Friday, August 25, 2006

Norwegian Wood

A new bookstore opened in Jeonju recently, a branch of the probably biggest book chain in Korea. Having some time to kill after watching a movie with my friend Pele, we went looking for it, not entirely sure of where it is.

After about 15 minutes of going into the wrong roads and alleys and backing up, we finally came upon it. You can practically still see the new shine gleaming against the setting sun. Quite beautiful, actually, and we went in excitingly.

I guess only book afficionadoes would understand when I lay the scene out upon you: shelves beyond shelves of books, magazines, and more books. There's a little tingle whenever I see a bunch of such items layered together in mass bunches. I can't quite explain the feeling (a feeling I've had since I was young, right up there with a child's excitement inside Toys R Us), but that's the feeling that engulfed me nonetheless as I made my way through the racks.

Eventually, I came to the English fiction, much smaller than their Korean counterparts. Not at all surprising, mind you, for English is still not that well used in Korea. But I'm drawn in like honey to the bee nonetheless, quickly flicking through their collection.

And then my eyes rested upon it. It.

My finger peeled it from its book ends, being squashed in between two other books by the same author. I had thought of buying it before, but that thought had first occured around a year ago, maybe more. And I still haven't got round to it.

So now I did. I took it, tucked it under the issue of Time, and went off to the counter to pay for it.

Tingling.

2 comments:

Aaki said...

oh my god! so you bought it! you wont regret it, fik. you ll fall in love with it. and maybe you ll understand me better through it.

oka. better stop. its just a book.

but then again, its so much more than that.

Fikri said...

Alright, alright, hold your horses :> I'll read it, and then decide what the man to whom I've been compared to as an author is like... :>
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