A Defense On the Art of Buying More Books Than We Can Read
Before you begin reading, I’d like all you book hoarders to go to your pile of books and look at that mounting unread one. If you’re too lazy to get up, just manifest it in your imagination. That messy or well-kept pile, kept horizontally or vertically, kept for the sake of keeping and maybe, just maybe… never reading. But hey, I know. YOU WILL EVENTUALLY GET TO THEM. Meanwhile, why not browse more books to buy (Bookish Santa has a great collection, duh), maybe for the happiness brought by the new year, maybe for your birthday this month or the next (or the next to next)… or maybe because you feel happy or because you feel sad and maybe because you saved up some extra money or because making books your last purchase before going broke seems like a jolly good decision.
You can concoct a zillion reasons to justify buying more books to add to your collection, even as half of it sits there, waiting to be touched and read. But fret not, I am not here to further the guilt born out of it. I am here to make you feel better for engaging in this beautiful activity; of stepping inside a bookstore with the intention to buy one book and coming out with four. Of generously adding books to your cart, just before you give them a permanent home on your shelf. And all the while fighting the question- ‘Do I need more books right now?’ with a big, unthinking ‘Yes’.
It’s not just a pretentious embellishment when I resort to calling this process an art. Buying more books than we can read is art. I mean it does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? And that ring also has sound justifications behind it. Bear with me for a minute, but is it not a skill? Because A, not everyone indulges in it, it’s a selective interest; and B, Not everyone is good at it. Saving and spending, not saving and spending, prioritising book purchases over others, all require practice and will. These criteria, even at their most basic level, can at least set apart the differing intensities or performances of book hoarding (I like to rate myself an 8/10).
Now tell me, like all art, does it not serve a purpose? You derive satisfaction by just looking at the fresh purchase, or your vanity derives satisfaction from the external validation of your collation. You could also experience disgust at seeing the details of debit from your bank, or envy by comparing your book haul or bookshelf to somebody else’s. And all these possibilities of emotion go on to prove that like all art, this particular one is also subjective. And does it just selfishly cater to us? No, because aren’t we spiking the sales of our favourite booksellers? And doesn’t this art also get criticised like all others? Yes, it truly does and if you don’t believe me, go ask my mom. But do you know, despite everything, who’d be that one person proud of you for doing this? The celebrated Italian author, Umberto Eco.
Legend says Eco owned 30,000 books. And he knew he couldn’t possibly read them all. He saw his personal library occupying a microscopic place in all the ever-increasing knowledge of the world. All that he was yet to learn, all that he was yet to read. He wanted his stroll by that library to be a humbling experience. For it to drive away the ignorance that stems from having read a lot. A quirky oxymoron, I suppose. But what that means is, he didn’t want to treat all that he knew as a means to swell his ego, rather to focus on all that he didn’t know and hence, desired to know it.
This also helps in two complementary ways. That of the replacement of guilt with a newfound motivation. Without having researched any statistics to back it up, I can proudly propose that the more books you have surrounding you, the more you will be drawn to them. The guilt and productivity race of reading more and more can be positively countered with the fact that there are a lot of books out there (and also in your home), and you simply can’t read them all. And yet, what is important is your desire to read them, which, as the philosophy behind this art proves, can pave the way for you to get through them. Sometime, at your own pace.
So kids, don’t let anyone shame you for your book philandering. Set new books on your shelf and promise to read them, and someday get around to doing it. As long as it rests there, the chance to pick it up lives. As Eco would have liked to put it, but never did — buy books and stay humble . You have a lifetime to read them all!
- Chakrika Pandey
Originally published at https://www.bookishsanta.com on January 27, 2021.
