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Jun. 26th, 2004 03:25 pmHey Humans,
The great Packing Escapade began as soon as Mellie left at 10.30 this morning, and has been going strong all afternoon. For the most part, it's not so bad, I got all my knicknacks and things downstairs in about an hour and a half. It's just, now that all the little fiddly stuff is gone, I have a problem.
Books.
I am a person who measures her life by books. I've never moved house in my life, I've gone to a total of three schools, all populated in one way or another by the same teachers and students year after year. The only way I have of marking chronology in my memories, really, is through books. For instance, when I am an old woman, I will most likely remember this summer by five things: Marty, Kris, Mellie, really terrific lunches, and 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal', by Ayn Rand, which is what I've been reading every morning and evening as I ride the subway.
To fully understand the sort of scale I'm talking about, you have to understand that one and a half out of every two books in this house is mine. In my room alone, I've got one wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcase, plus the books stored under my bed where a normal person would keep sweaters and pornography. Not to mention the two bookshelves in the T.V. room. (And, by the way, let me note that I love my family for being the type to keep books in the T.V. room. Thank you, family.)
And now it's coming time to move things and I've just carred twelve laundry baskets worth of books down three flights of stairs to the basement and I realize that, maybe, it's time to do a little literary housecleaning.
Because, see, I keep everything. I've got ninety percent of my children's books, maybe more of those than anything recent, not to mention magazines and trash novels and 'The Bagahvad-Gita As It Is', which I swear to christ I tried to read but eventually had to abandon in favor of my sanity.
Some things are obvious: the Kerouac, Ginsberg, Rand, gay lit., Tad Williams, Gaiman, Pratchett... these things are staying. They have a special place in my shelves, the alphebetically-organized 'books I can't live without' section.
Some things are harder: Roald Dahl was literally the author who took my love of reading and put it in front of me and said: This is your life. In 1992, when I was just turned eight, I got a copy of 'James and the Giant Peach' in my stocking. And in short order, I had every children's book the guy ever wrote and well, that was it. I was reading fairly steadily before that, of course, but that was all stuff my mother had loved as a kid, all 'Little House on the Prarie' and that sort of children's book with lots of huge, beautiful oil painting illustrations. Not to mention that I have a real memory of my mother sitting me down at the table in the middle of summer and not letting me out to play until I had read a dictated number of pages. With a beginning like that, it's a surprise I didn't run screaming into the hills and become a mathematician.
However, the fact is reading Roald Dahl changed all that. His stories weren't about 'normal' people, who, let's face it, are primarily boring and petty and live boring, petty lives. But Roald Dahl wrote about a boy whose grandmother had no thumb or a girl who was so brilliant she could write in chalk without getting up from her seat across the room or a man who lived in a giant candy factory. (He did, actually, write about more 'normal' people in 'Danny, the Champion of the World', but let's face it, Danny's father may not have had specifically magic powers, but he was certainly extraordinarily brilliant. Which lead me to love extraordinarily brilliant people who live in the real world, while increasing my distaste for un-extraordinary people in the same place, which may in fact have been the precursor to my love of, say, Howard Roark. So you can see Dahl is plenty important.
And I haven't picked up one of his books off my shelves for at least seven years. So. Do I keep them as relics of my childhood or trash them as if they were only what they are, which is to say several combined pounds of paper and ink and glue? It's a tough decision, with my natural tendancy to quash sentiment and the premium on shelf space fighting with the fact that I am still a sentimental person and these are my books.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg. When I won the drama award in eighth grade, my math teacher slash director Mr. Frattalli, who was a fascinatingly weird man who had a good heart and an absolute lack of social graces, gave me two books. One was Wally Lamb's 'She's Come Undone', which is, was, and will be firmly in the 'save' pile, and the other was Loren Pope's book on extraordinary colleges around America. Both have very heartfelt inscriptions on the flyleaf. And yet, I'm in a college, and barring some sort of weird disaster involving a time-warp and a cocker spaniel, I'm never going to have to search for a college again. Is the fact that a teacher I genuinely liked and haven't seen in four years gave me a book and wrote in it enough to recommend it to the stack of keepers along with 'On the Road' and 'The Fountainhead'? (Which two books, I'm convinced, if they ever come in physical contact with each other will cause my room to explode in a vortex of clashing ideologies.)
What about 'Anatole', the series of books about a French mouse who sneaks into a cheese factory and reviews samples of the wares at night that was one of my father's favorite bedtime stories? What about the illustrated condensed copies of 'The Illiad' and 'The Oddessey' that I recieved for Christmas after I was already really too old but kept because honestly, I couldn't get over the pictures? What about the early '50's copy of 'Hunting With the Microscope' that I devoured during my science phase before the haunting fear of all things math chased me away? What about the National Geographic book on mummies that I begged my mother for until she finally put it in my Easter basket one year, and then she was horrified when I opened it and there were all these pictures of bodies in various stages of preservation? (I, of course, was delighted). And if I keep that, aren't I under some sort of obligation to also keep the National Geographic books on weather and the skeleton and pyramids?
I've seen some of those home organizing shows on T.V., and they say that any books you don't actively plan to read again should be sold or given away. Which would mean I'd have hardly any books left at all, since I am not by nature a rereader. But then, these people are home organization show hosts talking to people who are concerned with home organization. They probably aren't Readers-with-a-capital-'R' talking to acknowledged bibliophiles. So how much can I trust their opinion?
On the other hand, it would be nice to have some shelf space free. At my school library I bought a doorstop textbook on 'The History of Art' that's a foot high and two and a half inches thick, because it had color plates and was going for fifty cents. Ever since, it's been relegated to under-the-bed because of lack of space. I'd like to be able to finally put it on a shelf where it belongs.
And there are some ridiculous things, especially under the bed where I don't have to constantly see their foolishness. For instance, why in the name of sweet Guttenberg's ghost do I have three copies of 'The Great Gatsby'? I didn't even like Gatsby. (And let me clarify, I mean that two ways. I didn't like Gatsby as a character which lead to my dislike of 'Gatsby' as a book.) I have lots of friends who list 'Gatsby' as the book, the favorite, the best, and I have to say I've read it three times and I Don't Get It. Maybe it's just because the thought of a world where alcohol is illegal sends me into convulsions.Or maybe it's because Gatsby's a prat who couldn't find his arse from his elbow and Tom, Daisy, and Nick were, if anything, worse. Whatever.
And I have two copies of 'Death of a Salesman' which, next to 'Waiting for Godot' is my least favorite play of all time. If anyone wants to take one or all of these off my hands, I can't say I'd mind.
For the most part, though, everything is being very difficult. I love books, and I love my books, and it makes me sad to think that I'd let go of the copy of 'Rapunzel' that my dad read to me when I was five and had a head cold.
What I need, really, is for someone I know and trust to come help me. And be stern with me.
"No. You really don't need that book on bees, wasps, and ants. No, you really, really don't. No. No."
Later,
Erin
The great Packing Escapade began as soon as Mellie left at 10.30 this morning, and has been going strong all afternoon. For the most part, it's not so bad, I got all my knicknacks and things downstairs in about an hour and a half. It's just, now that all the little fiddly stuff is gone, I have a problem.
Books.
I am a person who measures her life by books. I've never moved house in my life, I've gone to a total of three schools, all populated in one way or another by the same teachers and students year after year. The only way I have of marking chronology in my memories, really, is through books. For instance, when I am an old woman, I will most likely remember this summer by five things: Marty, Kris, Mellie, really terrific lunches, and 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal', by Ayn Rand, which is what I've been reading every morning and evening as I ride the subway.
To fully understand the sort of scale I'm talking about, you have to understand that one and a half out of every two books in this house is mine. In my room alone, I've got one wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcase, plus the books stored under my bed where a normal person would keep sweaters and pornography. Not to mention the two bookshelves in the T.V. room. (And, by the way, let me note that I love my family for being the type to keep books in the T.V. room. Thank you, family.)
And now it's coming time to move things and I've just carred twelve laundry baskets worth of books down three flights of stairs to the basement and I realize that, maybe, it's time to do a little literary housecleaning.
Because, see, I keep everything. I've got ninety percent of my children's books, maybe more of those than anything recent, not to mention magazines and trash novels and 'The Bagahvad-Gita As It Is', which I swear to christ I tried to read but eventually had to abandon in favor of my sanity.
Some things are obvious: the Kerouac, Ginsberg, Rand, gay lit., Tad Williams, Gaiman, Pratchett... these things are staying. They have a special place in my shelves, the alphebetically-organized 'books I can't live without' section.
Some things are harder: Roald Dahl was literally the author who took my love of reading and put it in front of me and said: This is your life. In 1992, when I was just turned eight, I got a copy of 'James and the Giant Peach' in my stocking. And in short order, I had every children's book the guy ever wrote and well, that was it. I was reading fairly steadily before that, of course, but that was all stuff my mother had loved as a kid, all 'Little House on the Prarie' and that sort of children's book with lots of huge, beautiful oil painting illustrations. Not to mention that I have a real memory of my mother sitting me down at the table in the middle of summer and not letting me out to play until I had read a dictated number of pages. With a beginning like that, it's a surprise I didn't run screaming into the hills and become a mathematician.
However, the fact is reading Roald Dahl changed all that. His stories weren't about 'normal' people, who, let's face it, are primarily boring and petty and live boring, petty lives. But Roald Dahl wrote about a boy whose grandmother had no thumb or a girl who was so brilliant she could write in chalk without getting up from her seat across the room or a man who lived in a giant candy factory. (He did, actually, write about more 'normal' people in 'Danny, the Champion of the World', but let's face it, Danny's father may not have had specifically magic powers, but he was certainly extraordinarily brilliant. Which lead me to love extraordinarily brilliant people who live in the real world, while increasing my distaste for un-extraordinary people in the same place, which may in fact have been the precursor to my love of, say, Howard Roark. So you can see Dahl is plenty important.
And I haven't picked up one of his books off my shelves for at least seven years. So. Do I keep them as relics of my childhood or trash them as if they were only what they are, which is to say several combined pounds of paper and ink and glue? It's a tough decision, with my natural tendancy to quash sentiment and the premium on shelf space fighting with the fact that I am still a sentimental person and these are my books.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg. When I won the drama award in eighth grade, my math teacher slash director Mr. Frattalli, who was a fascinatingly weird man who had a good heart and an absolute lack of social graces, gave me two books. One was Wally Lamb's 'She's Come Undone', which is, was, and will be firmly in the 'save' pile, and the other was Loren Pope's book on extraordinary colleges around America. Both have very heartfelt inscriptions on the flyleaf. And yet, I'm in a college, and barring some sort of weird disaster involving a time-warp and a cocker spaniel, I'm never going to have to search for a college again. Is the fact that a teacher I genuinely liked and haven't seen in four years gave me a book and wrote in it enough to recommend it to the stack of keepers along with 'On the Road' and 'The Fountainhead'? (Which two books, I'm convinced, if they ever come in physical contact with each other will cause my room to explode in a vortex of clashing ideologies.)
What about 'Anatole', the series of books about a French mouse who sneaks into a cheese factory and reviews samples of the wares at night that was one of my father's favorite bedtime stories? What about the illustrated condensed copies of 'The Illiad' and 'The Oddessey' that I recieved for Christmas after I was already really too old but kept because honestly, I couldn't get over the pictures? What about the early '50's copy of 'Hunting With the Microscope' that I devoured during my science phase before the haunting fear of all things math chased me away? What about the National Geographic book on mummies that I begged my mother for until she finally put it in my Easter basket one year, and then she was horrified when I opened it and there were all these pictures of bodies in various stages of preservation? (I, of course, was delighted). And if I keep that, aren't I under some sort of obligation to also keep the National Geographic books on weather and the skeleton and pyramids?
I've seen some of those home organizing shows on T.V., and they say that any books you don't actively plan to read again should be sold or given away. Which would mean I'd have hardly any books left at all, since I am not by nature a rereader. But then, these people are home organization show hosts talking to people who are concerned with home organization. They probably aren't Readers-with-a-capital-'R' talking to acknowledged bibliophiles. So how much can I trust their opinion?
On the other hand, it would be nice to have some shelf space free. At my school library I bought a doorstop textbook on 'The History of Art' that's a foot high and two and a half inches thick, because it had color plates and was going for fifty cents. Ever since, it's been relegated to under-the-bed because of lack of space. I'd like to be able to finally put it on a shelf where it belongs.
And there are some ridiculous things, especially under the bed where I don't have to constantly see their foolishness. For instance, why in the name of sweet Guttenberg's ghost do I have three copies of 'The Great Gatsby'? I didn't even like Gatsby. (And let me clarify, I mean that two ways. I didn't like Gatsby as a character which lead to my dislike of 'Gatsby' as a book.) I have lots of friends who list 'Gatsby' as the book, the favorite, the best, and I have to say I've read it three times and I Don't Get It. Maybe it's just because the thought of a world where alcohol is illegal sends me into convulsions.
And I have two copies of 'Death of a Salesman' which, next to 'Waiting for Godot' is my least favorite play of all time. If anyone wants to take one or all of these off my hands, I can't say I'd mind.
For the most part, though, everything is being very difficult. I love books, and I love my books, and it makes me sad to think that I'd let go of the copy of 'Rapunzel' that my dad read to me when I was five and had a head cold.
What I need, really, is for someone I know and trust to come help me. And be stern with me.
"No. You really don't need that book on bees, wasps, and ants. No, you really, really don't. No. No."
Later,
Erin
