Walls

First published in Column Eight on the 6^th July, 1994

The world, being a disconcertingly complex and curious place, occasionally throws up odd connections between countries. In Japan, it appears, we have pianists learning to play on silent pianos so that the neighbours won’t be disturbed through the paper-thin walls.

In England, a man with the monicker Duncan Charles le Worsley Jevons built around himself a wall of 52,000 books. He found these involved ‘less risk of pain and rejection than the love of people.’ They did, that is, until someone learned he’d stolen 42,000 of them.

Amongst the books were two sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica from a Suffolk convent- the nuns had at great cost replaced the first lot with a second – and 50 identical Lent service books from a single church.

Mr Jevons now faces fifteen months behind a different wall: that of a prison. Unfortunately his beloved books, the ones he does own, will not be accompanying him.*

Mr Jevons was no casual kleptomaniac. He had meticulously catalogued all the books into fourteen volumes. How many other wall-builders take detailed notes of each brick?

In fact he was more careful with his stolen books than many people are with their own – including myself. I’ve on more than one occasion intended to keep track of where all my books have gone but countless losses later prove I’m not much good at keeping such accounts. In fact, one friend now owns a book bought at the Regent Book Sale which has my name in it.

How often do we hear the cry, ‘I’ve lent this book to someone and now that I want it (usually for someone else) I don’t know who I gave it to.’ The book in question usually stays lost until we buy a second copy, then drops back into our lap from a frightfully apologetic person who’s ‘just cleaned out the back room,’ and was ‘going to give all these scruffy old books to the Regent when I noticed your name on the flyleaf.’

Back to silent pianos. I know what it is to have neighbours complain about my music – I was teaching one evening when loud thumping hit my front door. My neighbour, known for his belligerence, stood there, telling me (at 6 pm, this was) that his wife couldn’t sleep because of our infernal noise. Unlike the Japanese houses, built within breathing distance of each other, there was a good step and a hop between my neighbour’s house and mine. On this occasion, however, I could have wished that I owned a silent piano.

What is this instrument, anyway? It works like an ordinary piano – when the neighbours are out – but has a third pedal which keeps the hammers from hitting the strings. (That strikes me as a rather frustrating way to play the piano, personally.)

On engaging the third pedal a faithful computer takes over. The pianist dons his headphones, and the computer calculates what sort of noise and pitch would have sounded, and produces it. Hmmm. And I suppose, since the computer never lies, the pianist would get an earful of the mistakes he or she is making.

I suspect it won’t be long before the Japanese will bring out a modification to the computer so that it makes the right noise when even the pianist doesn’t. After all, what’s the good of a machine if it can’t do better than the machinist?

This may cause problems further down the track, when little Suki takes off her headphones and plays in public, producing the real wrong notes on a real and unsympathetic piano.

The solution, I guess, would be for Suki and the audience to wear headphones (somewhat in the manner of people listening to a simultaneous translation). But who will get the applause? Suki or the computer?

Sometimes I can understand a person like Mr Jevons, wanting to hide away from the real world.

Children listening to a 'silent' piano.
Courtesy: Cooper Pianos

Since I wrote this I acquired (courtesy of my generous wife) an electronic piano, and found that it can be played silently too – though the touch is the same whether it’s sounding naturally or not, which is a relief. I have used this aspect of it on occasion, but not often, since I also own an ordinary piano. This, in spite of the excellence of the electronic one, has the proper feel and response of actual instrument; I haven’t yet come across an electronic piano that is as touch-sensitive as they claim. Although of course, it has to be said that we haven’t had the thousands of dollars to spend that might allow us to discover such an instrument.  

Thanks to Google’s AI, I can give you a slightly longer version of the stolen books story above. 

According to contemporary reports from The Independent and the Los Angeles Times, here are the confirmed facts behind the story:

• The Hoard and the Theft. In 1994, 49-year-old Duncan Jevons (a former poultry worker who styled himself with the aristocratic-sounding moniker "Duncan Charles le Worsley Jevons") pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court to stealing between 40,000 and 42,000 books over a 30-year period. Police found 52,000 books—valued at roughly £100,000—stacked floor to ceiling inside his five-bedroom farmhouse and barn in Halesworth, Suffolk. Jevons claimed that 10,000 of the volumes legitimately belonged to him.
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• The Suffolk Convent. The detail about the encyclopedias is completely true. Jevons stole two full sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica from the library at Hengrave Hall (a former convent near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk) by placing the volumes on a windowsill and retrieving them from outside. He also stole a 100-volume set of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas from the Catholic Centre Library in London.
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• How He Operated. Over three decades, Jevons walked out of churches, monasteries, and libraries across Britain carrying stolen books in a battered leather briefcase. He meticulously removed all library stamps and identifying marks from the books, as well as from 2,000 cassette tapes and records he had also stolen.
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• How He Was Caught. Jevons was finally caught in 1994 after he slipped up and tried to sell a book at a local car boot sale that still had its library stamp inside.
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• The Sentence and Aftermath. Prosecutors described Jevons as a lonely, obsessive man who surrounded himself with books to project a scholarly image and avoid human rejection. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison. After 12,000 volumes were returned to their rightful owners, the remaining unclaimed books were sold at a Suffolk auction house in 1995 for £4,000—an event Jevons briefly attended before leaving out of embarrassment.