Recently, I have read two interesting essays on books, the first of which is ‘Of Bibliophilia and Biblioclasm’ from Theodore Dalyrmple writing for the New English Review. In it he talks about the sacredness of books — at least for those that love them — and he takes as his starting point the second essay I’m recommending, written in 1936 by George Orwell about his time in the book trade, ‘Bookshop Memories’ — which I was excited to read as it was an experience of Orwell’s that clearly served as part of the inspiration for events in Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
Anyway, Dalyrmple talks of the pleasures of browsing second-hand book shops while Orwell, on the other side of the counter, laments the cranks and weirdos he encountered working as a bookseller. Orwell says that his time in the bookshop actually killed his love of books as physical objects — after seeing them stacked in their thousands, freighting them back and forth like so much cargo, and choking on their dust for long hours, books lost much of their material magic. It’s a funny and interesting article, which includes a short exchange with one customer that suggest the much talked about death of the short story may not be such a new phenomenon and, indeed, much of the habits and interests of people shopping for books seems fairly similar all these years later. However, not all of Orwell’s pronouncements stand the test of time, as in: “the combines can never squeeze the small independent bookseller out of existence as they have squeezed the grocer and the milkman.”
Of course, Dalyrmple is writing from a time when exactly that has happened. He talks about the changing face of second-hand shops although, in his words, they still remain “one of the few indoor public places where a person may loiter for hours without being suspected of any serious ulterior motive.” He talks of the pleasures of browsing such places, of the thrill of discovering something completely unexpected — an experience that the internet, no matter how revolutionary for book buyers, can’t replicate.
Sadly, Dalyrmple also remarks at the seeming change in attitude for younger buyers toward bookshops — recounting admittedly anecdotal data that young people have a more utilitarian attitude toward books on the whole, coming in to shops to look for only what they want and leaving if they don’t find it. Is it that they don’t see the book as a sacred object — don’t get the tactile urge of the bibliophile to paw through unexplored piles of books just for the sheer joy of doing so? It may be, but it may be nothing new, for as Orwell says at the start of ‘Bookshop Memories’ about his initial prejudices in working in a shop: “the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookish people.”
Which all leads to the notions of books as worthwhile physical objects — at least for those of us that have not worked that feeling out of ourselves as Orwell had. Dalyrmple recounts his fondness for inscriptions in his book, especially in books given from one author to another, and he muses on how these inscriptions are a window on a forgotten way of feeling and thinking. Finally, the notion of the destruction of books:
Books, even without association with anyone known, have an almost sacred quality in any case: it is necessary only to imagine someone ripping the pages out of a cheap and trashy airport novel one by one to prove to oneself that this is so. If we saw someone doing it, we should . . . think him a barbarian, no matter the nature of the book. The horror aroused by book burnings is independent of the quality of the books actually burnt.
I agree, as does any book lover. Toward the close of this essay, Dalrymple also voices a notion that is always paramount in my mind when I browse for used books or take the time to ponder my own collection: that we book owners are trustees of books, and represent just one phase of a book’s existence. With that in mind, and given his fondness for inscriptions, Dalrymple has “taken to inscribing all the books I read, in a bid no doubt to outlast my own death.” I’m considerng doing the same.
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I must admit, Bill, that I am coming around to Orwell’s opinion. After years of dragging a pretty extensive collection, five or six thousand books, along behind me as I moved about the country, I have seriously considered selling off all but my very favorites and buying a Kindle.
Aside from my growing aversion to the sheer physicality of all that paper, I also find, at my age, that what I have been drawn to, all these years, are the words not the pages.
Even so, I haven’t buckled under yet; the one advantage that a book store has, whether it is a Barnes & Noble or the Village Book Store in Columbus, Ohio, a block-long labyrinth filled with used books, is browsing. It is damned near impossible to go to Amazon, looking for a particular book, and stumble over four more you want.
They are trying, with electronic recommendations, but it just isn’t the same, so until the figure it out, I guess I will continue to haunt the stacks — and fret over how much more weight I am adding to my Marleyesque paper chain.
I can sympathize! Though my collection is not as large as yours, I’ve been learning to treat it fairly ruthlessly as time goes by. If I hadn’t started selling and giving away books five or so years ago, I’d easily have twice as many now (and nowhere to put them).
I think a scaled-down library of one’s favorite and most indispensable books in conjunction with an e-reader for popular novels and the like would be a great balance. I see that really has where the ereader thing is going — it won’t replace books, but will fill its own niche for readers who don’t necessarily need to own certain kinds of books or magazines. This won’t happen until ereader’s and ebooks are actually cheaper than real books though!