My Back Pages

Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now – Bob Dylan.

I am not the only one who is complaining that there is no more space in my home to keep books. The bookshelves are bursting at the seams and I have gone and ordered two more books, one by Sue Townsend and the other by Zadie Smith, authors I have never read before. The former is slim and the latter fat; I refer to the books, not to the authors, whose physical dimensions I am not privy to. Anyhow, Sue Townsend is now sleeping with the fishes, speaking euphemistically, and Zadie is not forthcoming on the subject. Back to these new books; where am I going to keep them and when am I going to read them? As I said, I am not alone in facing this quandary. Many of my friends are donating their ‘excess books’ to nearby libraries. I shall follow their example. Famous last words!

The omnibus volumes of the complete works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell and Arthur Conan Doyle can go for a start. Rabindranath Tagore’s poems can join them. That will more than make way for Sue and Zadie with enough room left to spare for lesser mortals. Not that I don’t respect those great novelists from yesteryear and the Bengali Nobel Laureate, he of the flowing white beard. Perish the thought. It is just that these volumes take up a great deal of space, are printed in almost unreadable 8 pt Baskerville type and no one is willing to even borrow them, leave alone not returning them which, for once, would have been a blessing. Those suffering from cervical spondylosis should stay far away from these heavy tomes. Sadly, that includes Shakespeare’s Complete Works.

You see what I just did there? Tried to impress you with how well read I am, but do not be taken in by my ham-handed attempt to deceive. It is a well-established fact that people who boast of impressive book collections have not read more than half of what is displayed in their private libraries. That is a given. A good few of the books are still snug as a bug in a rug in their original cellophane packaging, pristinely unsullied by human hands. However, when it comes to actually getting rid of them, one experiences a wrench.

Hullo, what’s this? The Complete Works of Ruskin Bond, Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi, Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus, any book by William Dalrymple or Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens’ Arguably, Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani – these are tomes not to be trifled with. And fat, to boot. And don’t even get me started on the encyclopediae – Britannica or Penguin.  At least, political gadfly Mani Shankar Aiyar has carved up his impressive life story into three digestible, relatively slim volumes. ‘Give me books about me that are fat,’ as Julius Caesar might have put it but then, he would not have had to scrounge around finding space in his many palaces to display them. To add to my problems, my wife is a former Eng. Lit topper, who places more value on these volumes, excluding the encyclopediae, than I could imagine (not Zadie and Sue, the others). ‘Hands off,’ she rebuked, ‘why don’t you consider getting rid of your 66 Wodehouse novels and another 25 or so cricket and tennis biographies? They have been gathering dust for close to 50 years. Not to mention the amount of space they take up.’ Touché. I pretend not to have heard that. Silence is golden. Start on a project like this and it comes back to bite you in the fleshy parts. And I haven’t even touched upon Sartre, Kafka and Camus to give me an existential migraine. I will concede, however, to retaining my better half’s four J.D. Salinger novels (that’s all he ever wrote) for the reason that they are all very slim volumes and don’t take up much room. And a very good read as well.

At which point, the proper noun Kindle very properly raises its head. I will allow that the advantages of ordering a book online on the Kindle option are many. Instant transfer to your mobile, less expensive than the hardback or paperback versions and, it goes without saying but I will say it anyway, your bookshelves continue to breathe easily. What is more, I can order as many Wodehouse or sports books my heart desires without the distaff side getting a whiff of it. So far, so good. Or in the asinine words of that idiot copywriter who came up with the line ‘Sofa So Good’ for a brand of furniture. That said, there are some downsides. You can’t smell a new book ordered via Kindle. There is no tactile experience of riffling through the pages of Ian Rankin’s latest crime thriller. Above all, the adrenaline rush of a hardback edition being delivered at your doorstep after three days of anxious waiting – all this counts for nought. Still, something is better than nothing, I suppose.

Once upon a time, I went through the same catharsis with LPs, audio cassettes, CDs and DVDs, but what with Spotify and myriad cable and OTT choices available, those conventional options have been closed off. I am going through an emotional struggle on how to rid myself of these items. The Godfather trilogy, Cleopatra, Becket, My Fair Lady, The Lion in Winter, The Graduate, Fawlty Towers, all The Beatles albums, to say nothing of the Carnatic music gems collected almost since birth. At least, it seems that way. Throw in a smidgen of western and Hindustani classical and a smattering of cool jazz and my misery is complete. Nobody wants them. I cannot use them. So, I keep them. Bertrand Russell would have nodded in sympathy with that simple piece of logical cleft stick in which I found myself trapped. That said, there is a new breed of audiophiles who are willing to pay a king’s ransom to buy ‘ye olde world’ record players with diamond stylus and long-playing vinyls to experience a truly authentic, scratchy sound. Ah well, it takes all sorts. And I gave most of mine away for free! Will the recipients appreciate their value? Who can tell? Casting pearls before swine just about sums it up.

In conclusion, try as I might, I am unable to find a satisfactory solution to my problem of plenty. It will remain unresolved as I cast my roving eye over all my books and entertainment options. That being the case, I shall happily drown my sorrows with a single malt and click on to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony on my Spotify, while I once again read the sleeve notes of the album on my 45-year-old vinyl LP, among the handful I had retained. That would well and truly put the lid on it.