Dark Books & Identity

 All books have a darkness...regardless of the inviting persuasions of their covers...as a child the colouring-in book that my mother had hidden in a new wardrobe as a surprise was shrouded in mystery...coming from some dark corner...the puzzle of discovering that book stayed with me... forgotten...unsolved until recalled as an adult... a darkness to the books in the modest bookshelf of my childhood home...books on WWII...encyclopedias...darkly covered...grey pages...an occasional coloured page...colours from some other reality...an atlas...long and thin...a third of the height of a child...sheltered by the darkness of the maps of foreign places...the night sky...strange creatures from the ocean...then the darkest of all books often on a side table of the lounge room...the bible...as a poor reader I feared books...my first holy communion prayer book offering some comfort with the illuminated holy pictures and sparse text...the pictures evoking so much more than any words ever could...seeing a book in the hands of the nuns that taught me presented the book as a veil...regardless of its content all books became a pious experience...a book was never just the words it contained...the places where books were kept were silent and dark...away from the light...libraries were rooms of half light...the plays I read at school were full of darkness...plays were the darkest...bible like in their darkness...history books seem to evoke a light that belonged to the twilight...I'm not certain that this darkness has ever fully dissolved...sp