THE BOOKSELLER’S ASSISTANT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 671, 24 May 1929, Page 16

THE BOOKSELLER’S ASSISTANT

BEHIND THE MAGIC COUNTERS (Written for THE SUNJ VI T HY am I, a bookseller’s assistant, ’ so envied? When I tell you that ninety-nine persons of the hundred one meets in the course of a day’s work behind the magic counters grudge me my job, I am not romancing. lam but stating a fact. “Oh,” sighs the young woman for whom I have wrapped up the new Michael Arlen, “it must be heavenly to work among all these marvellous books. Do they let you take them home to read?” “Well,” I agree, “maybe one is privileged a little.” And, in answer to the second question, “It’s not the rule, you know, but one must know what one is talking about.” “Exactly,” she murmurs. “If I worked here, I’d just sit down and read from dawn till dark. Good-bye.” And away she flutters, bound for the tennis courts and the beach, while I replace in alphabetical order the new Booth Tarkington and the latest Dornford Yates, two authors to whom the modern miss is susceptible. I suppose working in a big book store is more interesting than most jobs, and especially if one is of a literary turn of mind. But, at times, this curious attraction of the bookseller's humble art is puzzling. If these yearners for the moon were a race of decrepit bookworms it would be more easily understandable, but often, as I have shown, they are carefree young women who, one imagines, would regard operatic tenors and movie ushers as the favourites of the gods. Let us go through a typical day's work in the essays, belles lettres, and general literature section. Nine a.m. brings the morning's mail. The first letter comes from a Maori boy in the Bay of Plenty: "Dear Sirs, I have loose my Order Form. I could not find any Order Form. lam just trying to get that book for Education for Horses. Well, sir. this is all I wish. Will you sent it to me that book for 5s 4d Goodbye.” , The afternoon parcel post contains a copy of the handbook on the breaking and training of horses, which we hope will make lighter our customer’s duties on the farm, and Joe's letter goes on the file for future reference. The next letter is from the King Coun try, rather neatly written on tinted paper. It runs: “Dear Sir, —I am interested chiefly :n the better class novels, and usually on the recommendation of others. I realise there are, perhaps, no best authors, but appreciate anything that will tend to uplift the mind and help us to something better. Western Stories and detective novels I cannot read.”

Now, what may one do with such a letter? It might easily have come from my best friend, and therefore it must be treated as such. I gather a bundle of catalogues of classical reprints and general literature, and pen a brief note sympathising with the sufferer, outlining a course of reading to be taken after tea and before going to bed. A third letter is from the committee of a church bazaar inquiring for a book on how to run a Punch and Judy show. As the bazaar is on Friday night, a prompt reply would oblige. Another is from a prisoner at the gaol asking about books on “the gyroscope as used in airplane construction.” As such books are not available locally, I quote him several to be ordered specially from London, at the same time, hoping I am not unwittingly breaking the law by aiding him to make an aerial escape from his temporary home. A letter from an earnest Fijian away in the backblocks of Viti Levu requests us to send him catalogues of any books at all; and another, written in pencil, comes from a farmer who requires books on the use of artificial manures. With the aid of “Whittaker’s Catalogue”— the bookseller’s Bible—l usually manage to answer all letters the same day, and in a week or two receive a reply ordering books or thanking me for my trouble. The fortnightly mailboats yield a freshet of customers. The Aorangi

has been tied up scarcely an hour when they come trooping in, easily distinguishable. More than anything else, one notices the contrast between the American, supremely unselfconscious in soft collar and squaretoed shoes, and the Englishman, with his correctly cut suit, walking stick, tweed cap, and rather formal air. The men from America seek novels by Irving Bacheller, Sinclair Lewis, Edith Wharton, and Anita Loos. Their wives ask for Kathleen Norris, Susan Glaspell, and occasionally John Galsworthy. Often one has to explain that novels they have recently read in Nash’s Magazine and Hearst’s "Cosmopolitan” will not be available in book form for some months. Occasionally a tall, spare, painfully erect Englishman will edge round behind the counter to get a closer view of the Kipling shelves. He buys “Plain Tales” in the pocket edition, remarks in measured tones on the clemency of New Zealand weather, and, fingering his public school tie, goes on his way to resume the “White Man’s Burden in Arabia.”

Some days bring more queer customers than others. One morning I served a woman who was looking for a recitation, “I’m Not So Young As I Used to Be.” No Galahad pursued a holy grail with more enthusiasm than this elocutionist in search of her poem. It was a situation which called for much sympathy and not a little tact. It also required a thorough searching of about two dozen elocution books ranging from “Bell’s Standard Elocutionist” to Hasluck’s “Reciter for Boys and Girls. ’( In a working day one meets a hundred types—timid young men asking shyly for books on wedding etiquette; horny-handed Finns, from the motor-ships in port, foraging for books on their beloved Diesels; service car drivers wanting road maps; and antique collectors hunting with Quinney-like zeal for a book to explain the marks on old pewter ware. We can usually suit them all, and, should the occasion arise, have even a “Handbook on Hanging” ready for his Majesty’s servant. Customers fall readily into groups. There are the clear-eyed, hatless young men from the university; the dashing young girls who take innocent pleasure in hearing themselves say “Bridge of San Luis Rey,” “Jew Suss,” “Precious Bane,” and, latterly, “The Sun Also Rises” and “All Quiet on the Western Front.” There are matrons from the eastern suburbs whose biweekly visits to the book store is tie rigueur, and the smartly dressed young men who favour Noel Coward, Carl Van Vechten. Theodore Dreiser, and Maurice Dekobra. Lastly, one makes friends. In buying a book, a customer either consciously or unconsciously shows more of his secret self, his ideals, and his sympathies than he does in purchasing, say, a new shirt or a wheelbarrow'. One feels intimate with people, and looks forward to their next visit. Once a week Joe, who works on the wharf, and has a passion for William de Morgan, comes in to browse for half an hour. How carefully, and with what affection, he handles the Navarre Society editions of Smollet and Rabelais. T . my commercial traveller friend, is often in, looking for new American fiction, and S —, a spruce little fellow with horn-rimmed glasses, arrives every Friday evening to see if “The American Tragedy” is coming out in a cheap edition. There are others. One could write indefinitely. It will suffice to say that, thougli working in a bookshop is not what it is generally thought to be —sitting down reading all day—it is more interesting than most occupations. It is a happy blending of the quick and the dead. All about one are preserved the mighty minds of old. and on every hand the living move, always interesting, never boring, constantly enlarging one s outlook, and, most important, intensifying one’s awareness of life. HARRY HARKER. j Auckland.