posted on 19 May 2018

Among Booksellers by David Batterham

I tend to find the books that collect together the letters passed between famous, or sometimes less than famous people, can be a hit or miss process. When they work well and the letters are written with brio and are sparky or indiscreet they can be great fun - rather like getting a privileged peep through a keyhole at something that might normally be hidden from you. On the other hand, they can be the work of ‘completists’ – people who think every last jot and tittle ever written by a famous person deserves to be published – and these can be tedious to wade through when you are trying to pick out the occasional gem.

On the whole I favour letters passed between just two people that casts a light on their relationship and I also like them to be heavily edited – by which I mean carefully chosen. This relatively slim volume of letters meets both of these criteria perfectly.

Among Booksellers is the record of letters sent by the bookseller, David Batterham to his friend, the artist, Howard Hodgkin. These letters were sent by Batterham on his travels in Europe looking for stock and it’s entirely a one-way exchange – Hodgkin’s replies, if there were any, are not included. As a result we get to focus on the bookseller who is, of course, the lesser known figure in all this and although the sporadic correspondence covers a 35 year period we get a chance to see how his character changes and the nature of his trade evolves over time.

Batterham is a dealer in art journals, catalogues and fashion magazines and as he trawls France, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula he stumbles on a cast of eccentric, grumpy and more-or-less accommodating booksellers who welcome him into their shops and their homes. He spends plenty of time in grotty hotels and sits glumly in under-populated restaurants, all of which gives him time to ponder on his life as an itinerant book dealer and to speculate on human nature.

He comes through the letters as a rather charming, self-deprecating character reluctant to cast himself as anything other than a minor character in the human comedy. His letters are relatively short but are full of character – heavily sardonic and scattered throughout with observations from a sharp, ironic eye with a wicked sense of humour in which he plays his part with a hint of faux self-pity.

The social commentary and the details of the bookselling world are interesting in their own right but I think it’s important to stress that Batterham can really write. These letters are a real pleasure to read from a stylistic point of view and he has a capacity to vividly conjure a moment or an emotion. He also comes across as trustworthy and the kind of person you might want to spend an evening with and, judging by his frequent complaints about spending a lonely evening in a provincial hotel, he’d probably welcome the company. He’s able to be disarmingly honest about his own disasters – terrible purchases and moments of embarrassing clumsiness are all reported with a sort of simple truth.

The good thing about this book is that it didn’t outstay its welcome – it’s a relatively slight confection but a welcome afternoon’s diversion.

 

Terry Potter

May 2018