Why Choose Books for your gifts this holiday season? Glad you asked.
It's because there are few things more fun than giving someone a book
they fall in love with; it lasts longer and matters more than, say,
necklaces or sweaters, while rarely being more than about fifteen
dollars. What's more, your purposeful choice of books, purchased from
indie booksellers, supports a vibrant and dynamic literary culture in a
time when the book world is struggling and even literacy is
horrifically low. Choose Books because you really can make a
difference. Choose Books because it is joyful.
In this series, you can look forward an ongoing guide to books as
gifts; at the end of the season, it will be collected as an attractive
PDF for you to download. More than a mere list of my personal
favorites, Choose Books is outward-looking, featuring outstanding books
of very different styles for very different tastes (and ages). Learn
more about this series here.
Archy and Mehitabel
By Don Marquis
How to describe the delight of Archy and Mehitabel? Let's start with the basics: Archy is a cockroach; Mehitabel is a cat in her ninth life. Archy was once a free verse poet; Mehitabel is an alley cat of uncertain trustworthiness who claims she was once incarnated as Cleopatra. At night, Archy continues to tell his stories in "vers libre" by hurling himself on the keys of Don Marquis' typewriter (Archy calls Don "boss"); the resulting poems, both hilarious and strange, comprise this collection. Of course, since Archy isn't capable of pressing the shift key and another key at the same time, all the poems are lower-case and without punctuation.
One of my favorites, "the lesson of the moth," features Archy in one of his philosophical moments:
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself in the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instand and than cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
archy
Don Marquis introduced his charmed creations in his daily column, "The Sun Dial," for the
The Evening Sun newspaper (later named simply
The Sun) in New York in 1916. (See the original column where Archy debuted
here.) Archy and Mehitabel were regular features for six years in the column, and for four years after that in the New York Tribune. After that, Marquis took Archy and Mehitabel to Collier's magazine and other publications, ultimately resulting in more than 500 sketches. This book,
Archy and Mehitabel, was the first of several collections of the humorous and charming adventures, published in 1927--accompanied by great illustrations (see above).
E.B. White wrote a lovely essay about Marquis and his most famous creations (with fascinating context about how journalism had changed from Marquis' time to White's). He writes:
Archy has endeared himself in a special, way to thousands of poets and
creators and newspaper slaves, and there are reasons for this beyond the
sheer merit of his literary output. The details of his creative life make
him blood brother to writing men. He cast himself with all I his force upon
a key, head downward. So do we all. And when he was through his, labors,
he fell to the floor, spent. He was vain (so are we all), hungry, saw things
from the under side, and was continually bringing up the matter of whether
he should be paid for his work.
Indeed.
Consider this book as a gift for people who are one or more of the following:
- The cynic you'd like to see smile.
- People who think that all poems are serious/boring/intimidating.
- Readers who are smitten with clever humor, whether found in Mark Twain, Shel Silverstein, P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, or Sarah Vowell.
Recommended Edition:
Random House
Paperback / $12.95
This is the only current available edition of the original classic, though you might find excellent out-of-print editions in used bookstores (my copy came this way).
Other Available Editions:
University Press of New England
Paperback / $17.95
The first of two volumes that collect long-forgotten sketches of Archy and Mehitabel that were literally rescued from Marquis' steamer trunk after his death in 1937. It features 34 illustrations. This would be great as a companion volume gift, perhaps also with archyology II: the final dig--which is truly the final volume of the adventures of the whimsical, sage cockroach and the curious cat.
Where To Buy:
Your local independent bookseller. Find the shop nearest to you here.
You might also want to prowl the used bookshops for treasures. If the
book you want is not in stock, the bookseller will be happy to order it
for you (almost always sans shipping); just ask! If there are really,
truly no indie booksellers near you, consider ordering online from an
independent bookseller, such as Brookline Booksmith or Powell's, and having it delivered to your doorstep. Another option: order online directly from the publisher.