1984, continued...

Well, apparently, copies of 1984 in second hand book shops are hard to come by, apparently, they fly off the shelves. "Bugger it!" I thought there would be a whole slew of them covered in dust clogging up book shops, it being an old book, and all. People mustn't be as stupid as I give them credit for? I thought everyone below 30 had had their attention span reduced to that of a gold fish, 30 seconds, or less, and unless it has an "on" switch, and lit up, they didn't know what the hell it was, maybe I was wrong? Curious? Can 20 year olds recognise an actual book on sight? Interesting. Anyway, I must admit, I only tried those second hand bookshops within a radius of home, in the inner suburbs, (the only Green's lower house seat in the country) however, it was the same story at each.

Annoying, I thought.

So, I thought to myself, Christian, don't be such a wimp, you have a copy, sure the spine is broken and it is falling apart, it has seen better days, any idiot can see that, but, you know since George Orwell died in abject poverty, never seeing a cent from his writing, it seemed kind of appropriate. (my poor, destitute paperback)

So, I sat down to read. The sun had come out by the afternoon, so I sat in my wicker chair on my back veranda and read. Lovely.

Big Brother is watching you.

Sound like any era you know of?

Of course, my next door neighbour decided to have an, actual, conversation with somebody in her back yard, which, I must admit, I found disturbing. That is to say, it disturbed my reading, it didn't bring me mental anguish, you understand. Well, it did, but the kind that made me lose track of the sentence I was reading and not the type they may have provoked me to drive a truck into a crowd. What was she thinking? Get a phone, and a set of ear plugs and tune out to the world like everybody else, you crazy woman. Get on the tele-screen and stop being ridiculous.

Anyway, being the good Virgo that I am, I found it all too irritating to have to re-position the pages every time I turned one. I juggled them as best as I could, however, it took me away from the story too often. The chance of disappearing into the narrative, letting the world fade away around me, letting all the stupidity of 2016 release from my brain, was just too hard when the pages slipped every which way. "Fuck it," I said out loud. Not conducive to suddenly being 100 pages down, now was it. "Grrrrr!" I tired again. "Where is your stickability?" Damn! It was no good. It was like having a fly buzzing around, or tap dripping, it never went away.

So what to do?

What to do, indeed? I scoured my bookshelf for a second copy? It was possible. I found 3 copies of Charlotte's Web, the first book I ever read. (The second book I ever read was Wind in The Willows,  there were 2 copies of that, closely followed by Winnie the Pooh, which my gorgeous Aunty May used to read to me, when I wasn't reading it myself) I found 2 copies of David Malouf's Johnno, a book I am fairly sure I haven't even read once. I found a copy of all of George Orwell's other novels, but not a second copy of 1984.

So what to do?

The copy I had was, of course, all complete. All it needed was a bit of glue on the spine. (You know, like most of us) Maybe some tape... I was transported instantly back to being a kid, being a teenager, covering my books. Repairing my books. Making do. I got out my magic tape and taped it all back together again. It doesn't fit back together very well, as we all know, taping up a book is never very successful, like rebuilding a life, it is never quite the same as it once was. It is certainly a hunchback of a book now, I didn't quite get the one middle page that had come completely adrift from its binding back into perfect position, but, at least now, I can read it without it falling to pieces with every page turn.

My mum Lottie would be pleased. I can hear her now, "Don't buy another copy of a book you already have, ridiculous, don't waste your money."

Anyway, that's all, back to George.