or: 'real literary gifts'
This is not so much a rant as an observation that I've cherished, nurtured and allowed to bloom into a proper well-rounded thought. A little like parenting a small annoyance until it fruits as a full-blown grudge.
Knowing me, you know for certain -for if you do not, you don't know me - how fond I am of reading. And yet in all my live, I have received but one -ONE- literary gift. And even that one - though comical - half blown. But before I give you the details here, I must first explain what en-nerves me so much about what people call literary gifts.
Literary gifts DO NOT include book shop gift certificates. Neither do paperback bestsellers all too neatly wrapped by expert employees at chain book markets. They are at best a safe way out of the misery finding a present for someone, one doesn't exactly know. A literary gift is not about giving a book, it's about giving a story.
And that is why I consider, despite the many vouchers, discount tickets, fancy cooking book and 'complete works of ...'* , Jonathan Swift's 'The Benefit of Farting' securely packed in a cardboard shoebox accompanied by a can of beans and a note stating "please render your colleagues lives miserable", as the only gift coming anywhere close to the honorary adjective 'literary'.
*insert 19th Russian or British author
This is not so much a rant as an observation that I've cherished, nurtured and allowed to bloom into a proper well-rounded thought. A little like parenting a small annoyance until it fruits as a full-blown grudge.
Knowing me, you know for certain -for if you do not, you don't know me - how fond I am of reading. And yet in all my live, I have received but one -ONE- literary gift. And even that one - though comical - half blown. But before I give you the details here, I must first explain what en-nerves me so much about what people call literary gifts.
Literary gifts DO NOT include book shop gift certificates. Neither do paperback bestsellers all too neatly wrapped by expert employees at chain book markets. They are at best a safe way out of the misery finding a present for someone, one doesn't exactly know. A literary gift is not about giving a book, it's about giving a story.
And that is why I consider, despite the many vouchers, discount tickets, fancy cooking book and 'complete works of ...'* , Jonathan Swift's 'The Benefit of Farting' securely packed in a cardboard shoebox accompanied by a can of beans and a note stating "please render your colleagues lives miserable", as the only gift coming anywhere close to the honorary adjective 'literary'.
*insert 19th Russian or British author
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