A review of the novel in the manner of the novel

In my hands, you have to imagine how it feels, this copy of Roger Morris’s Taking Comfort. It all starts with how it feels in my hands.

It’s a hardcover edition of the novel. I always appreciate hardback editions and I’m more willing than most to pay a little extra for a hardback edition. I am a reader. I am a bookworm. Hardback editions reaffirm my faith in books. The hardback edition of Roger Morris’s Taking Comfort, published by Macmillan New Writing, reaffirms my faith in the book-making industry.

More than that. I have to admit there is more than that. I find comfort in this hardback edition. I hold it in my hands. I hold it longer than I hold other things. There is comfort in this book. In Roger Morris’s book. There is comfort in the hardness of it. The hardness is important. The completeness of it. The compactness of it. The hard, enclosed secret of it.

I especially love hardback editions when they are little books, short books. Hard covers are light to hold when the novel is short. Taking Comfort is a short novel. It is a short novel and a small edition. The book itself is around 14 x 20 cm and two-and-a-bit cm thick. It is light in my hands. It is light and hopeful in my hands when I hold it. I can hold it in one hand. I can hold it in both. Because it’s light I prefer to hold it in one hand. I like holding a book in one hand. It makes reading it more comfortable. I was reading it in bed. When I read in bed I like to roll on my side. That’s how I like to read. I hold the book there on its side. Other books, heavier and fatter books, are difficult to read that way. But Taking Comfort is light enough to hold and read anywhere. I like that about this hardback edition. But more than that there is something else. The blue ribbon bookmark.
 
I knew about the blue ribbon long before my edition arrived in the mail from Play.com, UK. I bought it from Play.com and not Amazon.co.uk because I like to try new ways of doing old things. Trying something new on the Internet is easy. Not hard at all.

Anyway, the blue ribbon. I can’t remember the last time I bought a hardcover with a ribbon in it. Everyone had noticed it. Everyone had liked it. The blue ribbon. It is royal blue, the blue ribbon. Maybe it is more accurate to say, navy. In any case, it is a blue that reminds me of my childhood. It is the blue of my school uniform and the blue of the ribbons I wore in my hair. It is comforting to know that it is the blue of my childhood. I caress the ribbon. Each time I pause during my reading of the novel, I caress the ribbon. Each time I need to close the book I slide the ribbon through my fingers. I slide the ribbon through my fingers a number of times because I’ve forgotten what it’s like to touch a ribbon. There were many ribbons in my childhood, but there aren’t any now. I only have the blue ribbon in Roger Morris’s hardback edition of Taking Comfort. The ribbon is there to feel. I know that. That’s why it’s there. It’s not just a practical thing, a thing to keep one’s place in a book. A ribbon is for feeling. And it’s very comforting to remember the two sides of the ribbon, one smooth and one rough. I slide my fingers over the ribbon and place it between the two pages. I press my forefinger along it to make sure it won’t crease when I close the book. The blue ribbon is important, but let me not dwell on it. The point is, the point is that everything is important. Even blue ribbons.

The blue ribbon is important, but the book is more important. This book, this hardcover edition published by Macmillan New Writing. No one expected Macmillan New Writing to make such a splash of things. No one expected Macmillan New Writing to be such a marketing success. Everyone’s talking about it. About Macmillan New Writing. And everyone is talking about Roger Morris and his book, Taking Comfort. Everyone is buying the book. Reading it. Everyone is buying it, but not quite understanding the importance of it. Not all actions make sense. Buying things. Sometimes one doesn’t know why one buys things.

I’m holding the book. Roger Morris’s Taking Comfort. I hold it in my hand. I hold it for a while. I’ve finished it now and I sit with it for a while. I do this with all the novels I read and finish. I would not normally admit that I do this. I would not normally like to admit that a book’s feel, how a book feels in my hands, is important. What is extra important in this instance is that Roger Morris’s Taking Comfort, the story in it, the novel, knows exactly how important it is to have and feel such objects. This novel knows there’s comfort in such things.

I look at the book again. I look at the cover. I run my hand over the cover jacket. Half the cover is smooth and my skin runs easily over it. The rest is glossy and my fingertips are sticky over it. It is very hot at the moment. It is like August in May. My fingertips are moist and sticky against the glossy parts of the cover. The glossy parts of the cover are pictures. There are three pictures. One is of an oncoming train. That is where the action of the novel takes place. That is where it begins. That is the train in front of which the young Japanese girl jumps. That is where Rob Saunders, the protagonist, collects the girl’s Snoopy ring binder. That is how it all begins. When Rob takes the first item and puts it in his Di Beradino classic briefcase. Rob’s on his way to work. That’s why he’s waiting for the train. He sees the tragedy of the girl’s suicide. It marks his face. It changes everything. Rob takes the Snoopy ring binder, which the girl drops just before she jumps. That is when Rob starts his collection. Rob starts collecting items left behind at scenes of accident and disaster.

There are two other glossy prints on the cover. There is a knife. There is a teabag. These are some of the items that exist in the novel. They are items with power. It is not always comprehensible the power these items hold over us. The items are not anonymous. They have names. They have names like Tetley and Sabatier Au Carbone. These names make them identifiable. These names make us want them. We associate lots of things with these names. We associate success, superiority, power, desire. Above all we associate comfort with these names. These brand names give us comfort. We want, we buy, we long for.

Rob’s a marketing man. He’s knows about such things. He knows all about the secrets of things, objects, gadgets, brands. He knows their secrets, their power. He knows how to make people want them. He hates that he knows. But he’s a marketing man. And he is haunted by that knowledge. 

Rob takes comfort in collecting items left behind. This is how Rob responds to the danger in the world. To tragedy. What else is there to do? What else is there for us to do?

In Taking Comfort objects give comfort. People do not. People can do disturbing things, like fly planes and helicopters into buildings, or become bombs on trains and buses. People can do other crazy things like announce they love you or refuse to have a baby with you. If people aren’t doing crazy things they are dying in massive disasters, like earthquakes.

Rob feels all of this and is scared. Rob is informed. Rob is scared of the world because he understands all this. Some of the others in the novel also understand all this, like the woman with the Twirl mug. The woman who shops for shoes. She finds comfort in shopping for shoes. She does not find comfort in the company of others. Though, with Rob, something is happening with Rob. She sees it on his face.

I look at my face now that I’ve finished with the novel. I’m like Rob. I’m like Rob after he witnessed the girl’s suicide. I’m like Rob after he witnessed the suicide and took the Snoopy ring binder. I’ve taken Taking Comfort with me. I’ve witnessed the story. I’ve got it here beside me now. As I’m writing this I’m looking at the book again. I open the pages and read some paragraphs again. I touch the cover. My fingers stick over the glossy parts. The glossy parts are the images of the story I’ve read.

At night, I’ll take the book back to my bedside table. I’ll leave it there. It will be hard for me to part with it. Maybe I won’t part with it. I’ll keep it there. I know I’ll want to see it again, read bits of it again. Touch the glossy picture of the train, the knife.

The story is important. I know it is. It tells everything there is to tell about my life and other lives after the towers fell. This is how we are now. We are frightened. People are frightening. We take comfort in things. In objects, products, gadgets. We connect with people through the things we use and share, like a coffee mug. We connect with people through the gifts we give, like a briefcase. If we chose the correct brand we make a statement about the people in our lives. Sometimes we connect with people by creating another person, a third person, a baby. The baby is a brand, too. It is hope. Belief. Safety, maybe.

We are also comfortable with our computers, with XP, Word, Explorer. This is how we like to see the world around us. Through this window. We like the world from this distance. We take comfort in such things.

I take comfort in such things. And I take comfort in good books, like Roger Morris’s Taking Comfort.

You? What do you take comfort in?