Melville & Co.

2011-11-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

Chris DeWeese's dad, Bob (how many of the great booksellers are named Bob? We've got Willig and Moore in Easthampton* alone) and mom, Kris, opened a bookstore called Melville & Co. in Port Townsend in 1975. The sign above was designed and painted (on glass, with white gesso and blue paint) by Kris was a beacon for books for over a quarter century. Melville & Co. closed its doors in 2001, but its books still live below the decks in Bob & Kris's home. I just learned from Chris that Bob is going through the boxes which have been breathing in his basement for the past decade. Walser & Co. hopes to sit down with Melville & Co. for "a strong wind" & "a good talk"** in the weeks ahead. Sub-subscribe, bookmark, "come back soon", etc.

*Bob Willig, proprietor of the legendary ("world's greatest bookstore"--Clay Banes) Troubadour Books (formerly of West Hatfield, now sharing space with Grey Matter Books, our near neighbors--we're on West St., they're on East St., less than five minutes away on the bike path that runs between us--in Hadley) has long lived in Easthampton. Bob Moore, the legendary bookscout behind many of the books at Troubadour (and Ken Lopez) over the years, has taken his talents to the upstart White Square Books in Easthampton, where a lot of Melville books recently landed.

**Seth Landman, quoting Melville's journal: "A strong wind. A good talk."

Some context here, from Laurie Robertson-Lorant's Melville: A Biography

(University of Massachusetts Press, 1996). On October 11, 1856, Melville set

sail for Scotland. While there he began keeping a journal and visited Hawthorne,

who wrote at length about the visit in his own journal (see below). Melville's own

account of the visit, "terse by comparsion," Robertson-Lorant notes with grave

understatement, is as follows:

An agreeable day. Took a long walk by the sea. Sand & grass. Wild & desolate.
A strong wind. A good talk.

Some excerpts from Hawthorne windier, talkier entry:

"Herman Melville came to see me at the consulate, looking much as he

used to do (a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder), in a rough outside

coat, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner...Melville

has not been well, of late; he has been affected with neuralgic complains

in his head and limbs and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary

occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for

a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind.

...

Melville brought only "the least bit of bundle, which, he told me, contained

a night-shirt and a tooth-brush," Hawthorne observed. "He is a person of

very gentlemanly instincts in every respect, save that he is a little hetero-

dox in the matter of clean linen."

The two men conversed "on pretty much our former terms of sociability and

confidence," and Hawthorne took the next day off so he could spend it with

his friend. They took a long walk on the beach and sat down "in a hollow

among the sand hills (sheltering ourselves from the high, cool wind) and

smoked a cigar," and in his notebook Hawthorne gave a perceptive de-

scription of Melville's spiritual state:

Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity,
and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he
had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does
not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he
gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists--and has per-
sisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before--in wandering to
and fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills
among which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable
in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one
or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly
religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better
worth immortality than most of us.

(Robertson-Lorant 376-377)

Wo ist Walser & Co?

2008-06-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

Update: October 1, 2010

Walser & Co., some shelves at Flying Object, is the bookstore & lending library of the Robert Walser Society of Western Massachusetts. Besides actively buying and lending books by (and about) Robert Walser (and Company), we will be distributing titles published by minutes BOOKS and you (email walserandco At gmAil dOt cOm)