Remarque's double page

Reading Shadows in Paradise I came across pages that were bound together instead of being cut in the process of editing the book. This triggered some thoughts naturally. One of them is that although the book was printed in 1971 no one from my family (I presume) have read it since that time. If it had been the fact, he would have definitely cut the pages in order to read them comfortably. (Notice that I didn't cut the pages but struggled reading them uncut). Reading such a book for the first time since it was published (almost 40 years ago!) is like conversing with a wise and yet virgin woman. The book brings you a lot of food for thought, you can quote it several times while experiencing life and yet you are pleased with its youth, you can touch its pages and fell delicate and firm print. The fonts were not typed into computer but carefully arranged by human printers. It gives you the feel of something being finished and left in the past. A sentimental and very mysterious feeling that one likes to return to. Like with old films. Some of them are so good that you enjoy watching them several times although the camera and the way they made them are no longer being used in films.

The other meaning of two pages bound together is a semiotical one. Words that appear as sounds to us, or better said as sounds we can hear in mind, and on the other hand as concepts, images they evoke in mind. The two pages are like a sign - they are both sound and image bound in one. 

And the last thought sparked by double pages is that the two characters in the book are bound by their feelings, words spoken on the pages. They speak as you turn over pages and at this particular point where the two pages are bound you can read about the two lovers having a quarrel and then reuniting in a flat eating Dutch cheese. If we consider each page to have its own character then a book would be an infinite tell-tale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUNRu2zm6EY&NR=1