They’re as Happy as if…
...they were in their right minds.
I only recently heard that delightful sentence—and found that it had been applied to us. A long-time friend told me that once, long ago, when we lived in a converted railroad station, said friend came to visit us—and brought her parents along for the trip. She said that her mother made the comment, just as they were leaving.
I’m not exactly sure what she really meant by her remark, ‘though I love the sound of it. Whatever the intention, I heartily approve of its concise evaluation of our marriage.
In retrospect, I have a feeling that our bookshelves might have provoked it. We had large two-sided bookcases that filled the space between the floor and the bottom of the sleeping loft. When someone opened the front door, all that could be seen were books.
It reminded me of the bedroom of a high-school friend (someone who, it must be said, was not entirely in his right mind). Political paranoia led him to construct a floor-to-ceiling bookcase a mere eighteen inches inside his bedroom door. To enter the room, one had to inch, squeezing sideways, for about six feet, in relative darkness. He had intended to discourage visitors, and his room’s feng shui was like something out of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
My friend was very suspicious of the bourgeoisie. Anyone in possession of more adipose tissue than an emaciated peasant (or teenager) would find the experience excruciatingly claustrophobic.
I’ve written about our book problem in these pages before, in Bibliomania Revisited; (an article that has now slipped behind a paywall, but paid subscribers can read it whenever they like). The following essay has been clipped from The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions.
How to Organize One’s Library
It’s more like “how to organize the pitifully small space NOT occupied by books?”
The dining room has about eighty feet of shelves devoted to literature—alphabetical by author, or if a literary biography, by subject, and some reference books. Up on top, some sets that don’t fit elsewhere (atlases, Cambridge Modern and Ancient Histories, Thompson’s Register, stuff like that). There’s another thirty feet of food books. Dining table and piano bench are also covered with books.
That’s something of a sore point at home.
Den/office has forty feet devoted to history, religion, mythology, philosophy, poetry and drama anthologies (that couldn’t be reasonably alphabetized elsewhere) and miscellaneous stuff (like 90-odd volumes of PG Wodehouse). There’s another thirty feet of science/nature/history of science (also art, but only because art books tend to be oversized). Close to the desk, there’s another thirty feet of shelves reserved for references being used on whatever projects I’m currently researching. All horizontal surfaces within reach of the computer are covered by stacks of the references I’m using at the moment.
Of course, both sides of the bed have small mountains of books, relatively recently acquired.
And then there are The Wife’s books (the ones we don’t treat as common property). They’re on shelves near her computer. She’s got gardening, literary, and cemetery books—she’s very interested in cemetery art and ritual.
And The Kid’s books—the ones he left behind when he went to college. Which reminds me—we still have a bunch of books in storage, from the last time we moved.
And there are boxes of books we donate, periodically, to library fairs—mysteries and stuff we don’t want to keep.
And the box of freebies for anyone who wants them.
And a bunch of books that The Wife and I had when we were kids.
And there’re some shelves, in back of the piles of dead and dying computers, that appear to hold books, but I have no idea what they might be. I can just see what looks like most of a set of old Horizon Magazines.
Oh yeah, magazines. There’s a file cabinet with about thirty years of Scientific American. Some Natural History magazines, too. Piles of New Yorker and Archaeology magazines can be found almost anywhere—and food magazines.
Oh man, there are freakin’ food magazines stacked everywhere. And clippings.
Don’t get me started about the clippings.
Editor’s Note: Sanscravat sent this several years ago. Since then, he moved to a slightly larger home and added bookshelves on every available surface. However, he continued to add to his collection at a pace that outstripped both shelf and wall space. He has made it clear that he is through with moving books; he has no intention of packing his books again. He claims—and there’s no reason to doubt his intentions—“The next box that leaves this house will have me in it.”
Paid subscribers get access to complete editions of two of my novellas. Noirvella is a modern story of revenge, told in the style of film noir. Unbelievable is a kind of rom-com that forms around a pompous guy who is conceited, misinformed, and undeservedly successful. Both books are sold by Amazon, but paid subscribers get to read them for free!
Also, substack pages (older than eight months) automatically slip behind a paywall—so only paid subscribers can read them. If you’re interested in reading any of them, you can subscribe, or wait until they are re-released in book form (something I’m in the process of considering).
Meanwhile, it is easy to become a paying subscriber (just like supporting your favorite NPR station). It’s entirely optional, and—even if you choose not to do so—you’ll still get my regular substack posts—and I’ll still be happy to have you as a reader.