Scribbles in the Margins Read online

  While finding new things in the old is a treat, gladness rests more in the overall sense of familiarity in which a re-read book basks. From the feel of it in one’s hands, and the somehow quaint £4.50 price mark, to the author’s rhythms, it gives a solid, certain feeling. Our life has changed, we have changed, but here are the same lovely words in the same perfect formations. The re-read book becomes an anchor, even if it now soothes in different ways. We are launching anew into a kindly conversation with an old teacher, and now on first name terms. Much we will have forgotten, more we will remember, but the sweeping feeling is of a return to somewhere sure.

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  When the plot clicks into place

  For a hundred pages or more, the book has opened the door and shown you around. You have met its characters and, in your head, awarded them appearances and voices. These people have taken you into their living rooms and you have escorted them around town. Their places are now recognisable – their office, their bar, their neighbourhood, their countryside. You know that the office security guard has a lisp, that the bargirl writes terrible poetry, that the family at number 18 are on a witness protection scheme, and that twenty minutes away sits heavenly countryside flanked by dark edges.

  All seems clear, and yet you watch via binoculars through fog. Vigilance whisks only more murk – that lisp, bargirl, family or terrain are noted as clues for what may come, yet will likely be smokescreens. With each thickening and widening of the plot does it become harder to see straight, to imagine where this tale is heading. The author weaves the narrative with skill, churning cogs and adding layers. There are faint whispers in glances given by one character to another, but an addictive form of frustration boils within you. You may even begin to search and blame yourself – what have I missed? – or to hopelessly guess what is to come, a blind beggar feverishly trying to hear coins land in your pot.

  The vexation this relentless building brings is absolutely necessary. It throbs the heart so that it swells in the chest, hoisting the tension until, bang, everything clicks into place. The relief is electrifying, the previous frustration instantly worthwhile. The killer, the mastermind, the lover or the real father is revealed and once more we breathe normally. We may ‘ohhhhhhh’, we may ‘aaaaaahhhhh’, we may swear: reading has its own compilation of pantomime sounds. The click could be cause for tears unveiled by some terrible realisation or mortal twist, more impromptu theatre after pages of intense and silent concentration. Some of that detail which has gone before now brims with meaning, much of it meant nothing, nothing beyond being happy furniture which sits so well in good stories. But now you too are in on the secret.

  29

  Buying a luxury volume that doesn’t fit on a shelf

  It is a precious thing that extravagant, almost unfeasible, books are still produced. That they are rare, special purchases is neither here nor there. They are wallflowers that please the soul and reassure us as we pass them, gripping onto the lower reaches of bookshop ledges or stacked like flagstones in art gallery shops. When correctly executed, such volumes are a homage to photography, art, maps or musical biography.

  To bend at the knees and gather one is to feel as if you are lifting a prized and precious relic. Hands move slowly and gently, white gloves are imagined into place. Covers wear textures of velvet or wallpaper unknown on smaller books, and when knuckled offer the sound of a decrepit woodpecker, while titles are resolutely engraved in warm silvers and golds. At the book’s start rests a long sliver of ribbon, burrowed into the spine and adding a quiet authority as a grandfather clock’s pendulum does. There are half a dozen extra pages before you may begin, as if gaining entry should be a ceremony, or a pause for expectation to grow, the gravel path trodden before entry to the grand palace. The jewels within are many and extraordinary. There are sumptuous, decorated pages whose wide spaces offer their content room not only to breathe but to beam. In the large book, images and illustrations are not supporting information; they are the headline act.

  Such books can only be contemplated slowly. They are considered, rather than read. Making the leap and actually buying one is appropriately an undertaking of magnitude. There will never be a justification for purchasing a two-kilogram volume of Pop Art prints for £40, nor a 50-centimetre-tall anthology of film photography for which no plastic bag can be found. That is half the joy in taking the plunge. It is hedonistic, in book-buying terms anyway.

  The large volume is somehow clutched awkwardly underneath one arm and awarded its own seat on the bus home. Its full treasures must wait until later for the fear that splaying it open now could inflict injury upon the passenger in front. Once home, the behemoth is hauled to its intended lodgings and sized against other works for shelving. It seems to shrug its shoulders and offer a customary, resigned look before you lay it on its side beneath or above the shelves.

  Over the years, your luxury volume will be occasionally dabbled with – they’re just so hard to actually read – and may grow a fading stripe where its excess leaves it vulnerable to sunlight. Knowing it is there, however, and that you are open to such wanton displays of purchasing decadence, is a lovely thing.

  30

  Author dedications

  When a book is opened, there is a slow gathering of momentum through its early pages. Typically, a blank page moves aside for one declaring the work’s name, subtitle and author. Then comes a ladder list of ‘Books by the Same Author’, and italicised paragraphs of ‘Praise For’ this or previous works.

  Turned, such decorative content gives way to earnest and weighty matters in petite fonts: first-publishing dates, second reprints and further editions; moral rights asserted and copyrights for excerpts gratefully received; stately addresses of publishing houses, CIP catalogue availability, and protracted ISBNs; chosen typefaces and typesetters, and the trustworthy names of binders and printers. If this roll-call of the production process usually goes unread, it is with good reason – often on the facing page is the Author’s Dedication, a frequently intriguing and occasionally moving detail. It may only bother the page with two or three words or a single line, yet it makes for idle moments of diverting speculation, curiosity and even sadness. Whatever the emotion stirred, a dedication nourishes the connection between author, book and reader.

  What follows an innocuous word such as ‘For’ or ‘To’ offers a fragment of autobiography and conjures images. ‘For my parents’ usually graces an author’s early books, and we see a flash of those parents, an older couple encouraging the author through exams and pretending not to be worried when she gives up her job to write a novel. ‘To my darling Marie, for everything’ suggests a tirelessly supportive wife, reading proofs and nursing an author’s mood swings.

  Anything containing initials – ‘To S. R.’; ‘For J. H. B.’ – drips mystery onto the page, and intrigue becomes scintillating when a ‘You know why’ or similar is added. An in-joke between author and recipient is tantalising and we wish to be admitted to the fold. On occasion, a book is dedicated to an entire area, time period or followers of a musical genre. Perhaps it is heartfelt. Then again, perhaps the author chose no single person for fear of offending dozens more. A reader saves their longest pauses for dedications that commence ‘In memory of’, and souls remembered ‘with deep affection’. The page becomes a time for reflection, a paper tombstone, a place where tears for someone completely unknown are justified. ‘For Olivia. 20 April 1955–17 November 1962,’ reads Roald Dahl’s dedication in The BFG.

  This simple concept heightens our involvement with a book before it has even begun. It is a final dose of real life and a last check of the rear view mirror before a story spirits us away. Later, we are left to daydream that one day our own name will be there, ‘in deepest admiration’, or, even better, as titillating initials.

  31

  Reading in a pub

  This is an indulgence and it is pleasure squared. To find time, room and the right pub is a rare and giddy enchantment. A charmed moment presents it
self – something is cancelled, an evening while working away from home needs filling, a spare holiday hour pops up – and you escape two or three times over. Push open the pub door, and flood your eyes with both darkness and enlightenment.

  Your choice of pub is critical. This spell cannot be cast in a bar where music has stepped from the background into the limelight. Neither should the pub be in a bustling, jubilant frame of mind; a smattering of ruminative denizens is ideal – any conversation should be of the idle, afternoon type. An older place with snugs and side rooms is preferable, a large chair and crackling fire greedy perfection. Cunning is needed to choose your berth. A spot behind a beam or unloved piano declares that you are not to be interrupted, that you have come to this most social of places to withdraw from humanity. You are not to be sidled up to and your wellbeing checked upon, nor engaged by the rambling bores who roam bars seeking people to detain with weather observations that turn into sprawling monologues. For illumination, dimmed lighting and even the odd candle offer enough glimmer, lending the page a treasure-map bronze.

  Something about the pairing of pub and book quite simply works. A paperback in one hand and a pint in the other (and possibly a packet of crisps clinched between the front teeth) is earthly perfection. Those shapes fit together and feel like a prayer ritual. It may, for you, be café and book, of course, or even meal and book – there is far worse dinner company. Whatever the place and the drink, a few lines read and the first sip taken tingle together. Shoulders drop and feet uncurl like a time-lapse film of spring. A second glug and eyes galloping across lines bring a dynamic, positive fizz. Two beloved chemistries are making alchemy. Before you know it, you are deep in the story, its performance enhanced, its pages whizzing along. You are removed from time and reality until each drink ends, at which point any new and building noise must be somehow mentally swerved. There is an amble to the bar, though your imagination remains at the table and a sense of being maladjusted prevails.

  Such a feeling lasts until, with the reluctance of a schoolboy traipsing home for tea, you leave and re-enter normal existence wondering when next this double refuge will beckon.

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  Spying on what others are reading

  Steal a sideways glance on the bus. Peep across the table on a train. Peer over your own book in the work canteen. Squint through sunglasses by the pool. Spy slyly as you pass a park bench. Gaze while idling in the café queue. Just don’t get caught.

  To discern what others are reading is, to some of us, impulsive. A benevolent force pulls our eyes into contact with someone else’s book cover. There are certainly shades of innate literary nosiness to this, a need to snoop through the curtains. You pass judgement, too, and even feel that a stranger’s choice offers an insight into their character. There will be unknown books and familiar ones. Such paperbacks in common may prompt warm thoughts of kindred spirits, perhaps even a desire to cry out, ‘I’ve read that!’, but of course you never do. Book kinship between strangers is a silent, unspoken bond. Whatever the title, there is a muffled unity between readers.

  While this can often be a passing delight, in the poolside version or while occupying the tram seat behind your subject, your interest is sustained. An unintended, casual voyeurism allows you to observe how exactly others read. Their speed, progression and concentration, and the objects they employ as bookmarks make for a slow-burning, intermittent study of our species’ behaviour. The way in which we read is seldom discussed; espionage like this offers tentative answers, hopefully not restraining orders.

  Dearest of all are the recurring readers strafed across our routines: the middle-aged man with his spy novels on the 42 bus; at work the Polish cleaner reading more English classics than the English ever will; the split-shift waitress and her long afternoons with a detective series on a tartan blanket in the park. Such people are frequent characters in your daily stories, the choice of their next book a narrative in itself about them and about the surroundings you share. Somewhere now, the book spies and their subjects are becoming the story. Eyes mistakenly meet just above the spine, but instead of a scowl, the faintest of smiles is returned . . .

  33

  Chaotic book rooms and enthusiastic owners trying to find something for you

  ‘I know it’s here somewhere,’ he bellows. His back is turned and he kneels upright, hands resting upon hips. He is seeking a particular book that came up during conversation, a throwaway remark within a digression. There is a sudden requirement for it to be located and lent to you, so here he is, looking left and right, up and down on repeat, as if wound by a key.

  He sidles across to a pile behind a pile, pauses to consider a few forgotten volumes and make a mental note to revisit them, then begins working his way to the bottom, tossing away Penguin Specials and Collected Letters. The foraging must continue. Finding this book is now an obsession. From the doorway you may contend, ‘It really doesn’t matter. I can find it online,’ but the seeker either becomes deaf or simply turns his head to dismiss the entire internet with one scathing look. A switch has been tapped, and nothing matters but finding this book, skimming through it once more and then handing it over for you to forget about.

  The questing ‘he’ could be a vague relation or family friend most of your relatives are no longer acquainted with. It could be someone you are visiting for research purposes, or simply out of neighbourly curiosity. It can strike in any type of property, from the tiny spare bedroom to the ‘library’ in a Georgian mansion. Inside that book chamber shelves run against three walls at least, hinting that once, long ago, a semblance of order reigned. On top of each neat row of paperback novels are piled hardbacks, anthologies and ancient atlases. These are more recent purchases, layers added like new societies built upon older ones.

  Further titles are gathered in floor stacks, loitering precariously. There could well be other objects buried beneath – papers, ornaments, furnishings, wives – but the room has succumbed to books; beautiful, disappeared books.

  Then, the find. ‘Got it!’ or ‘Told you!’ or other hearty salutes. This hunched volume of probing essays, or that sallow poetry compilation, resumes its existence among us, returned from a timeless netherworld and now inserted into our life. There is resolution and harmony for him, and a celebratory hot drink is proposed. You blow the dust, sneeze and offer thanks.

  34

  Enthusing to someone about a book

  Books never really end. They stay with you, good or bad, and can float into your mind quite without warning. Years later, the faint embers of a line drift across your conscience or a place you have visited only in print flickers by. The name of a character whirls around the brain like that of a primary-school classmate. Books take root. A book alters you, only in a minor way and sometimes fleetingly, but you’re never completely the same when you’ve finished as you were on page one.

  This feeling is at its rawest and most vital in the few days after you’ve devoured a loved book. It stalks your thoughts and prompts sighs and half-wishes that time could be reversed and our reading not yet complete. It has seeped into your consciousness, its rhythms still shadowing you. An outlet is needed, and rhapsodising to someone else helps simmer the post-book angst boiling within. It is a therapeutic post-mortem, and a chance to wildly cheer for words which until now had constituted only a private kind of joy.

  The recipient of your unburdening must be chosen carefully. A friend who you think will comprehend your fervour and its cause, rather than an old man ahead of you in the supermarket queue. There must be at least some pretence that you are enthusing for their benefit, a missionary here to spread the word, armed with a copy of the good book in your hand. There is every chance your measured advocacy will lurch into nonsensical babbling, but then this is an impassioned, completely biased plea, not a critical evaluation. One ‘It’s just completely brilliant’ rings truer than a hundred lukewarm broadsheet theses. You may misplace the plot, retell the time and make outlandish proclamations, but such is your f
anaticism that when you finally draw breath, you find your listener ready to adopt the book on offer. Your sparks have flown and now the weight of expectation sits on their shoulders – enjoy, or this friendship be damned. The need to share, though, to convert a new believer, is fulfilled.

  The chain may continue, your copy passed on again and again, its corners ever more weary and dog-eared. You are left to reflect not only on the story now moored within, but on the gratifying realisation that your lust for books has not wilted with time and the seasons.

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  Pristine books

  The new book is a slab of paradise. There are few objects as pleasing to the touch. Its textures and edges are at once both lavish and raw, and vouch for craftsmanship. Corners are tightrope-taut, covers smooth as early-morning ice rinks. A thumb dragged down a new book’s fore-edge encounters a Kendal Mint Cake surface of complexity and friction. Its scent is heady and intoxicating, card and paper for now pure and unclaimed by environment.

  The new book is experienced like a piece of finely carved oak, sitting flush in the hand and more natural than anything man-made should realistically be. Its spine is unperturbed by marks, pocks or thread veins, a hospital floor rather than a garden path, its hinges mousetrap-sharp. Venture inside and there rest pages in the subtle hues of moorland lambs in springtime.

  None of those pages has yet to be devoured. The new book is drenched in possibility and sparkles with promise. It rests in your hands, a cheerful soul ready to lift you upon its shoulders and take you to elsewheres and never-nevers. The two of you are about to enter happy battle together. No one before you has alighted upon these words – they await your eyes, queueing in the dark until the front board is cranked open, and then sheltering themselves from the glare.