Listen to Jim:
or read on…
ROMANCING THE BOOK
This book resting easily in my hand is a singular object of desire. It desires me, I desire it.
Rocking the book to feel its heft is a special pleasure.
Warning to non-book-lovers: your instinct is to avert your eyes, because this is just a book. The following words may induce curiosity, could make you want to touch the same book I am touching, might force you to expand your definitions of love, your ideas of history and family, your philosophies regarding the importance of living and legacy.
This book has a front cover that beckons to me. Its ancient binding struts and brags, instructs and cautions me to respect its very existence.
The leather in which this book is bound serves to protect inner pages and hold together contents. Opening the book is a revelation. Look—there are words within. Even before the typeset words begin, there are handwritten names and inscriptions that mark the book’s one-time ownership, record the day the book was given or purchased, impart affection for both book and recipient.
The paper, oh the paper. The paper is textured and supple and serves to absorb and secure the words thereon.
The paper has its own story to tell.
Who made this paper? Whose idea was it to make it this lightly tanned shade of white? Who decided how thick it should be, how long it should last, how resistant to the elements and the owners it should be?
The book has its own fragrances. The paper has frozen the smell of pipe tobacco within, so that a century later I can still recognize its brand.
Thumbing through the book, there are hidden treasures and surprises to be found if I pay attention. There’s an old mustard stain, which tells me how one owner liked to snack and read simultaneously. Two pages are folded at the corner, which inspires me to scan the words to see what the reader found so important. A margin note shows me more about the reader than the author.
Between other pages, I find a pressed four-leaf clover, something that takes hours to locate and put away for another day to remind the owner how simple life used to be in a day and age when you could spend so much effort on one solitary pleasure.
And further on, a folded note falls out, a century-old message from somebody to somebody else—as it turns out, it’s a love note written in secret and secured for the recipient to find later, on a day like today when small joys are needed to raise the spirits.
The underlined words in the book make thoughts jump out at me, make me pay more attention to them, force me to respect the author and the previous owners.
Then, suddenly, a butterfly twirls from within the book and lands lightly on a chair. It was preserved many years ago within safe pages. It has returned to life, if only in imagination.
The book has pictures and a beautiful cover design and a Victorian bookmark and evidences of slight misfortunes—a bent spine, a page almost separating from its fellow pages as if flying to freedom, an indelible ink stain from a time when inkwells and nibs existed.
And most amazingly, this book also contains all the essences of people who once touched it. Dust from fingers, oils from skin leave DNA set in place for future microbiologists and archaeologists to examine and test.
Knowing all this makes me vow never to throw away a book, for in so doing, I am throwing away genealogy, history, stories told…I am throwing away evidence of a culture…I am throwing away the readers themselves.
Just can’t do it. Can’t throw a book away. Ever.
That’s why I spend my days here at the Book Orphanage nurturing my adoptees and foster children, keeping them safe till someone who cares comes to give them safe haven on a lovely shelf in a loving home.
Message to non-book-lovers: It’s safe to come out now. I won’t force you to listen to my ramblings about books and readings. You can be on your way, now. And, just for being here, why not take this one volume with you for a test drive? You can always return it if it doesn’t work out
© Jim Reed 2014 A.D.