I write a lot about what I’m reading (currently another Ivy Compton-Burnett; the Oxford Book of English Verse; and a biography of A A Milne and E H Shepherd for review in a magazine); but I thought that this week I’d write about what I’m not reading. In London, I have my library: the books that I have read, carefully organised, and oft refer to.
Then, Borges-like, there is the library of unread books, a world of unexplored delights and dangers to come. This library exists as a permanent physical warning at the edge of my consciousness.
There are gaps the size of galaxies in my reading. Whilst I’ve read most of George Eliot’s novels, I’ve not yet scaled Romola; Anthony Trollope I’ve only nibbled at, goat-like; similarly, whilst I’ve consumed all of Thackeray (even The History of Henry Esmond), my acquaintance with George Meredith is limited to The Egoist and, I think, one of his other novels that I read so long ago I’ve forgotten all about it. (Incidentally, I really liked The Egoist. An overlooked writer, Meredith. Await a post on him. One day.)
Does this matter? Vanished - shazam! - are the days when I was able to immerse myself solely in one author. I’d like nothing more than to make my way through all of Compton-Burnett’s books systematically, day by day, to live and breathe nothing but her sharp satirical sensibility; but I’m now on my fourth, and, of course, I keep getting interrupted by work, life, etc. (And there is the small matter of my own fictional compositions, too.)
In the early 2000s, I worked at Literary Review, and many interesting books sidled their way back home. A lot of these books are still on my shelves, unread, having been shifted about London as I moved from houseshare to flat to house, and now, they have eventually settled.
My “to be read”, or (tbr, as the internet has it), pile, stretches and grows ever larger. Even so, it resembles only a fraction of the books that I want to read which exist in libraries and bookshops the world over. I had to ban relatives and friends from giving me books as presents (they never choose the right ones anyway.) And there is the problem of rapidly changing interests, too.
On my desk are the books that I have begun to read, but haven’t finished because I was interrupted (a history of Prussia; a biography of Prince Leopold; etc.) Then there are the ones I really want to read but haven’t started yet. Lydia Davis’ short stories; Anne Tyler's French Braid; Miranda Carter’s The Three Emperors (a present from a relative - this was a good choice, admittedly), and Dan Jones’ history, The Plantagenets. They sit alongside Pushkin, Henry James, Bram Stoker (one of his more obscure ones, The White Lady), Wyndham Lewis (have you read Wyndham Lewis? I’m not sure I’d bother), Lawrence Norfolk, J G Ballard (aren’t they all a bit samey?), Alberto Manguel, Cormac McCarthy: I’ve read books by all of these people, and at some point acquired other books by them, but was forced to abandon my reading, or never began it. A history of the Bible! A guide to style in music! Something about the origins of the English gentleman! All of these I did want to read at some point, and still do.
There are also books by friends and acquaintances: if you are a writer there is a strong possibility that you will be invited to your friends’ book launches, at which point it would be impolite not to buy the book, even if you are a writer and are a bit short on cash. If you are a writer who has been a writer for twenty years or so (like me), and who also reviews books (like me), then you will be invited to a lot of book launches.
The best - the noblest - thing to do would be to read the book immediately. Then you can promote it to your other friends. Of course, this rarely happens; although I am a firm believer in writing to people if I’ve read their books and enjoyed them. They are always pleased. Even if it’s ten years later.
There are the books collected for my own literary projects, most of which will probably never happen (the biographies I want to write, eventually, for example, one day, in the monastic future that I imagine for myself, wistfully, sometimes. There is a college-type house, perhaps in a wood, where few people but me will go. I will find it one day.) Library books, books from my great-great-grandparents’, great-grandparents’, and grandparents’ houses (which I feel I must read, in order to connect, somehow, with them, even the ones by William Ainsworth), books sent by publishers in the hope that I might review them, books that I have called in because I am supposed to be reviewing them… my study sometimes resembles a second hand bookshop. No, strike that, not even a second hand bookshop: it resembles nothing else but the untidy room behind the tills in a second hand bookshop, where lurk 1850s Almanacs, books about cobbling, and editions of Smollett with the covers half torn. (Smollett! Now there’s a writer I’d like to get back to.)
Some might say: why don’t you get rid of all these books? Donate them to charity, or a school, or a library? Bestow them upon hungry waifs? Well: I can’t. What if I need the book one day? Case in point: someone on Substack mentioned Urania by Lady Mary Wroth, a book I haven’t been near since I was at university. This one, at least, I have read before, and I knew exactly where it was, pulled it out from its spot, and spent a happy hour or two re-immersing myself.
I have given away books, both read and unread, of course. I have a kind of system, based on my whims. I began making a list of them, and then I thought that was a bit mean. Books by people I interviewed a decade ago; books I didn’t like and reviewed years ago; books by friends of friends. (Even, ahem, books by friends. Sorry.) One of my students once gave me my first novel to sign for her, even though it had already been signed to someone called Edmund. I don’t mind this; I hope others don’t too. Fortunately, I don’t remember who Edmund was.
There are books that I have always regretted giving away, unread. And of course I will always need a book if I have, at last, decided to give it away. So, for the moment at least, I am content to live feeling as if I will never scale the heights that I want to scale. If my ambition is, one day, at last, to read Clarissa, then I’m quite happy for it to sit by my desk lamp, casting aspersions. If I do give it away, you see, then someone’s bound to ask me to teach it or write an article about it… In some ways, books that I haven’t yet read are even more attractive than books I have read. I feel as if I know them, somehow. They are like acquaintances, seen every day on your dog walk or in the shop, but never spoken to. One day you’ll meet and have a glass of wine: and what fun it will be.
Here’s to the Endless Library, and may it grow and grow without bounds.
You’re far better read than me, but I did pick up Clarissa a couple years ago and was surprised by how compulsively readable it is. Do give it a try when you have time (easy to say, I know)