I wrote the following on 2nd September 2008, at 12.40 precisely:
“I have just bought my first Moleskine notebook and I can already feel the romanticism oozing from it. I’m sheltering in an arcade from the rain that has kept up all morning. Canterbury (Kent, UK) is a dirty grey and groups of bedraggled pensioners are forced to pause before launching themsleves on the weather, umbrella to the fore. I’m sitting on a borrowed café chair to eat my lunch and write, and I’m trying hard to keep the famous acid-free pages dry.”
After trawling the internet on the the subject of Moleskines, I have struggled to find something new to write about the little “cahiers” whose cost (£9.99 in WH Smith) is out of all proportion to their size, 9×14cm. Neither the sturdy cover, the closing elastic nor the back pocket would seem to justify the expense. It was even surprisingly tough to find, tucked away on a special carousel dedicated to travel notebooks and even that, said the sales staff, was an experiment. So why have I pursued this object throught the pages of Bruce Chatwin’s writings and several journalist blogs that have sung its praises?
The Italian manufacturers, Modo&Modo, declare to anyone who will listen that their product is the inheritor of Chatwin’s favourite notebook, despite a 12-year gap in production after the writer himself was last able to locate one, and the fact that the originals were made in France. They would even have us believe that the very same was employed by Van Gogh, Hemingway and Picasso for random jottings that became major works of art. These claims are dismissed by detractors as so much humbug.
It is a fact of modern life that marketing a product to a niche customer base is likely to involve the internet, preferably via an interactive website for users to exchange ideas. After endowing the Moleskine with a romantic pedigree no one is seriously in a postion to argue with, Modo&Modo must feel their attempts to do just that have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. On their own website moleskine.com as well as others such as ‘SkineArt and even Flickr and YouTube, the artistic contents of the Moleskine, that epitome of private journaling whose symbol should be a writer hunched over in private concentration, are laid bare. The challenge seems to ring out: what can you do with this?
So what do I think about it? Expensive it is, but classy and highly portable. It opens well and has a pleasant feel in the hand while writing. Now I’ve got it, I’m already using it for brief notes written on the move, to develop later. Whether I’ll buy another one when this is filled is a different question.
At least Chatwin’s belief that “the Moleskine is no more” is no longer true. The Moleskine, or a version of it that may or may not be recognised by him, is here to stay.
