One morning several years ago I awoke in a tangle of sheets and blankets, my eyes, when they finally managed to stay open, falling on a tall bookcase standing against the bedroom’s opposite wall. I felt a spasm of irritation, even a bit of anger, as I stared at its shelves, packed and stuffed tightly with books, many of them still unread. After all, it’s no fun being slapped in the face first thing in the morning by the sight of all the books I once intended to read but have never actually read. And what about the books shelved in my living room, stacked on the carpet next to my recliner, scattered and piled on the end-table. Is there no end?
How, I wondered, did I ever end up with all these books?
My habit of book-buying is an inheritance from my father who kept his collection in a single, half-empty bookcase in the upstairs front room of the house where I grew up. He at least kept his habit within the bounds of sense. I, on the other hand lived the life of a book-buying addict for several decades. Although the worst is well in the past, the result today is a life shared with hundreds of books – books on history, ranging from ancient times ’til only yesterday, subjects arcane and esoteric like philosophy and theology, a touch of psychology, a healthy gathering of fiction and a smattering of odds and ends.
Most of the time I have enjoyed living with all these books. They have been companions on a journey of long duration, partners in a relationship that like any other sits on a bedrock of underlying love and affection. But these years of comfort and familiarity have often been marred; for example when I survey my books and realize that many have never been read – at least not cover to cover. Some have barely been opened. Still others are dipped into only when my interest turns their way. Will I ever make a dent, ever come close to reading, let alone mastering, more than a fraction of the knowledge and understanding these books offer me?
So I ask myself once again, “Why all these books?”
Eventually, I moved the offending bookcase from bedroom to living room where it now stands next to my recliner, its identical twin on the other side. I still feel overwhelmed at times by the sheer number of volumes , but at least now they don’t stare me in the face first thing every morning, judging me for my failure to devote myself to them as seriously as I might – or perhaps as seriously as I should.
Viewed physically of course, these books are mere objects, crammed together tightly on a shelf so that glancing at one of my shelves, say a row of novels, is like looking at a row of tombstones, dead and inert, the spine of each volume inscribed with author, title, publisher – the essential data describing that which lies within. Until that is, I pick one of those novels off the shelf, open it to the first page and begin reading. If the author has done their job well and I am in a receptive and attentive state of mind, I am plunged into a world that comes to life all around me, a world in which the writer is concealed behind plot and characters, working behind the scenes in which the story unfolds. In books of other types, say histories or self-help books, the author stands front and center and speaks directly to me. Yet in both cases, the writer speaks, their voice coming to me through their words.
So who is this person who speaks to me from the pages? How hard and how long have they struggled to shape and form their thoughts into the words and sentences which will interest and perhaps even move me? I doubt that I ever thought about these questions before I took to writing myself, but after spending the last several years writing short essays I have reached a conclusion. Every writer has in their heart one desire that overwhelms all else – the desire, the need, to grab hold of the reader, to win and keep their attention for the duration, whether the writing on offer is a two-page essay or a five hundred page novel. Every writer is saying to the reader, “Listen to what I’m saying to you.” And indeed, sometimes as I sit in my recliner or stand in the kitchen chopping veggies or simmering a stew I can almost hear the writers speak from their pages, whispering to me, “Pick me,” they say, “let me tell you what I’ve been thinking.”
Quite often this chorus of voices pulls me in different directions, and I fly from one book, even one subject, to another like a honeybee flitting from flower to flower, never alighting long enough to drink deeply. At such times, exasperated by my own lack of focus and discipline, I give up entirely and flop down on my sofa to binge on TV or watch YouTube videos, the authors of all my books glaring down at me from the bookshelves above. “Listen to me instead,” each calls out, their voices together clamoring for my attention. Yet I know that even if I read full-time for the rest of my life, I will never be able to give each of them the time and attention they deserve.
And so I wonder, I hope for the last time, why all these books?
Friends and acquaintances have offered advice. One friend, as enamored of books as I am, offered a suggestion – examine each book, one at a time, and ask the question, “Will I ever actually read this book?” I have tried this with some success, but still my bookshelves are packed. After all, the book I send away today, whether to the used bookstore or to the church rummage sale, may be the very one I want to read next month or perhaps next year. Another acquaintance asked bluntly, “Why do you even own a book you haven’t read?” The very idea of such a utilitarian approach to book collecting, based on the delusion that books exist primarily to serve a practical purpose, stunned me into silence.
Ironically, it was on social media, today’s archenemy of focus and discipline, that I found an answer, my rejoinder to all those who suggest a more practical approach to the ownership of books. A kindred spirit posted on Facebook these words from author, publisher, and book-collector A Edward Norton, “The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity.”
At last, finally, I have my answer.
