endlesslyrocking
okay, where did that come from?
posted 4 September 2008, Thursday
As the one person who has read the last post probably guessed, it did not come out of a vacuum.
I've had a few run-ins with bona fide bibliophiles over the last couple of days - you know, the prissy sort that moan with pleasure when they hold the first edition of a book you know they're never going to understand but which is obligatory ['I just love this first edition Dickens; look at the craftsmanship!'] if they're to appear virtuous and educated.
Of course, the holy grail is a first edition signed by the author. This baffles me.
For the uninitiated, it's like this. Nitwits who would scoff at the thought of venerating a saint's relic will positively fall over themselves to line up and have some second-rater sign the first edition of his new novel with its vivid language and believable characters.
All the more orgasmic is the chance find of a book by someone Really Important, like Hesse, signed by the Great One himself. The energies of the Great One, you see, are passed to the book, and thence to the buyer and owner [note I didn't say reader] of the Artifact. [I find the whole obsession with signatures bizarre and stupid to begin with.]
Well, give me a book I can toss into my bag and carry about all day. Now, I do have a number of hardcover books, and like 'em for their durability, but really now, is the book, as artifact, in itself that valuable? I don't think so. Practical, yes. Ingenious in its portability and ease of use, in fact - I'll say all that and more of the humble book. Still, any particular edition is not, as a thing, that interesting to me. If it's rare, and the work itself is fine, it will as a damn fine work of art be a wonderful find. The thing with covers and pages remains, I say again, just another thing.
I've had a few run-ins with bona fide bibliophiles over the last couple of days - you know, the prissy sort that moan with pleasure when they hold the first edition of a book you know they're never going to understand but which is obligatory ['I just love this first edition Dickens; look at the craftsmanship!'] if they're to appear virtuous and educated.
Of course, the holy grail is a first edition signed by the author. This baffles me.
For the uninitiated, it's like this. Nitwits who would scoff at the thought of venerating a saint's relic will positively fall over themselves to line up and have some second-rater sign the first edition of his new novel with its vivid language and believable characters.
All the more orgasmic is the chance find of a book by someone Really Important, like Hesse, signed by the Great One himself. The energies of the Great One, you see, are passed to the book, and thence to the buyer and owner [note I didn't say reader] of the Artifact. [I find the whole obsession with signatures bizarre and stupid to begin with.]
Well, give me a book I can toss into my bag and carry about all day. Now, I do have a number of hardcover books, and like 'em for their durability, but really now, is the book, as artifact, in itself that valuable? I don't think so. Practical, yes. Ingenious in its portability and ease of use, in fact - I'll say all that and more of the humble book. Still, any particular edition is not, as a thing, that interesting to me. If it's rare, and the work itself is fine, it will as a damn fine work of art be a wonderful find. The thing with covers and pages remains, I say again, just another thing.