Ode to Books Discovered by Chance

The books I love the most are the ones I discovered by chance. It is a realization I had revisiting Possession, where every page reminds me of the first time I read it, of my wonder and admiration then. It was a book I bought on impulse. I was somewhat familiar with Byatt: I had read two of her shorter novels and had conflicted feelings about them. Surprisingly enough, I hadn't heard anything about Possession. I bought it because it was on sale and it had a cute cover. It sat on my shelf for two years. And then one day I read it and was touched beyond expectation.

This is a story that repeats itself over and over again in my list of favorite books. I picked up The Ambassadors because it was dirt cheap. I had never heard of it and I was not in love with Henry James. I received Absalom, Absalom from my mother, who uh, bought it because it was on sale. I hadn't read anything by Faulkner and my mother doesn't have the greatest taste in books, so it's a wonder I even opened it. I found T.S. Eliot by buying a book for someone and reading the first poem in it because I was bored. I bought The House of Mirth in Germany because a. visiting foreign countries makes me buy books and b. it had a beautiful cover. I bought The Handmaid's Tale in Scotland in a '3 for the price of 2' deal together with Never Let Me Go and Beloved. (Without a doubt, the best spent £20 in my life.)  I picked up Middlemarch at the library because it was there. The name George Eliot didn't tell me much beyond "classic author," "woman with male pseudonym" and "not George Sand."

I ended up loving all of these books and so many others I found by accident. I will always remember the feeling I had reading the first page of Absalom, Absalom, the almost painful wonder that there was someone who could write like that and I hadn't known he existed, the fear that I might have never found him, the gratitude that I did, the hope that there were others out there to be discovered. And that, I think, is large part of why these books became my favorites. These feelings are now embedded in them. I can't read Faulkner without remembering that first rush of breathlessness. I can't read Possession without remembering how admiration for Byatt crept on me that first time--I hadn't known you could write about that.

I hadn't known and I am grateful for it. The most beautiful thing I saw in my life was the Cologne Cathedral erupting above low industrial buildings. I was on a train from the airport, on my way to see it, a cathedral that everyone said was beautiful. But no one warned me that you could see it from the train, that you won't have time to prepare because it would just emerge on the skyline and it would look like it had cut its way through the world around it. It was the only moment when I found it breathtaking. Up close, it was just unsurprisingly beautiful.

It's the same way with books: I don't read for the moments anticipated in study guides. I read for those moments when you read a book that everyone had dissected to death, a book you know by heart through cultural osmosis, and suddenly there is a passage that no one mentioned, but that speaks to you like few things ever did. I read for the moments when you open a book you hadn't heard much about and it satisfies a need you didn't even realize you had. I read for the unexpected moment of beauty.

I felt the need to write this out, I am not sure why. There is no conclusion to this, no resolution to make, because it's not like I can set out to find books by chance. I just hope it will continue to happen.