The pursuit of reading is pleasurably free of clutter. It is a simple activity, requiring no equipment or accessories, merely a book and some stolen time. Even the sole common accoutrement – the bookmark – is not necessary.
Bookmarks are the second socks of literature, frequently and inexplicably going missing in action. I have lost them all: bookmarks with tassels, bookmarks with beaded string, bookmarks boasting Shakespeare quotes, bookmarks displaying historical timelines, ribbon bookmarks, leather bookmarks and even a lavishly-designed wooden one. You could wallpaper a cathedral with the amount of card promotional bookmarks I have misplaced.
Lucky, then, that there is such delight in improvising to create makeshift bookmarks from any vaguely thin item handy. Train tickets make excellent do-it-yourself bookmarks, as do leaflets which fall from newspapers, takeaway menus, giftcards from birthday-present wrapping and even utility bills. There is also an option to ‘dog-ear’ the page, turning the corner into a triangle so it resembles half of a sandwich from a doll’s house. This, though, violates an unspoken sanctity, scarring a book for life, as does leaving it open at the relevant pages, upside down on a bedside table, imperilling its spine and leaving fault lines. To some of us, such behaviours are acceptable and charming – a footprint and a stake claimed, or a child’s height marks on a door frame never to be painted over.
All of this springs from the fear of losing your place and the need to find that place when time has finally stopped and you can read again. It is also to prevent re-reading a page or passage when there are so many other books in the world to be reading next (unfortunately, drunken reading will always mean recapping the next day). You could, of course, attempt to memorise your page number. There is theatre in trying to successfully guess it again, and turning to find that you are correct. You may even have a tiny celebration. That the rigorous march of progress is monitored in such haphazard, spontaneous a manner is a reminder that the reader is in charge. For all its regimental order, a book becomes volatile to the whims and disorder of its custodian, and blissfully temporary. Impromptu bookmarks are sandcastles built upon motorways.