Marginalia

As a former member of the British Council Library in Calcutta, one of the things that caused much grief was books in which people had scribbled notes and comments.

These would typically take the form of underlined words and phrases with their meanings pencilled in the margins. In works of fiction, this blight would recede after the first few chapters, leading one to conclude that the hapless reader had simply given up the effort of ploughing through impenetrable prose. On other occasions, there would be an argumentative “No!” or “You’re wrong!” in block letters next to a passage that had caused annoyance. Here, the extent of displeasure would be in direct proportion to the number of exclamation marks employed.

Then, of course, there were the putative literary critics, a breed not known for being easily impressed, who would scrawl on the last page comments such as “A pleasant read, but not as good as _____" or simply a terse "Rubbish!". One longed to pick up a book where such marginalia actually contributed to the experience of reading – either though a sarcastic aside or a sharp insight – but one never came across any, more’s the pity.

Years later, one found that the books available from the Flora Fountain footpaths in Mumbai (no longer present, alas) weren’t immune to this malady. Worse, a few such books were scarred by indelible ballpoint pen markings, sometimes inscribed with such vengeance that their impression was clearly visible even on the other side of the page. (One recalls picking up a Corgi paperback of Philip Roth’s My Life As A Man and then putting it down in horror after detecting such tattooed atrocities within.)

One’s own attitude towards the books one possesses is to not try and deface them in any manner possible – even to the extent of reading paperbacks with care so as not to crack or crease their spines. (Damnably difficult, if not downright impossible, when it comes to those Faber paperbacks of collected editions of poetry.) As for actually writing in them – good heavens, no. Notes, comments, jottings can as well be written on a separate pad, should the urge arise.

One has been informed that this attitude is, well, obsessive, to put it politely. But….to take a book, to sniff it, to run one’s fingers over the texture of the paper, to settle down to read it – and then to scribble in it? No, no. One prefers one’s idols unsullied.

N.B. Just occurred to one that Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris probably contains an essay on the joys, or otherwise, of writing in books. One will have to look it up – if only one can locate it in the jumble of shelves. But that's another post.

Update: Karthik directs one to Pradeep Sebastian's far more erudite and enlightening piece on the same subject, in a previous issue of The Hindu Literary Review. Worth reading.