Yellowing
I was sixteen. Barnes & Noble had just opened its doors in town, and I was all about Stephen King. But, funds being low as they were, I stuck to paperbacks and the occasional loaner from the library which wound up costing almost as much as a paperback after late fees. So on this particular day, I bought a copy of It and commenced devouring. That book engulfed me. I read at night, I read between classes, I read on the stairwell after school and before Mom got there to pick me up. Never read on the half-hour commute to and from school, what with carsickness and Mom not really approving overmuch of my sudden infatuation with horror stories. She never said anything so I saw no reason to, either.
I've been thinking on this the last few days, as my current illness has had me bolted to the sofa, and I've been reading on that old rag again. I've moved it with me from my bedroom at home to my first apartment to my rented room in a house to my second apartment to my actual house. Tried to get rid of it once or twice but it always came back. And now, after reading The Dark Tower again, I'm into the thick of it. Literally. This book is thicker than many things I'm immediately familiar with. Doorstops, for example.
My reading of Stephen King marked a very specific turning point--when I went from reading "the classics" and turning up my nose at anything popular, to where I am now. That is, enjoying a good story, enjoying the search for symbolism, but overall looking to be entertained and possibly enlightened. In other words, I dropped the snobbery and got honest about what I like to read. And it's funny, now. My bookshelves are jammed with my books and my husband's books, overflowing with words put to pages, and It is an anonymous tome among hundreds. But it marks an important segue.
Not to mention, the edges of the pages are turning yellow.
This was one of the last books I bought before acid-free paper became all the rage. A cheap, cheap paperback which probably started yellowing years ago but I never took it off the shelf to check until last week. Like a horse's teeth, a book's age starts showing as yellow, then as lengthening, and then as falling ... out? Sure. Why not. But I remember thinking as a teenager that the yellowed books were really old, right ... and now, I am either not so sure, or strong in my certainty. Ah, how I hate running a fever.