I
do not abhor progress. Notched sticks
and clay tablets gave way to papyrus, parchment, and paper. Now paper is giving way to chunks of silicon that
can store entire libraries, which may ultimately give way to some kind of
electro-technical cloud that can store the entire history of human thought. There is value in that, and excitement, too,
at the possibilities.
I
welcome change. But not with fully open
arms. I ruminate on the dangers of new
technologies and the possibilities of misuse.
Without doing so we cannot take full advantage of the new. Most importantly, I respect the gifts of the
things we leave behind. I write e-mail
and use Facebook to keep in touch, but I also pick up a pen and write
letters. Something about choosing a
stationery and a stamp, something about taking the time to script ink onto
paper, something about that patient labor makes my writing more considered and
personal. I enjoy it. And I think my correspondents appreciate it.
I
can foresee a future where paper is a thing of the past and the printed book is
no more, lest they be exhibits in museums.
It’s not necessarily a bad future.
But, as I sit here in my library, surrounded by thousands of books, I
know I would not be happy in that future, nor do I expect to see that future in
my lifetime. Though the words on the
page are most important, as it is the words that contain the ideas and stories,
for me and for too many of my peers I think, the tactile experience of boards
and glue, dust jacket and paper is important.
The old book will survive for awhile yet. And I am thankful for that. I breathe in, and I can smell a forest.
As
a happy caretaker of this particular grove, I try to be a good Johnny Appleseed
and sow my seeds; that is, spread the word.
For more than a decade, I have been posting book reviews on
amazon.com. But I have certain
self-imposed, idiosyncratic rules about what I post on the amazon site. With very rare exception, I only post reviews
of new, recent books that I am reading for the first time. There are a number of reasons for this but,
mainly, I just don’t want to get bogged down in trying to map out the entire
history of my reading.
Recently,
however, I’ve been aching to stretch my wings a bit more. I’ve wanted to talk about my mouldy
books. What is a mouldy book, you
ask? These are the books that when you
bring them to your nose you can detect a faint whiff of spores, when you turn
the pages you can sense the swelling from decades—sometimes centuries—of humidity,
and when you read the pages you can see the yellowing and foxing that give ageing
books their patina.
So,
I’ve started this blog. This is where
I’m going to take the opportunity to discuss older books, out-of-print books, books
that need a bit of an airing out—my mouldy books. This is not meant to be a gilding of books
that are already classics (though I may stoop to that from time to time). Nor is it my intention to focus a lot on current
literature (though I may stoop to that as well). Rather, it is my hope to bring back the work
of lesser-known authors, or lesser-known works of well-known authors: books of some age and obscurity that have
surprised me or pleased me in some way.
Note
my use of the phrase “pleased me”. I
like books and try to find value in everything I read. A reader looking to find vitriol splattered
against these old books should look someplace else. That’s not to say that I’m not critical or
that I never spew venom. In general,
however, I focus on the positive with the understanding that books, like most
everything in life, usually gravitate toward the mean in quality and only
occasionally rise to the level of truly magnificent. Still, even an average book by a deft writer
often contains wonderful things. That’s
why I try to find and on which I focus my attention.
Certainly,
this is an exercise in personal taste and some pretention. The fact that these books are mouldy and not
moldy illustrates that. I’ve chosen to use
the word “mouldy” not just because this Anglophilic phrasing adds some colour
to my prose, but also because, in my mind at least, it indicates a book that
deserves to be saved from the obscurity of the second-hand store shelf and not
left to mold away in some damp corner or, God forbid, get tossed into a recycle
bin somewhere. Mouldy indicates quality.
If
any of what I’ve said here appeals to you, I invite you on this journey with
me. Like most of you, I have the slog of
earning a living and many other life commitments, but I’ve set myself the goal
of updating this blog at least once a week with a new title. We’ll see if I can manage. Please come back and check in from time to
time. And let me know what you think.
Until
Next Book…(which on this sole occasion will be the first book…)
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