A Pop Quiz for Loyal Readers (In All Senses of the Word)
Posted 28 May 2008 in Books by Catriona
Where do most people keep their copies of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf?
Because I’ve completely lost track of mine, and I wanted to blog about it.
It’s not where I suspected it would be—which was, logically enough, under a pile of P. D. James novels that I’ll never read again because Adam Dalgleish induces near-homicidal levels of frustration in me.
And I’ve pulled books off all available shelves—finding, in the process, forgotten novels by Mark Rutherford, Victoria Glendenning, and Anthony Trollope, and my copy of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood—and I still haven’t found it.
So I’m stumped.
First person to make a suggestion that leads to that elusive book wins my trademark prize: a shiny but completely invisible and intangible trophy.
Share your thoughts [10]
1
Leigh wrote at May 29, 06:56 am
Did you find it yet? I was thinking it could be behind this apparently endless supply of trophies you have…. Xx
2
Catriona wrote at May 29, 06:59 am
Nope, no sign of it. I have no idea where it could possibly be.
Now, the idea of it being behind a pile of trophies is a good one—but with them being invisible and intangible, I’ll be hard-pressed to remember where I left those, let alone anything that might be behind them.
3
Tim wrote at May 29, 08:38 am
On my bookshelf. Where else would I keep it?
4
Catriona wrote at May 29, 08:46 am
Tim, I know for a fact that you have more than one bookshelf, as do I. I’m assuming, given that I just cleared off the bedhead, that it is on a bookshelf somewhere—I just don’t know which one.
Perhaps I should catalogue the collection (calling it a collection makes it sounds less like an illness, and also gives me a point of the geek hierarchy.) I wonder: Library of Congress or Dewey?
5
Tim wrote at May 29, 08:58 am
To be more specific, I keep it in my Classics bookcase. Next to my other translations of Beowulf.
Library of Congress, of course. Though a true geek would invent their own classification system.
6
Catriona wrote at May 29, 09:06 am
Ah! Now, were it the case that I had a Classics shelf, that would be a useful place to look.
In fact, I have an entire (waist-high) case devoted to classics, but they’re predominantly my eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books; alas, none of the Faber publications are allowed on that shelf (I do love the look of a row of Penguin paperbacks, and don’t want it interrupted) so it’s not there.
No, I’m starting to think it must be in the study—which narrows it down to three possible bookcases.
And I have invented my own classification system! It’s called “wherever there’s room, and if it’s near other books of a similar genre or, at a pinch, published by the same publishing house, that’s a bonus.”
By this system, it should be on one of the cases in the hallway, next to Heaney’s collected poems—but it’s not.
7
Tim wrote at May 29, 09:34 am
That’s … not a classification system. It’s a placement protocol.
8
Catriona wrote at May 29, 09:43 am
Well, classification system or placement protocol, it’s not very effective, either way.
9
Tim wrote at May 30, 10:52 am
Found it yet?
10
Catriona wrote at May 30, 10:59 am
I’m starting to think I never actually owned a copy—except I distinctly remember referring to it during a debate on Pownce in the last year or so. The damn thing has completely disappeared off the face of the planet.
But I did find another book I wanted to blog about while I was tearing things off the spare-room shelves.