Frankfurt Buchmesse:
READING meets up with COMMERCE

Dateline: 11/4/97

Imagine a building packed cheek’n’jowl, 4 stories, 1000 exhibitors -- when the party starts, and then you leave, to get out, you pass two more parties (the Italian party had the best wine). Now multiply that by twelve buildings. Add a shuttle bus service -- actually, there are 5 busses shuttling. Vendors -- there’s a steak restaurant on the terrace of building 9 (International Centre) and a US Hot Dog Stand just outside the entrance to Building 8 (US-France-England). I took the bus to the Parkplatz ("the Park / Ing Lot," as Mike Tyler says), by mistake -- it was a relaxing ride, 20 minutes, I wasn’t the only one who did it round trip, I recommend it.

actually, there are 5 busses shuttling

The Frankfurt Buchmesse (Book Fair) oozes with size. It is the biggest anything I have ever seen. And the people look great, sound great. Just ride the escalator up and down,

listening. Stop by and check out the Cappadoccio CD-ROM at the Turkish booth. Listen to Chirikure Chirikure, poet from Zimbabwe, read his "yes, yes" poem in Shona, with his sister playing the mbira behind it.

Now I don’t want you to get the wrong picture -- what Chirikure is saying is that the language you overhear is "yes yes" and that it’s the language of the deal. Although later in the poem, it’s what you whisper to your darling at night. What I mean is: all the publishers, all the writers (Gunter Grass was my warmup, etc.), all the literati bookloving public (there are second-hand stalls just outside the official gate. . . $40 for the week to get in, or $11/day) -- this is the place where the intellectual activity of READING meets up with COMMERCE to decide who will go where with what round the globe. There are people who make these decisions. Frankfurt Book Fair is where they get made. (The second-hand stalls are the only place where you can buy a book. It’s the rights that are auctioned.)

The cabdriver refused to believe -- or maybe couldn’t read -- that the party was at Bruchstrasse and deposited us at BruchERstrasse. When we finally found the party, the left political theorist was concluding his English analysis, and suffering his first heckle: "this is boring,"

aglow with happiness (these things happen every- where unawares)

to which, after a pause, he replied, "maybe you are boring." As far as Maggie and Sekou and I were concerned, it all was, so we left, had an astonishingly good Indian meal at a restaurant that was aglow with happiness (these things happen everywhere unawares) and the waiter, an Indian who’d lived in Australia, told us the Buchmesse was his second favorite messe of the year, topped only by the International Exhibit in February, which exhibited things like rugs and small kitchen appliances.

And on Saturday the Messe was abuzz with schoolkids and tour groups, all in search of the Way of the Book. Meanwhile, Sekou was speaking on the spiritual lessons of the yo-yo, how the return was contained in the departure.

I made my way to the top floor of the International Building and discovered a new world, quieter and expectant. Here were most countries of Asia and Africa (German-speaking Africans on second floor), China (ordering out for lunch, big pots of tea), Fiji Islands. No Antarctica.

--Bob Holman

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