My Fountain Pen Ceases to Flow

my fountain pen

I've seen the actual Mont Blanc on the French and Italian border. (See pic at bottom of this post.) In the spring of 1999 I was whirling around Europe looking at sites related to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, and I'd gone up into the Alps to see the Mer de Glace, the huge glacier (no longer huge: climate change) that had so impressed young Mary that she'd used it for a key scene in Frankenstein--when the creature confronts his creator, Victor Frankenstein, and tells him his story. (He'd fled Victor shortly after his "birth"; this was a key meeting later on.)

But the day I was there, the fog was so thick that the tourist transpo up to the glacier was not running. So I didn't get to see the glacier ... grrrrr.

On the way back, though, the sun came out, and I saw the glories of Mount Blanc, right outside my train window.

But I have another Mont Blanc story--but this one is about a fountain pen.

In early August 1997 I went out to Oregon for a few days for a Dyer family reunion (there are scores of us--my dad had many siblings), and, in the Portland airport, waiting for my flight, I was taking notes on a book I was reading. I was using a mechanical pencil.

Which ran out of lead.

I had noticed that the airport had a stationery shop, so I headed over to buy some pencil lead--or, if necessary, a new pencil.

In line to pay for the leads, I saw, on the counter, a display for Mont Blanc fountain pens. I'd always wanted one. Never could afford it. (Still couldn't.)

But Impulse defeated Prudence (as it usually does), and I plunked down my Amex card and bought the damn thing.* Then spent some months paying it off.

Since 1997 I have used the pen to take notes on the books I'm reviewing + personal cards and notes I write to people (not so many nowadays in this Instant World of Communication we're living in).

Occasionally, the pen has needed repairs--a couple of times in twenty years. (Not bad--I have needed repairs far more often that that!)

And now it's malfunctioning again ... the little refill capsules are not able to stay lined up inside the pen, so ... I'll be writing merrily along when ... nada. I have to open the pen, realign the capsules, say some bad words, resume writing for a few paragraphs. Repeat.

So I just looked online and found a repair site in Moreland Hills, so I'll be driving up there when we get a decent day. And I'll be forking out some more $$ to keep the Mont Blanc alive.

It's worth it.

I love that pen.

And I will feel over the next couple of weeks (as I'm waiting for its repair) that my writing is in some ways ... inferior. The Mont Blanc, you see, has allowed me to view it otherwise!


*for $275!

Mont Blanc from my train window,
April 21, 1999