TRACES

I am reading Mario Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl. I keep being reminded of Thomas Pynchon's V. and Steve Erickson's Zeroville. They are also stories of unrequited love that is perverse in its obsessiveness and power.

These two stories keep creeping into my consciousness, so much so that I turn to each. I thumb through them, searching for the passages that I seek. Zeroville is fairly easy because I read it less than a year ago and took notes.

V. is going to be more problematic. The Perennial Library paperback edition I have is just shy of 500 pages. Add to that, I never took notes or marked any pages in my book.


Normally, I would mark passages that struck me as interesting or important with Book Darts (as above left). That is because I don't write in books. (I never have and don't foresee a time when I will feel compelled to do such.) Instead, I slide one of the sleek copper darts next to the line or lines I am interested in and return to it later. Then I will type a set of notes, with page references, so that I can remove the book darts and use them in another book.

(That also allows me to read the book again and again, without being prejudiced by a previous reading, while still enjoying the luxury of notes to reference if I so desire.)

Except that as I thumbed through the pages of the novel, I realized that someone had lightly marked passages in pencil (as above right). The pencil marks are very light—a line running in the margins along a paragraph or a faint check mark. I bought the book years ago from Tacoma Book Center, one of the area's best purveyors of used books. It was in excellent condition.

I am certain that the pencil marks in the margins of V. were placed there by the previous owner. I don't remember noticing them before, but they had to have been present.

The amazing thing is that these traces of someone else's reading of the book are marking the passages that I was searching for. Over a section of twenty pages, a smattering of scattered marks highlight the sentences that connect my current reading of The Bad Girl with what I remember about V.

I usually cannot read a book or article if someone else has marked or highlighted passages because I feel like I am reading it through their biases, when I would rather read it through my own. But, in this case, it works perfectly.

Thank you, unknown previous owner of my book!