Walter Moers - The City of Dreaming Books

Table of Contents

ALSO BY WALTER MOERS

The 13 Lives of Captain Bluebear
A Wild Ride Through the Night
Rumo

Where shadows dim with shadows mate
in caverns deep and dark,
where old books dream of bygone days
when they were wood and bark,
where diamonds from coal are born
and no birds ever sing,
that region is the dread domain
ruled by the Shadow King.

This is where my story begins. It tells how I came into possession of The Bloody Book and acquired the Orm. Its not a story for people with thin skins and weak nerves, whom I would advise to replace this book on the pile at once and slink off to the childrens section. Shoo! Begone, you cry-babies and quaffers of camomile tea, you wimps and softies! This book tells of a place where reading is still a genuine adventure, and by adventure I mean the old-fashioned definition of the word that appears in the Zamonian Dictionary: A daring enterprise undertaken in a spirit of curiosity or temerity, it is potentially life-threatening, harbours unforeseeable dangers and sometimes proves fatal.

Yes, I speak of a place where reading can drive people insane. Where books may injure and poison them - indeed, even kill them. Only those who are thoroughly prepared to take such risks in order to read this book - only those willing to hazard their lives in so doing - should accompany me to the next paragraph. The remainder I congratulate on their wise but yellow-bellied decision to stay behind. Farewell, you cowards! I wish you a long and boring life, and, on that note, bid you goodbye!

So... Having probably reduced my readers to a tiny band of reckless souls at the very outset, I should like to bid the rest of you a hearty welcome. Greetings, my intrepid friends, youre cut from the cloth of which true adventurers are made! Let us waste no more time and set out at once on our journey. For it is a journey on which were embarking, a journey to Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books. Tie your shoelaces good and tight, because our route will take us first across a vast expanse of rugged, stony terrain, then across a monotonous stretch of prairie where the grass is dense, waist-high and razor-sharp, and finally - along gloomy, labyrinthine, perilous passages - deep into the bowels of the earth. I cannot predict how many of us will return. I can only urge you never to lose heart whatever befalls us.

And dont say I didnt warn you!

In western Zamonia, when youve traversed the Dullsgard Plateau in an easterly direction and finally left its rippling expanses of grassland behind you, the skyline suddenly recedes in a dramatic way. You can look far, far out across the boundless plain to where, in the distance, it merges with the Demerara Desert. If the weather is fine and the atmosphere clear, you will be able to discern a speck amid the sparse vegetation of this arid wasteland. As you advance, so it will grow larger, take on jagged outlines, sprout gabled roofs and eventually reveal itself to be the legendary city that bears the name of Bookholm.

You can smell the place from a long way off. It reeks of old books. Its as if youve opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop - as if youve stirred up a cloud of unadulterated book dust and blown the detritus from millions of mouldering volumes straight into your face. There are folk who dislike that smell and turn on their heel as soon as it assails their nostrils. It isnt an agreeable odour, granted. Hopelessly antiquated, it is eloquent of decay and dissolution, mildew and mortality. But it also has other associations: a hint of acidity reminiscent of lemon trees in flower; the stimulating scent of old leather; the acrid, intelligent tang of printers ink; and, overlying all else, a reassuring aroma of wood.

Im not talking about living wood or resinous forests and fresh pine needles; I mean felled, stripped, pulped, bleached, rolled and guillotined wood - in short, paper. Ah yes, my intellectually inquisitive friends, you too can smell it now, the odour of forgotten knowledge and age-old traditions of craftsmanship. Very well, let us quicken our pace! The odour grows stronger and more alluring, and the sight of those gabled houses more distinct with every step towards Bookholm we take. Hundreds, nay, thousands of slender chimneys project from the citys roofs, darkening the sky with a pall of greasy smoke and compounding the odour of books with other scents: the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and fresh-baked bread, of charcoal-broiled meat studded with herbs. Again we redouble our rate of advance, and our burning desire to open a book becomes allied with the hankering for a cup of hot chocolate flavoured with cinnamon and a slice of pound cake warm from the oven. Faster! Faster!

We reach the city limits at last, weary, hungry, thirsty, curious - and a trifle disappointed. There are no impressive city walls, no well-guarded gates in the shape, perhaps, of a huge book that creaks open at our knock - no, just a few narrow streets by way of which Zamonian life forms of the most diverse kinds enter or leave the city. Most of them do so with stacks of books under their arms - indeed, many tow whole handcarts laden with reading matter behind them. Were it not for all those books, the cityscape would resemble any other.

So here we are, my dauntless companions - here on the magical outskirts of Bookholm. This is where the city has its highly unspectacular beginnings. Soon we shall cross its invisible threshold, enter its streets and explore its mysteries.

Soon.

But first I should like to pause for a moment and tell you why I came here at all. Theres a reason for every journey, and mine was prompted by boredom and the recklessness of youth, by a wish to break the bounds of my normal existence and familiarise myself with life and the world at large. I also wanted to keep a promise made to someone on his deathbed. Last but not least, I was on the track of a fascinating secret. But first things first, my friends!

When a youthful inhabitant of Lindworm Castle becomes old enough to read, his parents assign him a so-called authorial godfather. The latter, who is usually some relation or close family friend, assumes responsibility for the young dinosaurs literary education from that time on. The authorial godfather teaches his charge to read and write, introduces him to Zamonian literature and tutors him in the craft of authorship. He makes him recite poems, enriches his vocabulary and undertakes all the steps required to ensure his godchilds artistic development.