9 July 05

Fetishizing Reading

I’ve never been a big fan of the Levenger catalog. I know many people who read a great deal who are: they get it regularly, look through it (every single page) each time it comes, even though as far as I can tell it doesn’t change a lot from one to the next. Lots of nicely finished cherry book stands, lots of highly laquered fountain pens, lots of lamps you can’t possibly read a book without. It seems to sigh “I’m upper middle class but intellectual too, you wouldn’t catch me hanging around with those C-grade Yalie louts.” Though I fetishize pens myself, I write with them. The better they write, the better the pen. Not the most laquer or gold.

These friends who read a lot rarely buy anything from this catalog: nothing in there turns out to be indispensable to reading. I think it’s a pleasure, a secret pleasure, in its own right, a bit like the late J. Peterman catalog, which was ludicrously over the top but well written and somehow able to convince readers they really were world travellers from the 1930s without the inconvenience of world wars or non-existent air conditioning.

One of these well-read-Levenger-catalog-reading friends sent me a link to a New York Times piece on the Levenger catalog. I think I get it now. This is to books and letters what Martha Stewart Living is to tablecloths and housedecorating.

It’s a good thing, people.

Posted by at 09:05 PM in Books and Language | Link |
  1. I get the Levenger’s catalogue, and have their site bookmarked. Doesn’t hurt to windowshop now and then. But I’ve never had much patience with their fussbudget approach to reading; if I had to have all that peace and paraphernalia I’d still be bumbling around with some of the earnest freshman books they mention. Viktor Frankl, yeah, OK, I wouldn’t dismiss him but I read him 40 years ago. How about The Ancestor’s Tale?

    I do have a few of their objects around the house, and they’re useful. Those nice nylon zippered file folders are handy and I wish they still sold them. One of the most irritating habits of modern retail is discontinuing product lines! (Happens most often, IME, with bras.) And, like a lot of pricey stores, they have great sales.

    But I think their secret fetish appeal is the leather. Forget the pastel stuff, but those leather folios and books and carrying cases, yum. (Their purses are rather fuddy-duddy.) I’ll tellya, I relieved a lot of my Levenger’s lust a couple of years ago when, in a nexus of relative affluence and closeout sales, we bought a wine-red leather couch and chair. They’re too big for the room, but perfect for the inhabitants, and mmmmmm, leather!
    — Ron Sullivan    11. July 2005, 07:39    Link
  2. In a word: philistine!
    — Doc Rock    13. July 2005, 08:29    Link

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