in conversation with literature

[adrian_turtle]

With all the places I could conceivably post this, I choose to share it here, where I can't include a picture. Maybe it's because I like you so much.

I picked up a book from a little free library recently, and it included an actual breakup note. Not a goodbye note like, "Farewell, little book! May you find another lonely teenager to love you as I once did!"
This one says "I don't think I'm ever going to pick you up again" and "I love the first two books in the series, but not you," followed by a paragraph of [absolutely fair] criticism that appears to have been written with a purple gel pen.

Comments

[evalerie]

Well, now whoever reads it next has been warned! :)

[naomikritzer]

I love this so much.

What was the book? Would it feel like you were invading the book's privacy if you told us?

(Also, my 19-year-old daughter likes to write in books; she and her friends will add marginalia as they pass books around. She did this with a Sarah Dessen book, since we both like Sarah Dessen, and I have done the same with some books I thought she would enjoy, most recently YELLOWFACE by Rebecca Kuang. I feel like a lot of Gen X'ers are very precious about books as a physical object, and Gen Z'ers less so -- which I approve of, tbh. If it's a library book, then of course don't write in it, but if you OWN it, that is a mass-produced object! You can absolutely write all over it! I think interesting marginalia add value!)

[adrian_turtle]

What was the book? Would it feel like you were invading the book's privacy if you told us?

It's THE MISLAID MAGICIAN. The first two books really are better. I loved the first book and found the second one dragged a bit. I read half the third and it's taking me ages to get through the rest so I'm sure I'll put it back in the LFL. The question is whether I should co-sign the purple note, or add something to it. The purple one is signed "Katy," which is either really cool or a great coincidence. And of course it invites the question of whether I should sign "Laura," "Adrian," or some variation of "Cecilia."

[naomikritzer]

...I totally think you should add your own comments.

[evalerie]

Hm. I write oodles of notes in cookbooks, and I do solve puzzles in puzzle books (logic puzzles, crosswords, etc.). In other books, once in a while, if a typo really badly bothers me, I will write a correction. But it hadn't occurred to me to write on non-cookbook books. Thank you for the idea!

[adrian_turtle]

I know! I remember buying used books (mostly the kinds of novels used in English classes) full of underlining and little marginal notes about the Freudian significance of chicken pox.

[mrissa]

I love the person who wrote that note.

Sometimes I want to leave notes (on external paper) in the hold shelves at the library. "You're in for a treat!--your neighbor at 3423GRI" "I'm so excited for you that you get to read this one!--your neighbor at 3423GRI" but I have never really contemplated "NOOOOO stop at the previous one!--your neighbor at 3423GRI" even though that is often sound advice.

[adrian_turtle]

I love the person who wrote that note.

I think I do too!

My strongest temptation is to write "This book is wonderful but it's better if you stop at page [whatever page ruins the whole series]" in Silver on the Tree.

[mrissa]

I see why, but I wouldn't have followed that advice as a child, I just would have wished I had.

[full_metal_ox]

My strongest temptation is to write "This book is wonderful but it's better if you stop at page [whatever page ruins the whole series]" in Silver on the Tree.

Speaking of which: Michael Moorcock loved, loved, LOVED The Dark Is Rising Sequence, to the extent that its influence left a pretty unmistakable impact: to this day, in his latter Elric books, I can pretty reliably predict that Elric and his co-stars will solve the problem by (ROT13 for spoilers) fhqqrayl erzrzorevat gur rkvfgrapr bs fbzr napvrag qrvgl jub cerqngrf Ynj naq Punbf, jubz gurl vaibxr va n evghny gung—hafhfcrpgrq ol zhaqnar uhznavgl—frgf guvatf zlfgrevbhfyl evtug.

[evalerie]

Just curious what 3423GRI is. My library's hold shelves have the books in alphabetical order by the patron's last name, so I think your library must use a different system.

[mrissa]

Ours have them by certain digits of our library card number, so you can know yours by looking at your library card but could not predict someone else's by knowing their name, street address, phone number, or anything else about them.

[evalerie]

That sounds better at protecting library patrons' privacy. Ann Arbor, where I live, is so small that when I pick up my books, I usually can see what friends are checking out. Mostly I think that the idea of protecting people's privacy often gets taken too far, like when they won't let me in at my child's school in order to protect the privacy of his classmates -- I think that is bizarre, and in some cases it is illegal. But for library checkouts I really do think some privacy is in order, so that people can check out books that they might not want the world to know that they are reading. Though at my library I suppose someone who wanted privacy could use the "pick up your books from a locker" option instead of the hold shelves, and then they would have privacy.

[adrian_turtle]

I think part of what charmed me so much about this note was that it wasn't written to me. It was written to the BOOK. If it had been written to the author, it would have been vaguely obnoxious. And if it had been written to the reader, it would have been simply neighborly. (Though very odd. If you didn't want me to read it, why did you put it on the shelf labeled "take a book?")

[evalerie]

(If DreamWidth had a "Like" button I would definitely click it for this comment! Or maybe for the entire thread.)

[adrian_turtle]

:-)

We managed without a like button for a long time!

[silveradept]

Good! Marginalia and advice is a treat to find in used books. Less so in library ones.

[adrian_turtle]

Oh, of course it's a problem to write in the margins or on the title page of a book that doesn't belong to you. Library books belong to the library, not the reader. I still might welcome a BOOKMARK with a note, rather than a random or suggestive bookmark.

random bookmark = receipt from CVS, or the library checkout receipt telling a previous borrower when it was due.

suggestive bookmark = some of that tissue paper they make sewing patterns of, in a mystery about quilting

[silveradept]

Indeed. For a while, I was discovering random notes with affirmations in them written from one reader to another, so bookmarks with advice or notes would be welcome to see. (They might still get removed, though, because we usually assume those kinds of things were left by a reader, rather than meant to warm another reader.)