. . . and these are my books!

“It’s all done by mirrors!” is the time honoured cry of knowing spectators when a stage magician has created an illusion so stupendous that it threatens the universe of the audience. They cannot envisage how such a denial of the everyday can occur in front of their eyes, so they have to find the simplest most ordinary explanation for the inexplicable: mirrors.

A similar reaction takes place in domestic libraries when the serried ranks of books confront the sort of person who thinks that a room looks untidy if there are tomes lying about. As a person who has amassed a few books in his time I can list the questions and comments of such people, I will also add what they really mean.

1 “Gosh, what a lot of books you have!” This actually means, “God, you sad bastard, can’t you think of anything more useful to spend your money on?”
2 “Have you read all these books?” This actually means, “He’s only doing this for show, well, he doesn’t impress me.”
3 “How long has it taken you to get all these books?” This actually means, “You’ve been a sad bastard for a long time haven’t you?”
4 “Who is your favourite author?” This actually means, “I can’t really think of anything to say.”
5 “What is your favourite book?” This actually means, “I really can’t think of anything to say.”
6 “Oh, I’ve read this one as well!” This actually means, “Thank God I recognize one of these bloody books.”
7 “Do you have any really valuable and rare books?” This actually means, “I want to go home now, but if you’ve got a first folio I’ll pinch it to make up for looking at all these sodding books.”

Actually, it is exceedingly rare for someone to get in seven questions when a proud owner is standing in front of his pride and joy.

Some people never realise that book owning and book reading are not necessarily the same thing. You can enjoy reading helped by a decent local library and willing friends. You can buy books and immediately pass them on, give them to Oxfam or use the wonderful system devised by http://www.bookcrossing.com/ (really, if you don’t know about this system, look at the web site, it is such a good idea!)

But there are others who join with Ruskin’s sentiments expressed in my favourite quotation of that writer, “If a book is worth reading it is worth buying.” Like the Jesuits, that quotation found me young and claimed me for life!

There is something about the feel and look and smell of a book – any book – which is completely different from the experience of reading words on a screen. I have read complete books on my handheld up to and including C19th brick novels and found it relatively easy and congenial, but nothing like an actual book. But this is sounding like antiquarian ramblings so I will get back to my point.

Book lovers and avid readers always (as far as finance will allow) have unread books lying around and on their shelves.

A recent teletext survey http://www.teletext.co.uk/AboutUs/news.aspx?id=306 has discovered the most unread novels: those novels bought or acquired, started but not finished.

The lists they produced gave these five as the most unread fiction:
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling
Ulysses - James Joyce
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

And these as the top five non-fiction titles as the most unread:
The Blunkett Tapes - David Blunkett
My Life - Bill Clinton
My Side - David Beckham
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation - Lynne Truss
Wild Swans - Jung Chang

I don’t know whether I should feel encouraged or depressed by the fact that I have only read three of these ten titles – but I did read the all the way through, and I don’t have any of the other titles languishing on my shelves either here at home, or a little further off in the storage facility of Pickfords.

Wait a minute, that’s not true – I do have one volume unread, even though I did read part of it in a country where it was banned: on the steps of the Alcazar in Toledo. It was only when I was halfway through the guided tour of the Alcazar that I suddenly realised that I was standing in a monument to fascism! At least I had a corrupting book with me which, as it turns out, neither I nor Franco had read. From that it should be clear which book I am talking about, still lying unfinished in storage in deepest Pickford’s.

I was most interested by the inclusion of Rowling and Joyce in the lists. I am sure that the two ‘great’ novels by Joyce remain the undisputed champions of bought but unread classic literature in English in the Twentieth Century.

The Rowling is a more interesting case. I was loaned the volume for one (1) day by Gwen. That was a concession because she calls me ‘uncle’; otherwise I would not have got my hands on her book! I duly read the volume and returned it to an expectant Gwen. A Hard Night’s Read.

If the volume is unread it must be by adults; kids plough through the verbiage and come back for more. It is good to see a genuine popular novelist with the length, if not the gravitas of Dickens being devoured by a mass audience. As I have always said, “Any reading is better than no reading” and reading at length of a connected narrative is all the better.

It is nice (in the right sense of that word) to report that there are to be two more viewings of the house which might make the title of this blog a little more apropos. On Thursday to Stratford to see a production of ‘Coriolanus’ in the Memorial Theatre: such larks! Depressingly I have just worked out that the last time I saw 'Coriolanus' in Stratford was thrity years ago with Alan Howart in the title role.





Sigh!

Meanwhile, house cleaning.

Sigh!