The immutability of books.

Posted by Pointman on April 4, 2020 · 13 Comments 

Back in the Dark Ages, before the internet was invented, there used to be these strange things called books that people had to read to gain any knowledge about the world. Dude, they were like totally hands on. You had to turn these things called pages. Yeah, actually, really. You couldn’t even click on them, it was all handraulic stuff. What was worse was that you had to remember things from them – there was no favourites menu you could just add them to. You even had to have these crazy things called book shelves to store them.

To compound the agony, you had to buy them to read them, because they weren’t free, so as most people at the time were of modest means, to put it mildly, you had to be quite shrewd in judging which one of these book things to invest your valuable hard-earned pennies in from all those part-time jobs. Being a potless young lad in the foothills of my life, my means were pretty much non-existent. Libraries were useless and smelled as musty as most of the librarians in them, but with one notable exception as I recall, but she was very different for a ripe and ready young boyo simultaneously hungry in a lot of sudden handbrake turn directions as we all were at that tender age, who always timed his book checkouts to make sure she did his.

She was definitely into the women’s lib era of bra burning and under the bra-less wafer thin T-shirts she favoured had nipples that stuck out like twin football studs on a cold and frosty morning’s football game. She’d look at me, bang down especially hard using the checkout date stamp gadget, which would impart a slight almost imperceptible wobble of her torso as I watched, adolescent and boggle-eyed, her naturally well-endowed breasts wobbling from side to side. She was plenty and knew it, but I think it was a bright little moment of fun in her day working at such a crusty and boring job she was holding down comfortably with the little pinkie of her left hand.

I think it all traced back to me presenting the same book for yet another reborrow stamp and her asking why I was keeping it on what was almost a permanent checkout. Being young, stoopid and running out of excuses, I told her the truth – it made me sad, and more or less legged it in panic leaving the damn book behind. She had it there under the checkout desk on my next visit once I’d got over my shame at the funk and was forced to slink back in desperation for new reading material.

She always let me check out books for extended intervals with no fines and a knowing smile. ie borrow indefinitely. From the timestamps on the inside cover, nobody’d checked out that absolutely vital copy of a book about Asclepius in fifteen years, so not much harm was being done by depriving future generations of readers the type of obscure books I was interested in. She’d be the subversive inside the establishment at the time, though if I asked about a book she could tell me straight away if they had it or not without diving into the paper card index. We’re talking the pre-computer era where there were only eight of the things in the entire country and nobody quite knew what you’d use them for. Perhaps hammering in a nail or something like that.

She was a very competent librarian who was also an avid reader herself, rather than just another admin flunky punching a nine to five time card. She was casually aware of every damn book that was in the library. If I enquired after a book that wasn’t there, she’d initiate some arcane if not Gormenghast like process, and the book would be there for me via what she called an “off the books” process. I never knew it at the time, but she’d the kindest of hearts. It took me a while to realise that. Part of the just bloody well grow up process we’ve all been through.

Moving on from such fond memories, or should I say mammaries, was that you had to explore for yourself these book things, there was never a list of “helpful” suggestions under the title of you might also like. You were on your own Kiddo. Occasionally you’d find a footnote reference to another book, which you’d add to your mental list of books to be hunted down. My chances of ever finding them, never mind being able to afford them were minimal though. A print run is a print run, so there’d always be a finite number of any book that’d be printed and be therefore in circulation. There’d be a definite sense of triumph on those rare occasions in bagging your own copy of a desired book on your tick list.

But whatever, you gradually built up that store of books you loved. I mainly did it on a quite modest budget by having a Saturday circuit where I walked from one junk shop to another or flea markets that sold second-hand books. There were two huge bookseller shops in town, but apart from that being a long walk even for the walking dude, the prices of new books were well beyond my means at the time. I’m fortunate these days to live in a slightly sprawling home and have established a leisure reading room in it that’s got a very comfortable and well worn couch I refused to throw out on the last makeover and which I like to lay in while I’m reading.

The kids had all flown the nest and what was essentially their X-box gaming room was suddenly freed up, so I had one of those spring sleeves rolled up ideas of tidying up all the books strewn over all over the house into one room. I bought one of those flat pack book shelfs, assembled it and filled it up with assorted books in ten minutes. I’d barely made a dent in the job, so I ordered two more and filled them as well. I’ve run out of wall, so no more bookshelves, but because my wife and our kids are also avid readers, the house is still strewn with books. It’s not that we’re all Brainiacs, far from it, it’s just that we enjoy reading as a pastime.

Lots of assorted cushions, throws and a soft rug thrown over the rather harsh leather covering to make it warm to lay on in winter. It’s where I keep the record player and my vinyls. I’m not a hifi snob, but the richness of the sound knocks CDs sideways because to cram music onto them, they have to chop off the high and low frequency sounds, which makes the music sound slightly flat at times. With vinyl, you can listen to something like Bach’s Cello concerto and feel the vibrations on your face from the varnished wood of the instruments being played. You’d never get that from a CD.

The thing about books though is that they’re hardware. What’s on each page can’t be changed, can’t be magically re-edited to say something slightly different. Yes, there might be a second or third edition published, but you’ve still got that first edition with the author’s original thoughts on it. What I’m increasingly finding with the internet is that articles are subtly amended to reflect changes in current attitudes. I suppose Wikipedia is the classic example of constantly rewriting controversial topics to more closely conform to ever more rapidly changes in what’s approved of by the featherweight arbiters of history. Orwellian. They call them edit wars and they can get vicious.

Abraham Lincoln once said you can call a dog’s tail an extra leg if you want, but at end of day, it’ll still have four, not five legs no matter what way you wish it to be. Trying to amend or obliterate historical facts that offend your sensitivities is infantalising your view of the real world. One day, the wake up call will arrive and the longer you delay it, the harsher its arrival will be.

They’re also a perfect answer to a current trend called cancel culture, which in essence is the latter day Goths and Visigoths of civilisation trying to obliterate historical events that don’t concur with their oh so perfect politically correct modern day morality. Pulling down statues of historical figures just like ISIS dynamiting ancient monuments in Nineveh is next door to the book burning orgies the Nazis indulged in. As the German poet Heinrich Heine observed with a certain deadly prescience a century and a half before it came to pass, when they burn books, they will too in the end burn people. He proved to be tragically right with the coming into being of places like Auschwitz.

The other thing about a book is that unlike a web site and its entire contents, they don’t simply disappear overnight without any warning – they stay on your book shelf for decades without going walkabout. You can take it down from the bookshelf, reread, think about what it’s saying and even argue with it. A book doesn’t talk over you when you’re marshalling a refutation of its contents.

Apart from a few blessed books I took the financial hit of buying in hardback, all the rest are paper backs. I pull down a book and open it and can feel the calcified glue along it’s spine cracking. It hasn’t been opened in a long time. The book is that old, but as long as I hold it tenderly, it can be put back, albeit slightly the worse for wear. The kids of course sacked my library years ago. Alexandria fell. The only limitation I ever put on them was read and enjoy – but never lend out one of my books out. I’d lost too many good books over the years via someone else’s altruistic impulse with my damn books.

There are other things about books. A certain tactileness when you run a forefinger over a page, a smell when you bury your nose in them, but above all remembering where you acquired them and who was that person you were at that time.

The best thing thing about a favourite book is that it’s a constant in an increasing sea of uncertainty. Such things are a rarity these days.

©Pointman

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