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.