James Wood wrote beautifully about sorting through his late father-in-law’s library in a recent New Yorker. “The books somehow made him smaller, not larger, as if they were whispering, 'What a little thing a single human life is, with all its busy, ephemeral, pointless projects.' All ruins say this, yet we strangely persist in pretending that books are not ruins, not broken columns.” In the article, Wood suggests that libraries, collections, are poor reflection of a life lived – give insight into what the man hoped to master, his ambitions over what his life was actually like. There is something I like (does it belie weakness?) about the idea that a library reveals only one aspect of the man – one he wants projected. I like that libraries may best embody the person as he wants to be seen. There is something if not exquisite then valuable about trying to know a person only by the strength of their ambitions – a reverse telescope onto what a life led looked like. Wood's piece made me think about the value in collection, in record – in short, why I keep this blog.
I started this blog as a way to keep in touch with people whose opinions about books and essays I respect. But really the blog served other purposes – a way to keep track of things I read; to notice repetition, themes in what I liked or didn’t. Truthfully, it also served as an outlet in which I could practice writing for a (mostly imagined) public. I sort of designed it be a virtual sort of library in that books are named, virtually shelved, among other anonymous spines. But it's also entirely different -- a blend of diary and review; circling mostly in an orbit of people who already give me the benefit of the doubt.
A library is a funny analogue to a blog – reflective of a different manner of self-invention, ambition, publicity. My own library reflects little, I think, of what I’ve read. I’ve relied a lot on public libraries, lately, for books and am happy to return them when they’re due back. It makes me a little sad to think that there is little record of what I’ve read, no tangible roadmap to what I’m thinking beyond the notes I take, recorded here and elsewhere. Like a library, this blog is a place where I can see where I’ve been. Unlike a library, it does not give view into the expanse of where I hope I’m going. Sometimes I think of strangers’ eyes alighting on the website and my blood runs cold. The blog is a record and thus, backward-looking. This blog is also a work in progress. Unlike the library, it is not built from books of a universal legacy, revealing little more than individual ambition. It arises from an age where the ambition for mastery is sufficient reason to build a blog, where practice is the thing on display.
And doesn't practice reveal something more immediate and close than a display of one's ambitions? That's what is beautiful about this project - it reveals so much more than a shelf full of books might about you.
ReplyDeleteI loved that James Woods piece, and thought it harsh sometimes...Maybe a library is mostly a record of how someone wanted to see herself. I take such comfort in my books, because of the memory of reading them (not just them, but where I was, with whom, how I felt, what was happening outside my window then)--and like you, I've been a library reader for years now. My books memorialize an earlier time.
This comment has no rhyme or reason to it. I think I mostly just want to say hello, I miss you, I love to read you!