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batbones 's review for:
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
by Anne Fadiman
I chanced upon this slim volume at a community library but it was not until I glimpsed the paperback edition that I decided my bookshelf would like one of its own.
I found Fadiman's observations very striking. She captures in very beautiful ways and words what it means and/or feels like to love books, to be consumed by them; the little things: a secondhand bookstore with its laid-back tiny messes is a treasure hunt and a trip of wonder, a book about books is opium for the ardent bibliophile.
Most of these things that are already known by myself, and while reading it my heart gave a little jump for joy whenever I identified with what she was saying -- and quite often. But with most things already known it seems the writer's duty is to make it known as if one acquaints with it for the very first time, the 'Oh!' of surprise coupled with the 'and that is exactly how it is.' A bit of a paradox, of knowing and yet not really knowing, now that I've written it down, but it's...how she manages to tell it more eloquently and beautifully with such polished, assuring prose, that it seems like that is the pure, true nature of, say, what I felt the first time I stepped into a secondhand bookstore, or considered how I should go about arranging my shelves.
Her life as a bibliophile is far more enriched and prolific than mine and she delves into details of things I as of yet cannot relate to: marrying bookshelves, reading aloud, and even people I do not know much about (eg Gladstone) but that just makes reading Ex Libris a learning experience. When these things do occur in my life, someday perhaps, I think I would be hit by that familiar spark of recognition, but in these cases, it will come from the other direction: book first.
I found Fadiman's observations very striking. She captures in very beautiful ways and words what it means and/or feels like to love books, to be consumed by them; the little things: a secondhand bookstore with its laid-back tiny messes is a treasure hunt and a trip of wonder, a book about books is opium for the ardent bibliophile.
Most of these things that are already known by myself, and while reading it my heart gave a little jump for joy whenever I identified with what she was saying -- and quite often. But with most things already known it seems the writer's duty is to make it known as if one acquaints with it for the very first time, the 'Oh!' of surprise coupled with the 'and that is exactly how it is.' A bit of a paradox, of knowing and yet not really knowing, now that I've written it down, but it's...how she manages to tell it more eloquently and beautifully with such polished, assuring prose, that it seems like that is the pure, true nature of, say, what I felt the first time I stepped into a secondhand bookstore, or considered how I should go about arranging my shelves.
Her life as a bibliophile is far more enriched and prolific than mine and she delves into details of things I as of yet cannot relate to: marrying bookshelves, reading aloud, and even people I do not know much about (eg Gladstone) but that just makes reading Ex Libris a learning experience. When these things do occur in my life, someday perhaps, I think I would be hit by that familiar spark of recognition, but in these cases, it will come from the other direction: book first.