Book-Sorting I
July 13th, 2007 at 2:24 am
(Self Writ, Literature, Music)
At present I am desultorily packing books into cardboard boxes: now this, by the nature of books and boxes can’t be done sequentially; fit, rather than subject or which shelf or stack, dictates the order of procedure. Which of course applies to life as well.
However, I do, or shall, try roughly to get one section eliminated at a time as much as possible; yet in order to fill a space one resorts where one will. With the last box a thin flat space remained and I went to a shelf in my bedroom untouched so far — not merely for the reason given, but because it is about 6′ long and 2′ 6″ high and is filled to the shelf above with wide flat books and magazines — and withdrew one of the requisite size. Now, I should not want to give the impression that my books are of value: only about 20% of all have any great charm, and few dealers would buy them; the last 25% are of no interest even to me, and only kept because someone has to keep them preserved. Which is the point of this post regarding the particular volume selected.
I had not the faintest idea I had ever possessed this work, and have no recollection, not unnaturally, of buying it; however, with the covers coming off, I can see it cost £2, and bearing in mind it’s place on the shelf, was probably bought in the last five years. Not reading sheet-music, I’d not sat down to enjoy a steady perusal, and so, again naturally, had found somewhere to shove it and forgot.
But the point is the book was safe, and no doubt many times in the last two centuries had faced being scrapped at any time. How long will it survive my death ? One can safely estimate that the physical life-span of most books is under 500 years; and that the majority certainly don’t reach their century. In a country where, under progressive rule, the status of old books is roughly equivalent to that of old buildings: things that are not-so-secretly desired to be scrapped for bright new edifices that will make some happy scum, somewhere, richer; a place where in the last decade libraries have dumped 18th century and older works in skips: the outlook is not that good for any literary remains.
Anyway, one of my few gifts is a fairly sound appraisal of the date of a book just by holding it and looking. I would say that it is probably about 1823. It has been heavily used since that time, and around 7 generations of housewives, just, failed to throw it out.
Even odder to consider is the life of each who has owned it since that time, the lives of their families branching out and intertwining into the rest of the world; the lives of the publishers and sellers through the years; the people who marbled it, and the people who sewed it originally… Every world item is multum in parvo from the view of allbeing.
