The chambermaid believed in courtly love. A book's physical self was sacrosanct to her, its form inseperable from its content; her duty as a lover was Platonic adoration, a noble but doomed attempt to conserve forever the state of perfect chastity in which it had left the bookseller. The Fadiman family believed in carnal love. To us, a book's words were holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread and ink that contained them were a mere vessel, and it was no sacrilege to treat them as wantonly as desire and pragmatism dictated. Hard use was not a sign of disrespect but of intimacy.
Surely there's a place in-between, that treats both the physical aspects of the books with respect, but also the words contained with all the love they deserve. I treat my books well, not because I read them in a miserly fashion, more enthralled with my idea of what might be contained within than the actual contents, but becase I want to be able to read them again and again, even decades into the future. There's a connection not just to the book itself but to the edition as well, the memories that one specific copy of a book and no other can invoke. Maybe that makes me a believer in romantic love.
I do know that you'd never find me, as one member of her family is described as doing, ripping read chapters out of a book and throwing them away to cut down on weight while flying.
This is a wonderful, delightful little book. I was taking some comfort in knowing that there are, in fact, readers more crazed and obsessed than I out there, but...maybe I'm deluding myself. ^_^;;
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machine_dove at 03:20pm on 27/12/2005