Bibliomania

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
~Anna Quindlen

Even as a sixth grader, I took loving delight in sorting and counting my small collection of books. I assigned certain types of books to certain locations. A series of American history books for kids (the Landmark series), for example, valued highly for the books' uniform size and consistent bindings, was displayed together on a shelf especially designed for them.

I accumulated books as other guys collect baseball cards. Unlike my similar obsession with stamp collecting, moreover, my attachment to books -- not just to their contents, but to their physical incarnations -- continued beyond adolescence.

Today, the most notable thing about the interior of my house is that virtually every wall surface of any size is lined with bookshelves. My books are in no way organized. At one time, I did dream of developing a card catalogue system -- perhaps computerized -- to help myself locate any book instantaneously. It never happened. Instead, I'm forced to rely on vague impressions that a certain book may have a red cover (or was it green?) and that I last saw it somewhere in the den.

What I now possess is partly a library, but partly the fruit of a hoarder's compulsion -- analogous, I nervously suspect, to those houses filled with old newspapers in which eccentric couples are occasionally discovered crushed to death by their own obsession.

These dark thoughts are prompted by an article in this week's New Yorker by Harvard professor James Wood. Wood recently found himself confronted with the need to clear a house full of books left behind by his deceased father-in-law. The old man had pursued many enthusiasms during his life, including travel. He had read extensively with respect to each new enthusiasm. And he'd kept all the books.

The result was an interesting and eclectic library. Unfortunately, Wood discovered, in today's world, no one wants interesting and eclectic libraries, especially ones consisting of old books. There are more old books than there are available bookshelves to hold them. No one wanted to buy the books at an estate sale. Nor could he give them away. Wood never reveals what ultimately became of the collection -- a few books were accepted by collectors who poked through the collection -- but the experience forced him to think about what book collections say about their collectors.

Not much, he decides. Who knows if the old guy even read most of them? The piles of books seemed to be mere monuments to knowledge that their owner possessed, or wished to possess, or wished to appear to possess. The fact that Wood didn't really much like his father-in-law seems to have sharpened his contempt for the gentleman's legacy.

I was struck, as I worked through my father-in-law's books, how quickly I became alienated from their rather stupid materiality. I began to resent his avariciousness, which resembled, in death, any other kind of avariciousness for objects.

So he spent his life buying books, Wood thinks. So what?

After all, can I really contend that my collection of books, ranged on shelves like some bogus declaration of achievement ..., tells my children anything more about me than my much smaller collection of postcards and photographs?

I feel somewhat devastated, reading these lines. Are my books simply a fraudulent assertion of my erudition? I walk about my house, gently carressing the covers of a few favorite, carefully-bound volumes.

I long ago promised a fellow book lover (Pat) that I'd leave him all of my books, should I move on to that Great Library in the Sky ahead of him. In fact I actually have that bequest written into my will. It was all in good fun for a long time, but lately, whenever the subject of my books arises, Pat nervously discusses the small amount of space available in his own home. My mind leaps forward, to those dread days following my hypothetical funeral; I see Pat wandering about my house, wringing his hands, wondering whatever he'll do with this unwelcome bounty. His wife would never allow him to haul them all into their home, even if there were room for them. Must he pay to put them into storage? He'll find no library or bookstore interested in them. Wood convinces me of that. But dare he -- a lover of books himself -- consign my gorgeous collection to the dump? I have bequeathed him a conundrum and a curse.

I pull myself together. Pat will just have to work it out on his own.

Wood is a good writer, and he managed to depress me, momentarily, with his certainties. And yet, I have certainties, too. My book collection, accumulated year by year since childhood, is an intellectual resource, a proven provider of amusement, and an anchor that gives my life -- with its ever-changing phases and interests -- a sense of continuity.

I have friends whose society is delightful to me; they are persons of all countries and of all ages; distinguished in war, in council, and in letters; easy to live with, always at my command.
~-Petrarch

Books are my friends, and, as with human friends, I'm not tossing them out simply because I don't know how they'll some day get along without me.