I am surrounded by books.
Two thousand three hundred and seventy nine books to be precise.
The 'Auditors', who I like to imagine as Pratchett-esque figures with long, black hoods and an unbending logic, have asked us to count them.
Again.
'Lifeless lumps of paper' they may be but, 'minds on the shelves' tells it more honestly and more honourably.
Why count them? Why should I reckon the ideas and lives surrounding me, as if I am responsible for only their cataloguing and not, in fact, also their carer? I am bound to these books, and to the boundaries of this room, but the books allow me an endless sense of thoughtful wanderlust. I am cocooned in one of the calmer rooms in Borges' library of
How anyone can ignore the broader implications of these books is beyond me, but something I find more compelling is how those involved with the creation of the printed page could fail to be excited by a room full of them. We had almost 100 employees of a certain publishing company in the building for a meet and greet last night, and not one poked their head through the door, stepped inside or even commented on the fact that there was a room full of books adjacent to where they drank.
Is it unfair to assume that those who are responsible for creating something should be excited by its resulting creation in any form? Do artists not generally enjoy the art of others? Would a fashion designer stroll past a catwalk and not glance at the competing creations on display?
I would expect those in any industry to judge others work against that which they know; informed judgement is reasonable and expected, and the internal comparative critic certainly resides happily inside me. But to make no comparison, to garner no context, to entirely miss the chance to appraise those things that compete with us for a living? To remain unconscious to ones material contemporaries is as incomprehensible to me as an athlete being totally unaware of those they're racing with.
So with the spirit of a thought-safari, I race with the books, they are companions as much as competitors and like the athletes in the first pan-America marathon we keep each other company, soothe each others blisters and ask each other questions, as well as beginning to ask questions of ourselves.
Whilst writing the nice Bodleian library man has just brought me seventeen new books.
Two thousand three hundred and ni…
B:They Shoot Horses Don't They - Horace McCoy
