough to be burned, so I saw it as my only option. But there was one book on the small table on a heap of cigarette ends and cheap gin bottle tops, it was Jorge Luis Borges's, A Universal History of Infamy. I kept it, because either he hadn't finished reading it or he couldn't decide whether it was good enough to burn. Have you read it? Is it good enough to burn? 

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

well ... great job! i am hooked and will be purchasing said book and will let you know some day when i finish it! :) your story reads as very personal ... room for this reader to wonder between the lines .. would love to read more!
E.

[Arthur Martel]

Your dad sounds like the coolest guy ever ! Heart felt story ! x