Addendum

August 31st, 2006 |

A little more on how I’m not a good academic.

I just finished reading a chapter in the same book on libraries (they’re getting into the nitty gritty of where to locate the best bibliographies and which research libraries have the best collections of specific authors and eras), and they’re going on and on about the libraries that have huge collections of first editions, among other things. And you can tell that they’re expecting scholars to just start drooling over these first editions, and I know a lot of my classmates are fans of rare and old books. I’m just…not. To me, as long as the words are the same, a $1.97 paperback you bought used from the corner bookshop is worth just as much as a first edition that sells for thousands of dollars. I do go on about loving the feel of a book in my hands, or liking one edition over another, but it has nothing to do with age or market value–it has to do with weight, and proportionality, and smoothness, and pretty pictures on the cover.

Of course, I acknowledge the value of manuscripts, especially if the author marked them up a bunch or something, but I still don’t really care to get down and dirty with them myself. As of this moment, I’d be just as comfortable working with fascimiles if I needed to consult the original manuscript. I do love libraries, but I’m honestly not that much of a fan of the old books in libraries. I’d much rather hunker down with a new, pristine copy than one that’s three hundred years old, even if I can acknowledge that it is amazing it’s still around.

It just seems like it’s so much more important what it says than what its physical properties are. I’m not sure what that means, other than I’m clearly not cut out to be the same type of scholar that Altick and Fenstermaker are.

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Posted in books, school
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Viewing 3 Comments

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    Oh ,Jandy, when I took this class last year and learned all that went into making books and the scribes that worked so hard on them I couldn't help but appreciate the craftsmanship. It is , for the most part, a thing of the past. I'm not saying that in the snobbish way that some may--but instead, merely appreciating the creation on the outside as well as the created word inside. Maybe this a little different than those you are addressing though?
    ? Denise
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    Oh, I can definitely appreciate the craftsmanship side of it, and especially, as you point out, the original manuscripts that were created before printing. Some of them are amazing and are deservedly treasured--I think of things like the Book of Kells in Dublin, and various other illuminated manuscripts especially. But somehow that doesn't translate over for me into printed books. I mean, I acknowledge that early printing was also time-consuming and difficult on the typesetters and all. But I don't get why the first printed edition of a work, for example, is so great, while the second edition (which could have been printed, like, two years later) is much less valuable. It's this obsession with first printed editions for their own sake that mystifies me.
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    Ahhhh, and I am relieved. I figured I had to be thinking of it in a different vein. Understood now

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