Bookish Biformity

BACK in the days when the Book Depository still had its tentacles all over Europe, I found it interesting to receive an email in which I was invited to peruse their selection of titles on 'goodies and baddies'. Tolkien was there, of course, and various other authors who tend to frame their novels within the context of a dualistic struggle between the wholesome forces of Light and the infernal legions of Darkness. I was reminded of those old cowboy films, in which anyone with a black hat - new in town, of course - is immediately viewed with suspicion down at the saloon and almost certain to get shot before the first glass of unpalatable whiskey has even touched the stranger's lips.

If only life were really that simple and we could identify a rotten heart by the colour of a man's stetson. At least the Spaghetti Westerns are more realistic and leave room for an indeterminable grey area in which a character is just one of several psychological archetypes and rarely ever presented as someone who may be considered ultimately good or ultimately bad. Unless I've got all this wrong and by 'goodies and baddies' the Book Depository was merely dividing its volumes into those worth reading and the kind of literature that should either be avoided at all costs or used to line the bottom of a birdcage. If so, then I can certainly think of a few worthy candidates and most of them have names like Rowling, Rowling and Rowling.