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| Hearsay: |
Ben Schott provides miscellaneous reasons for treating your books like placemats.
I have to admit I was flattered when, returning to my hotel room on the shores of Lake Como, a beautiful Italian chambermaid took my hand. I knew that the hotel was noted for the attentiveness of its staff. Surely, though, such boldness elevated room service to a new level. Escorting me to the edge of the crisply made bed, the chambermaid pointed to a book on my bedside table. “Does this belong to you?” she asked. I looked down to see a dog-eared copy of Evelyn Waugh’s “Vile Bodies” open spread-eagle, its cracked spine facing out. “Yes,” I replied. “Sir, that is no way to treat a book!” she declared, stalking out of the room.
I appreciate the chambermaid’s point of view — and I admire how she expressed it. Yet I profoundly disagree.
Actually, the funny thing here isn’t my attempt at linking the text of the post to Ben’s books (in fact, that’s not funny at all, is it?), it’s that at my house we use books as trivets. Lady Ninja came up with the idea a while back. We select from our collection of thousands the ideal books to match our dinner guests (of course, not from the most precious ones, which is to say yours, my dear friends) and stick them under the serving dishes. When people lift the bowls they find anything from Introduction to Symbolic Interactionism to Carrie, from Leaves of Grass to Backlash. Despite the odd dollup of gravy on Susan Faludi or Hannah Arendt, I don’t consider this abuse, but rather an odd form of worship.
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March 5th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
If I’m not mistaken, that anecdote is pinched directly from Anne Fadiman’s book “Ex Libris.”
March 5th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
One reason for not treating books in the above manner, particularly paperbacks, is that they quickly fall apart and so become unreadable.
These days with so many books out of print, it may not be possible to replace the book in the future.
Then again, if you never re-read books it wouldn’t be a problem.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Hannah:
I KNEW I’d read the anecdote somewhere else…good recall!
March 5th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Can someone type out the passage in question?
March 9th, 2007 at 8:55 am
From the essay, “Never Do That To A Book”:
“When I was eleven and my brother was thirteen, our parents took us to Europe. At the Hotel
D’Angleterre in Copenhagen, as he had done virtually every night of his literate life, Kim left a
book facedown on the bedside table. The next afternoon, he returned to find the book closed, a
piece of paper inserted to mark the page, and the following note, signed by the chambermaid,
resting on its cover: SIR, YOU MUST NEVER DO THAT TO A BOOK.”
Could be a coincidence :)