The Elegant Variation: UNPACKING MY LIBRARY

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October 12, 2009

UNPACKING MY LIBRARY

A little more than a year ago, my wife and I were forced to decamp our digs in Pacific Palisades when our idiot landlady decided that she wanted to list our unit for sale smack in the middle of housing slump. (It sold last week, after 15 months of sitting empty.) We needed to make a quick move and we settled on a small place in Brentwood that was charming but, in hindsight, far too small for us. And so my library remained in the garage in boxes for the year that we lived there.

We returned to the Palisades in July, to a place big enough to unpack a library (and raise a baby), and I’ve finally started the business of restoring my books to the shelves. The first step – and Mrs. TEV’s insistence – was the have the shelves secured against earthquakes, and that finally happened last weekend, courtesy of a very friendly Craigslist handyman. (When I suggested to Mrs. TEV I could do the job, she laughed. Robustly. Belly laughs.)

So now the arduous task of refilling the books begins. First, we need to douse the whole collection to protect against silverfish (also at Mrs. TEV’s insistence). Then I need to incorporate new additions to my library into the boxes packed more than a year ago, and figure out exactly how to order the whole thing. (The previous arrangement could politely be described as half-assed, though I could always find anything.)

Finally, the actual placement on the shelves, which is always delayed by the very pleasant act of browsing through beloved titles. I wrote about personal libraries and their legacies a few months ago, and I’m even more mindful of this now that my daughter has been born.

I mention all this shelving marginalia because, as it happens, in a lovely bit of good timing, I received a beautiful book from the Yale University Press called Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books. The book is comprised of wonderful photographs of these libraries, including the specifications and materials of these custom designed shelves. In each library, a few shelves are singled out for photographic close up. And if, like me, you enjoy perusing the shelves of a smart person’s library, you will be fascinated by these selections, more heavy on novels than you might guess.

Additionally, each architect includes a list of his or her Top Ten Books, and the choices will surprise you: There’s plenty of Pynchon, Proust, Melville, Celan, Kafka and more. The collection begins with Walter Benjamin’s apt essay, "Unpacking My Library: A Talk About Book Collecting," the opening of which I reproduce here:

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that. Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing davlight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood - it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation - which these books arouse in a genuine collector. For such a man is speaking to you, and on closer scrutiny he proves to be speaking only about himself. Would it not be presumptuous of me if, in order to appear convincingly objective and down-to-earth, I enumerated for you the main sections or prize pieces of a library, if I presented you with their history or even their usefulness to a writer? I, for one, have in mind something less obscure, something more palpable than that; what I am really concerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection. If I do this by elaborating on the various ways of acquiring books, this is something entirely arbitrary. This or any other procedure is merely a dam against the spring tide of memories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his possessions. Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories. More than that: the chance, the fate, that suffuse the past before my eyes are conspicuously present in the accustomed confusion of these books. For what else is this collection but a disorder to which habit has accommodated itself to such an extent that it can appear as order? You have all heard of people whom the loss of their books has turned into invalids, or of those who in order to acquire them became criminals. These are the very areas in which any order is a balancing act of extreme precariousness. "The only exact knowledge there is," said Anatole France, "is the knowledge of the date of publication and the format of books." And indeed, if there is a counterpart to the confusion of a library, it is the order of its catalogue.

I can't wait to be reunited with my library. And so, back to work I go, unboxing the A’s ...

Posted at 12:48 AM in Personal, Worthy Titles | Permalink

Comments

What do you douse your books with?

Posted by: Niall | October 12, 2009 at 07:28 AM

I just sorted my library by color, to fun results.

http://thelawstylist.blogspot.com/2009/09/color-coded.html

Posted by: GH | October 12, 2009 at 10:11 AM

I sort my books alphabetically, but I use the last letter of the last word in the book as the sorting letter, not the title or author. None of my friends has ever been able to figure this out.

Posted by: Niall | October 12, 2009 at 11:21 AM

I cringed to read douse for silverfish and baby in the same graf. Be careful with what chemicals you bring into the apt.!!!

Posted by: John Verity | October 12, 2009 at 11:29 AM

Thanks for the concern, John. The plan is to sprinkle the powder into the book boxes into the garage, then vacuum it out a week later AND hand examine/clean each book before bringing it up. We'll be careful, for sure!

Niall, will check the stuff we're using and let you know.

Posted by: TEV | October 12, 2009 at 01:39 PM

Since many of my books that have been in storage for two years now have shelves awaiting them, I celebrate what you're doing. It's heady stuff to be reacquainted with these treasures.

Not so heady will be seeing how many duplicates I bought in the meantime.

Posted by: LW | October 12, 2009 at 06:40 PM

Alphabetically by last letter of the last word! Kooky!

Posted by: bruckner | October 13, 2009 at 06:16 AM

We will be using "Intice Granular Bait", available on doyourownpestcontrol.com. It is "green" and seems to be the safest option for in home use. If anyone has other suggestions, please share!

Posted by: Mrs. TEV | October 13, 2009 at 12:57 PM

Thanks Mark. Great info. I just ordered some, because I'm about to unpack a bunch of my own books from storage.

Posted by: Niall | October 13, 2009 at 01:49 PM

My books are ordered chronologically by topic. Fiction by author's nationality (or whatever passes for it in my mind), then chronologically. My wife orders her books by size. SIZE!! We don't share shelf space. Actually, now that I think of it, we rarely have books in the same room. My books are in rooms 1,3,5 hers in 2,4,6. Hmmmmm....

Posted by: BLClark | October 23, 2009 at 06:56 PM

Different people in every country receive the business loans from various banks, just because it's fast and easy.

Posted by: BauerMariana25 | March 02, 2010 at 12:47 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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SECOND LOOK

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 12, 2009

UNPACKING MY LIBRARY

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 12, 2009

UNPACKING MY LIBRARY

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism