Treasures

As an inveterate book buyer, almost unapologetic, recently released to a book buying spree, I often try to understand what it is that makes me want to acquire more and more books. There is a gulf between buying and reading which is often unbridgeable – meaning, of course, that I buy books which I never quite get around to reading – and as my shelves fill up I find I can no longer ignore the little voice that is telling me I need to clear out some space to make room for my new books and that, perhaps, there are a few books cluttering the decks which I will never read, or for which it is time to let go. This is a dilemma for me. I don’t enjoy letting go, I don’t like to dispose of books I haven’t yet read and those I have I wish to keep on the basis that I would like to read them again. When is a question I might ask myself, but I have been around long enough to know that life is full of mysteries I will never solve and this is another of those questions I have contented myself to ignorance of the answer.  

Then there is the challenge that arises from freeing up the space only to find myself gleefully filling it again with those little bargains, little treasures, found in the secondhand book shop, or the impulse bought firsthand book. Vacant space in my bookcase is space to be filled. Nature abhors a vacuum, someone once said, a sage observation I’ve taken too closely to heart as my rows of books, squeezed like a slovenly woman into last year’s clothes, attest (which might more specifically read: me into my clothes. Sitting and reading is not conducive to slenderness at my age). Having recently, quite diligently, completed a gruelling TBR challenge, instead of learning my lesson I’ve gorged myself like sugar addict at the end of Lent. Not a pretty sight. My shelves groan, my walls shudder under the weight of all that paper shoved mercilessly into the tiniest sliver of space.

It’s not healthy. It’s not healthy, particularly, because if I don’t read a book within about a month of purchase, the odds of reading it at all deteriorate rapidly. Consequently my shelves are filled with books I once wanted to read, books I bought for reasons that mystify me – I can’t imagine why I would ever have wanted to read Gravity’s Rainbow if it had, perhaps, not been £0.20p at the library sale. Book bargains have always been a temptation to me, and there are a good many books sitting on my shelves purely on account of their cheapness. I won’t dwell on what that says about me. Then there are the books which were gifts, books which I may never have bought which sit accusingly unread on my shelves reminding me how horribly ungrateful I am. I put off reading them because I didn’t choose them myself and there are already so many books that I did choose that I haven’t yet got around to reading. I know this is silly. I have read some amazing books which came to me purely as a gift: Megan Abbott’s Dare Me being the most obvious which springs to mind. A book I would have walked past without regret turned out to be a crackling, enjoyable little thriller that changed my mind entirely about the subject of cheerleading. If you happen to be reading this as a person who may at one time or other have kindly gifted me a book, forgive me. I do get around to them all eventually (honest).

This isn’t the whole story. As I thought about it, I realised there was another phenomenon at work. Once I bought a book, once I filed it onto my shelf, its existence curiously faded into the back of my consciousness. When I desire a book, whether specifically or a book of a character or subject, it is all I can think about. I make lists. I look in the library catalogue, I read the ‘Look inside’ on Amazon (but never buy there); I look for it in the bookshop, I take it from the shelf and cradle it. The presence and existence of the book fills my thoughts in a way little else does. I am consumed by it, whatever it is, and it feels like if I don’t grasp it right now, guzzle its plot, its diction, its unique and significant prose down instantaneously my mind will immediately atrophy. But my desire for reading outstrips my available time, and even I haven’t yet deteriorated to the point where I can eschew my commitments to satisfy my reading needs. Notwithstanding the other things I want to do: spare time for writing, for research, for speaking to my family and reminding them I exist as something other than the dusty article sitting in the corner, face in book. So I buy a book and I place it on my shelves and then I have it. This frees me up to think about the next book I want and the next. I think I’ve already mentioned before how unhealthy this is.

And this is, perhaps, the point of all of this. In constantly thinking about what I don’t yet have, I’d forgotten the treasures in my possession. I’ve forgotten so completely that sometimes I look at my shelves and feel surprised at what I find there. So I decided to conduct an experiment. The experiment, I should admit now, went slightly  awry. I had planned to spend some time just sitting and appreciating my book shelves – observing what I had and reminding myself why it is exciting, why I wanted to read or re-read it, rekindling my passion for the books I’d already shown a passion for at least once before. In principle this would not be difficult, however on the day in question I bent over my dressing table to get something out of a drawer and when I straightened I felt one of those ominous twinges which quickly turned into the old woman hobble of a back done inexplicably in. So instead of sitting, zen-like and mindful, staring at my shelves for an hour or so, I’ve had to imagine it from the semi-prone position it is temporarily comfortable to be in.

What did I discover? A treasure trove, a gluttony of books I didn’t just want to read historically but which I still wanted to read. Like the Country Girls series by Edna O’Brien, the Neopolitan series by Elena Ferrante (yes, how did I forget about that?), like Foe by Coetzee, the Icelandic Sagas, The Dream of the Red Chamber. That’s not counting, of course, the books I’ve already read which are crying out to me to be read again: The Last Samurai which I want to read every year, Middlemarch, Kristen Lavransdatter, The Tale of Genji, To the Lighthouse. It is great, reading broadly and widely, there is something exciting in the appeal of a brand new book, the spark of discovery, but there comes a point where a deeper, more meaningful relationship is needed. It is, perhaps, the difference between the thrill of having many lovers and the understanding which comes from a long-term relationship. Both have merits, both are experiences which the other, seemingly, precludes. In my relationship with reading, I have had one type of relationship for so long I’ve forgotten the joys of the other. It is possible to have both, but not the way I’m approaching it.

This is a blog about treasure, about discovering the hidden treasures that are buried right where I am, that have become so commonplace I no longer see them for what they are. It is about not taking for granted the things already available to me. It is not just about books, but about everything. Sitting and staring at my shelves for however long I can do so, learning to see what is there, is a practice I can apply to my whole life. I can apply it to my family and my relationships, enriching my experience and deepening those connections. I can apply it to my work, valuing the input of my colleagues, of their achievements and their strengths. I can apply it to my decrepit old body which may creak, may be peppered with cracks and fissures and imperfections, but which contains all of me, which is strong in ways I don’t appreciate, which is a marvel and a mystery.

I have written about this before; I am, it seems, in danger of becoming repetitive. Yet repetitive is exactly what I think I need. I need to repeat the feeling that led me to a book which I then acquired and allow it to propel me to read it. I need to constantly remind myself, when my mind is wandering along its path of fanciful desires, that I don’t need something new to invigorate me, that invigoration is already available to me in the richness of what I already have. I have a marvellous life. I am lucky to be able to read deeply, to read regularly, to have the space and time, their leisure and capacity, to enter into the minds of others, to share their insights and experiences. I spend far too much time feeling like I’m missing something. I know this is how I’ve been socially wired – our capitalist society relies upon the desire for more, for the new, for the different. It is time to overcome my conditioning. I know I sound like a seasoned alcoholic trying to convince myself that coffee is a fair substitute for a litre of vodka, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am. But even a seasoned alcoholic can break the self-defeating habit of a lifetime. As long as that remains the case, there is hope for me. 

Library distillation

Perhaps it is the darker months, the long night time hours in which there is little better to do than sit and think and read, but I have been thinking a lot about my library. I wrote earlier this year about converting my dining room into a library, and we did this and it’s been an enormous success. It is a wonderful room. A room for sitting and reading and writing in. A room for discussions or calm contemplation. It is one of the best things we ever did, and it’s made our house a complete home for me.

There is, of course, still a limitation on space and though I have a library the library has only so many shelves and those shelves are pretty full. Early on I set myself a 1 book in 1 book out rule, though I haven’t stuck to it. An unexpected bonus (I think) of creating the library has been that my husband has started to read more, and we now have a stack of sci-fi books messing up my shelves which really ought to be integrated. I am not always the most giving of people, but affording my husband some shelf space in the library is a small sacrifice I find myself willing to make if it means that we can spend the cold winter evenings snuggled in the warmth of the library reading together.

This means that I need to free up some space. Despite having a whole shelf of space available when we created the library over summer, this has been swallowed up with new books. And there are more to come. I have been borrowing Virginia Woolf books from the library, but find myself wanting to complete a collection. There are the inevitable new books I can’t resist buying and though I use the lending library more the idea that there aren’t future classics out there that I will want to own is a silly one. I know I have a growing collection of non-fiction to accommodate. All this, and still a limited amount of space.

Perhaps it is the long winter months, or perhaps it is a side-effect of my advancing age. I’m not sure. But I have been thinking a lot recently about distilling my library into those books I want to keep for all time. This is a bit of a shift for me. I have been, for as long as I can remember, a seasoned consumer of books. I have read often, widely, I have been a follower of contemporary fiction and I have always been prepared to try something new (though I draw the line at 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight, Lee Child and Scandinavian crime novels. Everyone has limits). What I’m starting to realise is that I can try but not buy. There are these amazing innovations called libraries, they are wonderful places. If I’ve not read a book, I will not buy it. I will try it first. If I love it, if I will read it again, then it can secure a future place in my library. This strikes me as quite a groundbreaking idea.

I look at my shelves full of books and I think I have been brutal about strimming them down but I haven’t. I haven’t been truly honest about the relationship with all those books on my shelves. For a start, there are many books on my shelves I haven’t read. Perhaps some of them I’ll never read (I’m looking at you, Gravity’s Rainbow). Some of them I’ve hung onto because I have a full set even though I didn’t really like them. That accounts for Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time which I know I’m never going to get past the first book of (I tried, I became extremely bored). I have a full set of Murakami novels including 1Q84 which I hated, amongst others. Will I read them again? It’s unlikely. Why, then, am I holding onto them?

I realise, now, that I want my library to be full of books that are treasured to me. I want every book by Tove Jansson, including the full set of Moomins, because I have loved every pixel on every page of them. I want space to place the nice editions of George Eliot’s books that I’ll eventually acquire. There needs to be space for my Virginia Woolfs, for my Muriel Sparks for my Evie Wylds. There needs to be space for H is for Hawk (I have hinted heavily), Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan series, everything by Yoko Ogawa. I can only create the space by being brutal.

There have been a lot of people recently talking about reading less, about re-reading more. Perhaps it is the influence of winter, of darkness, that pushes us back to the familiar, the friendly novel that you know will make you feel cosy and comforted. I know I feel like that. I’ve enjoyed reading Woolf immensely, but it is also nice to turn back to a familiar friend, to lose myself again amongst its pages. Fortunately Woolf is starting to feel like a familiar friend. At this time of year, I often re-read The Dark is Rising sequence, a series I have loved since I was a girl. There are few things that have been with me so long. Yet it isn’t in my library. How weird. It should be.

I can list the books that I own that I want to re-read again. The list wouldn’t be hugely long. It would include Woolf, Eliot, Bronte. It would include Kawabata, Laxness, Coetzee. There are more of course, but not a huge number. Perhaps it will be possible to free up that space after all.

On acceptance and aspiration: a dichotomy

We were recently camping at a campsite near Sherwood forest; a beautiful place edged by a shallow stream, a magnet to swim-suited children with fishing nets and Frisbees, with a plentiful spread of mature trees casting pockets of soft shade on the grassy banks. Perfect for sitting and reading while listening to the burble of running water and the distant shrieks of children, distracted only by the dazzle of electric-blue damselflies as they speed across the water, the scent of fire and charring meat, the buzz of an occasional wasp or bee. There is something blissful about having nothing to do but lounge in the soft grass, book in hand, a web of sunlight piercing through the gaps in the tree’s canopy, where the most pressing demand is the grumble of your stomach.

All this lounging time makes for great thinking time. There is something to be said for doing absolutely nothing, gifting ourselves some time in which to be non-productive, lazy, drifting, unengaged. It is something which is an anathema to Western society, in which all labour saving devices, the speed of the internet and cars and other technologies, has freed our time only so that we can fill it with something else, something ‘productive’, a means to an end. Even in our gap times, like travelling, there are now ways to fill it with something. On trains you can answer your e-mails or make an important business call, waiting in airports you can schedule business appointments. There is always something to do, and those days of staring out of the window, watching the clouds and the world go by are somehow frowned upon. What’s the value in clouds? One of the great things about camping is how, in the absence of all that technology and expectation, there is little else you can do other than while away the hours thinking, observing, sharing a conversation or the company of others. When it gets dark there’s little else you can do, and sometimes this makes me nostalgic for the days before street lighting, in which the family would gather around the fire and share stories, or snuggle together in bed and wait, sleeping or sleepless, for the next day.

For some people camping is boring, grubby, uncivilised. For me camping is a reset button. Camping helps me to recover who I am from all the noise that is otherwise happening around me. Camping helps me to remember what is important to me.

One of the things I was thinking about on this most recent camping trip was dichotomy. The word ‘dichotomy’ means “a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different” and the specific dichotomy I was setting my mind to was that of acceptance and aspiration. These are two things which are often set against each other: the idea that if you aspire for something more or better, to be better or different or to want something extra, that you cannot then be accepting of who you are and your situation in life. It is a criticism which is often levelled at Buddhism which teaches acceptance and humility: that through its teachings people learn to accept injustice and suffering and fail to challenge the ‘bad’ elements of human nature.

As I was walking along the side of the stream watching the clear water gush over the stones and the brightness and greenness of the weeds just beneath the surface, the flies buzzing just over the water, sunlight shattering and reverberating on the glassy surface, I felt at peace. I felt that all was well in my life, that I am fortunate to have a good situation, that my husband is a good and intelligent man, that my children are vibrant and happy, that I have a good job with good work colleagues, that I have a nice home in a great community, that I am in good enough health that I can walk for a long time by the side of this stream and feel good, that I live largely in the absence of pain and suffering and that if that was all my life was it would be a good life. In that moment I felt I could accept my lot, I could accept who I am as a human being in confidence, that I did not need or want to be anything else, I did not aspire to great riches or ownership of property, I did not want to be beautiful or a great leader, I did not want to be famous or infamous, I did not want people to look up to me or seek me out as a source of knowledge, I did not need to be a great writer. My life is good, and I’m grateful for it. I reached a place of acceptance.

At the point of reaching acceptance I also thought that perhaps this did not mean that my life’s work was over. I still want to learn Japanese. I would like to be kinder and more giving. I think that there is a lot of wisdom which is still out of my reach, which I will seek and grow into as I carry on my path through life. I would like to be wiser, and to share whatever wisdom I glean. I would like things in life to be better for women in general, though I think I am blessed with many advantages I know this is not the case for many women in the world or, in fact, for many women around me. I see disadvantage too often to ignore its existence. I would like to be able to communicate more creatively. I would like to be more considerate, a better listener. I could be a better parent and a better life-partner. When I look at my life, I do not think I have finished refining who I am as a human being. I still have work to do.

In conventional wisdom these aspirations negate my acceptance. Yet I still feel accepting and I do not think that one cannot exist without the other. I think it is possible to achieve acceptance and still hold aspirations. I think this is the danger of dichotomies, of reducing the complexity of life to a binary. That we must choose this or this. That every decision, every desire and every action we take in life is a choice between one thing or another. I wonder if this is a source of much conflict in the world: that we must choose between the ‘West’ and the ‘East’, that we must choose between Israel and Palestine, that we must choose between men and women, between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, between ‘capitalism’ and ‘communism’.

In thinking about aspiration and acceptance, it occurred to me that it is possible, as I felt it was possible in my case, for these things to co-exist. Co-existence, for whatever reason, seems to be considered an exception rather than the norm and yet we see co-existence everywhere and experience it every day. Perhaps it is the danger of being surrounded by so many stories which tell us we have to root for the ‘good guy’ and deride the ‘bad guy’. Perhaps it is inherent in the religions that people embrace that our life is reduced to a choice of belief or non-belief, of righteousness and wickedness. Perhaps it is in our political structures which set ‘liberal’ parties against ‘conservative’ ones, sometimes physically in the way the parliamentary buildings are set up. Perhaps it is something about the simplicity of language that forces us to choose between being selfish or selfless, kind or unkind, forgiving or judgemental. Yet in my experience few things fit so neatly into those categorisations. A selfish act can result in a great act of kindness for another. An attempt to be kind and giving can result in suffering. You can judge someone’s actions as being unworthy and yet still forgive them. Is it the intent the matters or the outcome? And what if the outcome is mixed (or the intent, for that matter)?

Life is complex, people are complex, the idea that they can be reduced to a simple either/or choice seems odd. Yet it is something that is done every day in the news, in seats of government and in households. Perhaps it is something we learn as children and never quite let go of. Yet here I am, accepting myself and letting go of this desire to put things into neat little boxes. A dichotomy? Perhaps, but I don’t think so.