I understand the wisdom of not judging a book by its cover, but the maxim aside, it was precisely the cover of “Ill Wind,” a novel by James Hilton, that caught my eye about 10 years ago as I rummaged through a bin of books at a swap shop.
Although I’ve never read “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” or “Lost Horizon,” I knew Hilton to be the author of those popular novels and I recognized his name on the cover of “Ill Wind.” But Mortimer Snerd could just as well have been the author, for all I cared. I was drawn to the little volume for very superficial reasons.
Fresh from a bindery 88 years ago, the paperback was in remarkably good condition when we crossed paths and, though I wasn’t keen on actually reading it, the aesthetics of the old book were irresistible to the book collector in me, so I claimed it, took it home, and introduced it to the rest of the volumes in my ever-growing collection. (It’s not considered hoarding if you admit you have a problem, is it?)
I came across that old acquisition a few days ago when, with extra time at home, I began to undertake the massive job of sorting through the many stray books I’ve given a home to over the years, organizing them and arranging them and, most importantly, culling the ones I’ll never touch again.
Recognizing the spine, I remembered the moment we met in that swap shop a decade earlier. This time, with the book shelved and its cool 1930s cover concealed, it was the two-word title alone that caught my eye.
Ill wind.
Hilton may have lifted that pairing of words from Shakespeare, but whatever his inspiration, those two words capture a feeling that’s gnawed at me for the last few weeks.
There’s been a lot of wind, for one thing. The month of March, the idiom tells us, “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb,” but a blustery and troublesome March bled into an equally blustery and blighted April, and there’s something in these windy days of spring 2020 that hasn’t felt right.
First, there was pollen, and a lot of it, carried by those winds — that’s normal for this transitionary time of year; but what isn’t normal, of course, is the silent and invisible threat of something more sinister than pollen, which we’ve come to know as COVID-19, coronavirus.
I’m not prone to hysterics, and the steps I’ve taken to reduce exposure during this pandemic have been, I think, reasonable and fact-based. I haven’t yet resorted, say, to wearing aluminum foil hats. I’m still waiting for the science on that headgear.
But unclear guidance on the use of face masks — I’ve read we should be wearing them when we’re out and about; but does that mean when we’re in a grocery store, around other people, as well as when we’re in the relative safety of our back yards? — has left me wondering if I’m doing something risky and dangerous when I go for a walk, or check the mail, or spend 15 minutes sunning on the back deck, without a mask.
The strong winds of late haven’t eased my mind much. I can’t help, every time I step out into the swirling outdoors for whatever benign and routine reason, that the strong winds of recent weeks may be blowing about something bad.
Wind, I suppose, is like a lot of things in that a bit of it — like the gentle winds that blow around us when we’re kicked back and comfortable on a beach — is a good thing, but too much of it — the property- and life-threatening winds of a hurricane, for example — isn’t.
Spring winds — winds of change — usually carry a freshness, as if they’re sweeping away the cobwebs of winter, but I’m not feeling that in these recent winds.
Maybe I’m overthinking something as ordinary and natural as wind, or maybe, as odd as everything feels these days, I can’t help but see signs of the times everywhere I look, even in the title of an antique book.
