am what I have read
far more surely than I am
what I have eaten
Ms. Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer for the New York Times who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South, in a love letter to books titled, My Bookshelf, Myself, writes:
For me, a book made of paper will always be a beautiful object that warms a room even as it expands (or entertains, or challenges, or informs, or comforts) a mind, and a bookcase will always represent time itself. I walk past one of our bookcases, and I can tell you exactly why a particular book is still there, never culled as space grew limited, even if there is no chance I’ll ever read it again.
I could have written this piece.
I know a lot of people who could have written this piece.
I also know a lot of people who won’t understand the line “I walk past one of our bookcases, and I can tell you exactly why a particular book is still there, never culled as space grew limited, even if there is no chance I’ll ever read it again.“
Why would anyone keep a book they’ll never read again?
It is a good a question and I don’t really have a good answer.
It is somewhere along the lines of a quote in the 1983 documentary, Ansel Adams: Photographer.
At the end of the film, the scene depicts Mr. Adams walking through a flowering field and the narration says, ” … in 1938 Alfred Stieglitz wrote in a letter to Ansel Adams that ‘it is good for me to know there is an Ansel Adams loose somewhere in this world of ours.'”
It is good for some folks to know that certain books are there, still there, close by, even if there is no chance that book will ever be read again.
Ms. Renkl continues, “When I reread a book from my own shelves, I meet my own younger self. Sometimes my younger self underlined a passage that I would have reached for my pencil to underline now. Other times she read right past a line that stuns me with its beauty today. I am what I have read far more surely than I am what I have eaten.“
I love that passage though in some ways its brings to mind the Jim Harrison character in his book, The Road Home, who re-reads his own 50 year old journals and keeps thinking, “What will this fool going to do next?”
Books, books and more books.
As I would say when I worked in a bookstore, books are like jello, always room for more.
I spent my life with them and they are, until you move cross country, a necessity.
When you move, they become a luxury.
To be sure I have two book cases of books I really want, want enough to move with, but I wonder if they will make the next move.
I still look at them and feel good knowing they are there even though I know I most likely won’t read them again.
I have three devices filled with books and I can still get that feeling of pleasure of knowing I have these books on my devices.
And I cannot agree more that I am what I have read far more surely than what I have eaten.
I remember my good friend Gerald Elliot, who over his long life, was an editorial writer for the Grand Rapids Press among many other things.
Late in life he had accomplished two interesting things.
First, about 10 years before he died, he gave his personal library to the Grand Valley State University Library.
Jerry not only wrote editorials but had been the book reviewer for the Grand Rapids Press for decades and was pretty much understood to be the area’s man of letters and his collection was impressive.
He had thought the books would go into the general collection of the library but instead were dumped into the library fundraising book sale which made him so mad that he vowed to me that he would never do that again.
And the second thing was that in the 10 years since giving away his library, he had acquired as many books again as he had given away.
He told me that story at the bookstore where I worked as he picked up the two bags full of new editions he had just purchased.
He looked at me then he looked over at his wife then he looked at the bags of books and back at me.
“Can’t go on forever I guess,” he said.
He looked at his wife and said, “Then it will be her problem of what to do with these damn books.”
No Haiku For You 