by Kate Barrett
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Have book, will travel.[/caption]
Early on in our relationship, my boyfriend gave me a book to read while we did the long-distance thing. We had just graduated from college and there were many questions up in the air, not the least of which was, “What’s the point?” He went to work at a newspaper in nowhere Illinois; I went to work at an outdoor school in nowhere Wyoming. There weren’t any airports within an hour of where we each lived. Seeing each other just wasn’t really an option.
So he gave me a book. It was his copy of Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac—not just a copy, but his copy. He read it in high school after his sister gave it to him. They were two kids, good students both, growing up in a working-class Irish Catholic neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. Jack Kerouac’s world of hitchhiking and orgies and climbing mountains on a whim wasn’t really in their realm of experience, but Dave’s sister got something out of it and she thought he would too. He told me, before we each left for our separate jobs, that it woke him up, reading that book. He hoped something similar could happen for me.
I got to Wyoming and immediately lost the book. Yep, I did that. I was a total jerk and just misplaced it—multiple times in fact. My only saving grace was how small the town was. The first time I lost it, someone found it under a tree in the park and gave it to me the next time he saw me there. What a relief! Then it disappeared when I took it to work. The girl who did backpack repairs in the gear shop found it and returned it, after reading a few chapters. This kept happening—either I’m the worst or that book had a vendetta, but I just couldn’t keep my hands on it. But the great thing was so many different people saw it by the end, and it took on a whole life of its own. It became at once my book—more so than when Dave gave it to me--and also everyone else’s book.
At the risk of making this cheesy, I guess the communal copy of Dharma Bums is what I think of when I think about why literature is important, what makes it so essential for me. Ultimately, Jack Kerouac and his book probably mean something very different to me than they do to Dave, and something very different to Dave than they do to his sister. Likewise, who knows what it means to all those people who read a chapter or two of it in passing thanks to my carelessness? A hundred people could read the exact same words a hundred different ways, but it’s still something everyone shares. Even apart from the plot or themes or content of the book, I have a connection to everyone who came across it—people close to me and others who have moved on and still others I haven’t even met yet.
This post is part of our Lit Matters series, in which writers and readers express why supporting and elevating literary arts is meaningful to them. Lit Matters stories will be posted throughout the month of November, leading up to Colorado Gives Day on December 9. Mark your calendar for Colorado Gives Day or schedule your gift now. Thank you!
