the literati

Two “books” logos, forty-four quotations, one thousand thirty-one words, five thousand nine hundred three characters painstakingly hand lettered over one narrow bookcase.  No transfers, no stencils, no modern crafting conveniences to make the job a breeze, just a paintbrush and a hand I’d feared would never unclench again. Essentially, I’d carried on with the task as early sign painters had, from the scriptores of Ancient Rome to the signwriters of the Victorian era. My predecessors hadn’t had a choice. Me? I’d apparently lost my marbles. Ten years ago, upon completion of this upcycling project, only one phrase had come to mind.  Never again.

I have long been an avid upcycler, completely redesigning or merely repurposing items rather than adding to our overburdened landfills, though my efforts are rarely as ambitious as this. Finding a new use for everyday objects or enhancing them with a fresh new look is better for the planet. It’s also kinder to the budget than buying replacement items over and over. I’d owned this simple unfinished furnishing since my mid-twenties, though it had eventually been relegated to various closets for various storage needs, acquiring the kinds of scuffs and gouges one would expect. Closets are not the most hospitable environments for a bookcase. Decades later, I’d realized it was the perfect size to fit in the narrow entryway of a small room in our current home. There, it could fulfill its intended purpose. If a hunk of wood could emote, I’d imagined it would have smiled—broadly—or burst into an excited fit of giggles. (The latter prospect is either adorable or super creepy. I haven’t quite decided. Should any of my furniture ever erupt as such, I’ll be sure to let you know.)

The Literati Bookcase had seemed like a good idea--if I might further borrow from the classics--once upon a time.   What could be more appropriate for a book lover's bookshelf than a selection of favorite quotes from some of humankind’s greatest literature?  The idea remains an inspired one; only the execution had been horrendous...tediously horrendous.  It had taken months. Worse, all that toiling had occurred over the summer, through blindingly sunny days and merciless heat waves in a house with no air conditioning. Frequent cooling breaks had been necessary, not only for my health but to prevent raging rivers of perspiration from dripping into my freshly applied paint. I’d suspected the undertaking might be a maddening endeavor long before I’d grasped paintbrush in hand.  That the final quote on the final side refers to “...the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings”, well, that, my friends, had been no mere coincidence.  Though it may have breached the waters of sanity just a skosh, consider it an inside joke shared between myself and an inanimate object.  Once said enterprise had been completed—had been subsequently distressed and sealed and cured until ready to welcome cherished tomes—I’d been free to forget the horrors of the journey and revel, instead, in the happy ending.

In hindsight, I still could have used it as a bookcase in a cozy entryway without all the fuss, but where’s the fun—the sense of satisfaction—in that?

Now, fellow bibliophiles and casual readers alike, how many of these classics and their authors can you name from a single line or paragraph?  Each quotation from The Literati bookcase is listed below, and its corresponding origin can be found at the bottom of this post.  Good Luck!  Good Luck!

1.  It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 

2.  Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

3.  Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think?  

4.  The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it. 

5.  Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember...  

6.  If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always over-educated.  

7.  Brevity is the soul of wit. 

8.  I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired.  

9.  Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.

10.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...  

11.  We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. 

12.  He wrapped himself in quotations as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors. 

13.  Not all who wander are lost.  

14.  Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns.  

15.  I never travel without my diary.  One should always have something sensational to read in the train.  

16.  This above all: to thine own self be true. 

17.  You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. 

18.  This is my favorite book in the world, though I have never read it.  

19.  The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in this thickly gloved hand.  

20.  Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.  The world you desire can be won.  It exists...it is real...it is possible...it’s yours. 

21.  If ever they remembered their life in this world it was as one remembers a dream.  

22.  Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.

23.  Everything was made bright by her.  She was the smile that shed light all around her.  

24.  The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.  

25.  Never laugh at live dragons.  

26.  Curiouser and curiouser.  

27.  But what is the black spot, captain?  

28.  I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams.  

29.  Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  

30.  The door, indeed, stood open as before, but the windows were still shuttered, the chimneys breathed no stain into the bright air. 

31.  The sun shone, having no alternative, on nothing new. 

32.  ...the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune... 

33.  All children, except one, grow up.

34.  It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  

35.  It was a dark and stormy night... 

36.  The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 

37.  It was a full moon and, shining on all the snow, it made everything almost as bright as day -- only the shadows were rather confusing.  

38.  But you perceive, my boy, that it is not so, and the facts, as usual, are very stubborn things, overruling all theories. 

39.  I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.  

40.  Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.  

41.  Like a long sighing of wind in trees it begins, then they sweep into sight, borne now upon a cloud of phantom dust. 

42.  It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at the bottom.  

43.  She preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable.  

44.  You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.  

the literati bookcase

1.  George Orwell, 1984.         2.  Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse.         3.  L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.         4.  J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan.         5.  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.         6.  Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.         7.  William Shakespeare, Hamlet.         8.  Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.         9.  H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.         10.  Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.         11.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.         12.  Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions.         13.  J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.         14.  George Eliot, Letter to Miss Lewis.         15.  Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.         16.  William Shakespeare, Hamlet.         17.  Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.         18.  William Goldman, The Princess Bride.         19.  H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man.         20.  Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.         21.  C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.         22.  Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.         23.  Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.        24.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles.         25.  J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.         26.  Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.         27.  Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island.         28.  H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.         29.  Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.         30.  Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.         31.  Samuel Beckett, Murphy.         32.  William Shakespeare, Hamlet.         33.  J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan.         34.  Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.         35.  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford.         36.  Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.         37.  C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.         38.  Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the Earth.         39.  Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories.         40.  J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.         41.  William Faulkner, Light in August.         42.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.         43.  Louisa May Alcott, Little Women.         44.  Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.