Is it possible to covet something without knowing precisely what that thing is?
I ask this question because I have decided that I want -- no, urgently need -- a pocket book. I'm not quite sure, though, what a pocket book is.
My attraction to this enigmatic object began when I read with racing heart the dramatic moment in War and Peace at which Pierre confronts Anatole about the latter's relationship with Natasha. 'Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?', asks Pierre, who has just threatened Kuragin the cad with a paperweight. We're told at this point that 'Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket and took out his pocket book', from which an incriminating letter is retrieved.
Ink is mentioned nowhere in this scene, but I have come to believe that I, a defender of fountain pens and authentic ink, should be equipped with a pocket book from this day forward.
But what is a pocket book? To complicate matters, Anthony Briggs' recent translation of Tolstoy's novel has Anatole removing the letter from a wallet. (I don't know what the original Russian edition of War and Peace states; I will need to consult honorary Penquod crew member Stefan, who has a background in the field -- and who has been teaching me how to say rude things in Russian.) Is 'pocket book' merely an old-fashioned term for the rather prosaic 'wallet'? (The English edition of War and Peace in which I found the phrase was first published in the 1920s.)
In an attempt to find out more, I have consulted the Oxford English Dictionary. And what I have found (under 'pocketbook', rather than 'pocket book') is deeply intriguing:
A. n.
1. a. Chiefly in form pocket book. A small book, adapted so as to be conveniently carried in a person's pocket. In later use chiefly N. Amer.: a paperback or other small or inexpensive edition of a book.
Use of the word to denote a printed book does not seem to have been common before the 20th cent. The N. Amer. use dates from 1939, when ten titles were published in the U.S. in inexpensive paperback editions by Pocket Books, Inc., a company founded by Robert F. de Graff (1895-1981), subsequently an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
b. Brit. A book for memoranda, notes, etc., intended to be carried in a pocket; a notebook.
2. a. A pocket-sized folding case for holding banknotes, papers, etc.; a wallet. Now chiefly U.S.
In early use not always distinguishable from sense A. 1b.
b. A handbag or purse for banknotes or coins, esp. one belonging to a woman; (also) a woman's handbag for carrying everyday personal items. Now chiefly U.S.
c. fig. Chiefly N. Amer. A person's financial resources; funds.
3. U.S. slang (esp. regional (south.)) (euphem.). The female external genitals; the vagina.
B. adj. (attrib.). Chiefly N. Amer. Relating to considerations of personal finance, esp. as a factor in politics (see sense A. 2b).
Complicated, isn't it? And sense 3 does perhaps make my claim to want a pocket book rather intriguing to readers in certain parts of the United States.
I'm ruling out definitions 1a and 1b. I don't think that that is what Anatole retrieves from his pocket, partly because such an object probably wouldn't be large enough to hold a letter. Besides, I already have a Smythson Panama jotter which fits those particular decriptions:
(N.B.: The placement of my Aurora Talentum might look a little odd, but it is, in the name of anonymity, hiding my initials, which are stamped in the corner of the cover.)
Definitions 2b and 2c can also be discarded, I think. It seems to me that Anatole's pocket book is probably the kind of object described in 2a, but I'd like to believe that it's more glamorous than what we'd call a wallet in the present moment. If it's going comfortably to hold letters, like Anatole's, it will need to be larger than the standard wallet of the early twenty-first century, I think. Perhaps what I'm looking for is more like the object in which Tony Wendice, the plotting husband in Hitchcock's Dial 'M' for Murder, secretes a letter used to incriminate Swann:
But why, ultimately, have I fallen in love with the idea of owning a pocket book? Why has Cupid led me to covet such an obscure object of desire? ('Cupid' and 'covet', I have just learnt, are etymologically linked. Feverishly entwined, perhaps.) What would I do with such a thing? (I can already hear the Inkette wearily asking this last question.)
First of all, I like the fact that the object in question sounds archaic -- a pocket of the past with barely a hold on the present. I don't think that men are supposed to carry pocket books around these days, and this makes me determined to arm myself with such an item. If we start here, the theory runs, soon we'll all be wearing fedoras and cufflinks again. (And, if War and Peace is anything to go by, not long after that we'll be shooting rivals in duels and waving sabres at French soldiers.)
Beyond that, though, it seems to me that the pocket book has a role to play in the preservation of ink. Tolstoy's Anatole carries letters in his, so I see no reason why we modern wielders of the pocket book could not use ours to ferry around sheets of decadent paper covered with samples of our favourite inks. We and inky lines, that is to say, could go everywhere together, could live in each other's pockets. Ink would never be out of pocket (if I may use what the OED informs me is an American way of saying 'out of reach, absent, unavailable').
We could, of course, also carry actual letters, rather than mere scribblings, in our pocket books. And it is on these grounds that a pocket book becomes all the more necessary, for, while clearing out a filing cabinet in my office several days ago, I found a letter sent to me by honorary Penquod crew member Eileen in 1994. (We were graduate students together in those days, and we spent a great deal of time together, mainly gossiping, discussing the merits of Jack Jones' voice, and plotting a radical overhaul of British academia.)
I had forgotten all about this letter, and the events to which it refers are lost in the mists of time. It identifies an 'agenda' for a talk that Eileen was about to give in front of someone inspecting our research centre, but I have no idea what this speech was about, as the agenda itself was not with the letter when I rediscovered it. It's also impossible to date the document precisely, as Eileen has simply written the following at the top:
However, while much about the letter remains enigmatic, a certain key detail struck me as soon as I unfolded the forgotten sheet: Eileen had used a fountain pen and real ink. We spend most of our time these days discussing nibs and new colours (well, Eileen also manages frequently to change the topic to her lust for Britney Spears, Sarah Palin, and Charlotte Church), but I don't think that we ever discussed writing instruments in the early days of our friendship in the mid-1990s. I had not yet fallen under the spell of ink, for one thing; Eileen clearly had, but I think that this side of her character was still secret. She did, moreover, as she informed me a day or two ago, drift away from fountain pens into the dubious arms of rollerballs shortly after our time as students together came to an end.
In other words, the letter belongs to a time when we were not fully fledged inkthusiasts. It's strange to look at it today and to think that I would have paid no attention whatever to the ink fifteen years ago. Eileen has, of course, now asked me what shade she used a decade and a half ago, and I've reported that it's black. I can't be any more specific than that, as I find one black ink difficult to distinguish from another. Whatever it is, it's looking decidedly fresh fifteen years after being committed to paper.
But why is this historical document related to my need for a pocket book? It seems to me, dear readers, that I could carry this letter around with me at all times if I possessed an object in which to store it. I'd like to keep the sheet with me as more than just the mark of a special friendship. (Ye gods, the Penquod is sailing worryingly out of the waters of misanthropy and isolation. Must. Correct. Course. 'All hands to deck!' Oh, wait: there's no one here but me, as I've alienated everyone.) The letter is a reminder of the Days Before Ink, of my pre-obsession years. It's hard to imagine that I will ever be uninkterested in writing instruments, but Eileen's note is proof of my former inkdifference. When I first read it in 1994, my eyes paid no attention to ink; it's only now that I see form, colour, and shading alongside content.
And I feel that I need to keep the letter close in order to vaccinkate me against the easy lure of inkdifference. It's a souvenir from the dark days before I saw the light, and it marks a state to which I must never return. That way lie ballpoints...
Some wear a religious symbol or carry a holy book to protect them from the forces of evil. I, by way of contrast, am in ink's pocket, and it, if I can just find a pocket book, shall always be in mine.
Inks in use today: Noodler's Nightshade; Diamine Grey.
Posts
