Something Thoughtful

  Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.

A WALLFUL OF BOOKS 

 

            This is the sight that greets me when I wake up in the morning and when I am about to turn out the light at night.  A wallful of books, seen beyond the end of our bed. They are about one eighth of the books shelved in our house, as this is only the bedroom. There are far more books in my study, on the bookcases at the top of the stairs, in the living-room downstairs and in the spare room at the back of the house.

            Obviously I’m a bibliophile. If you’ve been reading this blog for the decade or so since it started, you will already know that.

            I’ve never counted the number of books I have, but it must be many hundreds, probably more than a thousand. Where did they all come from? I think about a third of them I inherited from my father. The rest were either bought by me over the years, mainly from second-hand bookshops, or sent to me by publishers for review – though I pass on to friends and family those books I have reviewed and know I will never read again. If I’d kept every book I’ve read and reviewed, I’d need a larger house.

            None of this is said as a boast. I know literate readers who house far more books than I do. I know literate readers who probably curate their books better than I do too.  But I do make good use of my books. As I remarked in an earlier post, one of the main reasons I set up a “Something Old” section on this blog was to force myself to read books that had sat unread on my shelves for years; books that I had long meant to “get around to”. That is why you have seen on this blog reviews of the likes of Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed, Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour (or “Crouchback”) trilogy,  Jose Eustasio Rivera’s The Vortex and other works. Not that all my “Something Old” comments have the same genesis. Some of them are old favourites I’ve read more than once. Some of them are re-written from the reading diaries I have kept over the years.

            Often I look at the books on my shelves and wonder what I should read next. I feel guilty that I have not yet read The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The Forsyte Saga, the half of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series I haven’t yet conquered, and other such bulky tomes, all of which I house. For the record I am currently nibbling my way though another great as-yet-unread, Wordsworth’s The Prelude, which I never did read before, even in student days.

            And often I look at the books on my shelves and wonder if I ever will read some of them. Or ever want to.

            Which brings me to my current dilemma.

            I am now of an age when I know I will never read everything I house, and when I am getting tired of laying books sideways over other books because there is no other place to put them. The untidiness irks me.

            So, for the first time, I am undertaking a systematic cull.

            I am not exhausting myself with this in one great dust-inhaling, arm-aching effort. What I am doing will take a long time. Each week or so I pick a shelf and ask myself “Do I really need this book? Will I ever read this book? Or will I ever re-read this book?”

            This is where the dilemma comes in.

            Some books are easy to throw away, leaving me to wonder why I had them in the first place. Then there are the books that I read and liked, but doubt I will read a second time, like the works of Bernard Malamud or Robert Pen Warren’s All the King’s Men or even (hard though this is to admit) some of the Balzacs. Others I know I will keep without question.

            I have worked at this diligently and have so far been able to sell a few culled books to second-hand bookshops, but have donated far more to op. shops.

            What has been the fruit of my labour so far?

            Approximately one half of a shelf looks cleared. The reason is simple. Once about two shelves worth have gone, there are all those sideways books to stand upright and fill the gaps.

            I still have many far-separated afternoons to get on with the culling. I doubt if I’ll be finished soon.