These notebooks were once favoured by Van Gogh and Ernest Hemingway.
Although I am not a label-conscious person – I prefer quality to fad – I do have some exceptions. I would love to play a silver Haynes flute; to write with a sleek and sophisticated Montblanc pen; and to occasionally abandon my computer for a 1970s Hermes typewriter. Perhaps some day I will. In the meantime, I satisfy myself with Moleskine® notebooks. I just can’t seem to get enough of them.
I am the first to admit that you either ‘get’ or you don’t ‘get’ the allure of Moleskines, those black-covered notebooks with elastic closures and inner pockets. I fell in love with my first one a few years ago and have remained passionately in love ever since.
At the little shop where I buy my Moleskines, the clerks love them as well. They understand my need to buy the small water colour book when, only the week before, I bought the storyboard book. And they fully concur with my need to keep adding to my cache of larger, reporter notebooks. One clerk has recently suggested that we – she, I and the other clerk – should form a Moleskine® fan club. There has always been an unofficial fan club. After all, this non-descript black notebook was once used by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway, to name but three.
I like the idea of continuity through the generations of writers and artists. When I write in my Moleskine® I imagine Van Gogh sketching in his. A very happy thought.
