Canto XI - The River Lethe

Okay. Here comes a customer: they look slightly dazed but happy, as if they’re in the aftermath of some light head trauma. They wander up to the front counter with that “Oh how sweet: a place that sells books!” look on their face, and they turn to address you. You can expect that they will be looking for:

A) Your assistance in finding a gift for someone you've never even met;

B) A book about which they've forgotten every pertinent detail;

C) A book on a topic that they've heard someone talking about, but about which they have no clue; or

D) Something that doesn't even exist. 

We’ve covered “A” and “B” in previous posts, but the other options raise new wrinkles in dealing with the lightly insane, ie. people who buy books (that “s” in “insane” is strictly optional, by the way. Use it; drop it; as you see fit).

Option “C” occurs whenever the punter has had a thrilling session with a companion or acquaintance wherein a topic of seeming import has arisen. They will hurry away to your shop afterwards and – using the mere skerricks of information that they’ve retained – try to purchase suitable reading matter in order to appear fully conversant at the next encounter.

“I want a book all about a famous German philosopher of the 17^th Century,” they’ll say, to which you will reply - with some justification I might note – “which one?”

Reeling off a list of names will serve no purpose because, of the minimal gleanings the customer has remembered from the discussion, details like names, dates and titles will not number amongst them. Instead, words like “sublime”, or “excellent”, or phrases like “very deep”, or “truly insightful”, will have stuck and this is what the cretin has summoned forth for you to work with.

With perseverance and great restraint you will finally pin down the likely work to be Immanuel Kant’s A Critique of Pure Reason, written by him in the 1700s; however, when you airily note that he was actually Prussian, the sale will stop dead in its tracks. What little information they have is unshakable in its Truth: they may have heard “17^th Century” and not “1700s” but that’s all that they’ll give you. If you’re lucky they will walk out the door with an “adorable” copy of Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare instead, as recompense for having wasted your life, but don’t count on it.

Option “D” is quite similar, but it derives from the sinister quagmire that is talk radio. Whilst driving, or gardening, or lacquering the cat, the punter will have heard a reference to something that appeals to them – a forthcoming TV show, or a movie that’s being made, or a work upon which a writer is currently making progress. Inevitably, they will walk immediately down to your store and ask for it. I once had a customer ask me for the “new Monty Python DVD” moments after they heard an interview with Terry Jones and Eric Idle, in which the two of them vaguely mused that another Python film wasn’t out of the question. And who copped flak for gently talking the customer off this particular ledge? You guessed it.

Sometimes it’s just that the topic about which they’ve come to you in search of enlightenment is so obscure that no-one has written anything about it: “the Cicada life-cycle in New South Wales’s Blue Mountains”, “Brazing in the early Sydney Colony”, “Railway Upholstery in the British Indian Holdings”. Your gentle suggestion that perhaps the customer is the person who should be turning the sod on this particular field is always met with a derisive sniff.

The customer’s preconceptions get in the way with this line of inquiry also. I was once asked for a book on the medical and household uses of garden weeds in Australia. Now, we have a bunch of books that discuss this topic – everything from treating medical infirmities to dyeing, with only the plants ready-to-hand in your backyard. But no: the punter wanted a book about using “weeds”, not “plants”. After trying to point out that the word “weed” is simply gardener’s jargon for a plant not where it ought to be, I got the derisive sniff and a look that indicated that I was some kind of mental deficient. What can you do?

Bad as all this is, there are many times that it gets worse. By starting their inquiry without accurate information, credible details, or any type of basic research, and then - after discovering that you’re unable to provide them with what they want - treating you like you’re some kind of failure, they ask if there’s anything close to what they’re after. Something in the ballpark, as it were. With an Herculean effort you provide a solid fall-back option, and place it in front of them for their consideration. That’s when they drop the other shoe:

They’ve also forgotten their glasses.

(Focus, people! For Christ’s sake: focus!)