thephog

In these 18 short essays, Ms. Fadiman touches on a myriad of facets of bibliophilia in both humorous and heartfelt ways. Opening her book with the hilarious “Marrying Libraries,” she documents how, after five years of marriage, she and her husband had finally decided to take the truly intimate step of combining their book collections. Complicating the process, she explains, were “some essential differences in our characters.” Whereas George, her husband, had his books “commingled democratically,” Ms. Fadiman's were “balkanized by nationality and subject matter...rigidly regimented.” She describes these differences delightfully as “his English-garden approach and my French-garden one” and attributes them to the varying levels of trust they each place in inanimate objects. “George maintains a basic trust in three-dimensional objects. If he wants something, he believes it will present itself, and therefore it usually does. I, on the other hand, believe that books, maps, scissors, and Scotch tape dispensers are all unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown unless strictly confined.” Can these two widely divergent worldviews ever truly harmoniously co-exist in a single library? I wouldn't dream of spoiling the end for you, but I chuckled all through it and read aloud portions to my husband - whose sympathies definitely lie with George. Ms. Fadiman writes of growing up in a “bibliolatrous family,” which term I immediately filed away to use when describing my own family, and “an obnoxious family” full of “compulsive proofreaders.” One essay is devoted entirely to relating the joy she, her brother, and their parents take in identifying typos, misspellings, and other errors on menus, in newspapers, and even in library books. (If you are likewise affected by this affliction and missed my last column, “Sticklers, Unite!” this would be an excellent time to go catch up and discover more books written by kindred spirits.) There are apparently at least two differing approaches to bibliolatry, quite at odds with each other. In “Never Do That to a Book,” Ms. Fadiman illustrates this difference between “courtly love” and “carnal love.” Those who have “courtly love” for books find “its form inseparable from its content.” A book cannot be laid face down, its pages folded over, or any marks made inside, however erasable. Rather, the book should be preserved as near to the state in which it was purchased as possible to maintain its sanctity. Carnal lovers of books, on the other hand, find “a book's words...holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread and ink that contained them...a mere vessel.” In this view, “hard use was a sign not of disrespect but of intimacy.” These more romantically-inclined readers (in the classical sense) turn “monologues into dialogues” by commenting in the margins. They savor the mementos of use, like the batter splattered on the blueberry muffin page of the cookbook, or the pressed flower from their secret reading spot under the tree out back. Ms. Fadiman, in case you have any doubt, comes down firmly on the side of romantic love. Other essays cover literary references to food, Ms. Fadiman's favorite pen, the virtues of allowing children to build castles and forts with books, the minefield of gender-inclusive language, sonnets, inscriptions, and plagiarism (appropriately documented with footnotes galore). There is truly something for every reader here. In Ms. Fadiman, I found a kindred spirit. Her witty and accurate observations, gentle self-mocking, and unadulterated love of reading have drawn me back to Ex Libris again and again and will continue to do so. For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.

2022-08-30 08:11