Word Power

One of the great simple pleasures in life is reading the “New York Times” in the morning.  Every day the paper pops up on my screen packed with new, interesting, beautifully written articles (I love things that are free) and I feel like a kid in a candy store...what to try first?    Before I know it I’ve spent an hour, that I didn’t have to spare, reading about Zimbabwe or foster care.  This is the reason that I rarely allow myself to read The Times in the morning - unless I’m on vacation.  I do allow myself a small indulgence; I set my homepage to the paper  and  before I click away to answer email, I take a minute to scan the headlines and see what I’m missing.  This morning I got lucky...the center stage article featured a picture of a library - say no more, I clicked in.  

Marginalia is a new word for me - I love learning new words - but this one is taboo for library lovers.  Marginalia is the practice of writing in the margin of books - GASP - it’s a hard word for librarians to hear and even more difficult for them to think about.  Dirk Johnson’s article, “Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Notes in the Margins” addresses the disappearing trend of conversing with books by writing your thoughts alongside the text.  Readers vary greatly on their viewpoints about writing in books...to some it is an anathema that defaces the book while others wholeheartedly support the practice and scribble away their questions and insights.

photo from dailypoetics blog

Paul Gehl’s job depends on marginalia.  He is the the curator of the marginalia collection at the Newberry Library in Chicago (located at 60 W. Walton Street) and actually faults librarians and teachers for discouraging the practice of writing in books.  To me there is a clear ethical line for this behavior, if you own the book, write whatever and where ever you please - if it’s not yours, keep you thoughts to yourself (or get a notebook).  Most readers I know find it distasteful to open a book and discover it is filled with the thoughts of someone other than the author.  

But what if the scribbler was Mark Twain?  The Newberry Library owns just such a book, The Pen and Book written by Walter Besant and critiqued, in the margins, by Twain. Just last night I was reading Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko and he quotes Albert Paine’s biography of Twain, “on the table beside him, and on his bed, and on the billiard-room shelves, he kept the book he read most.  All, or nearly all, had annotations  - spontaneously uttered marginal notes, title prefatories, or comments.  They were the books he read again and again, and it was seldom that he had nothing to say with each fresh reading.”  The thought of rereading books to gain fresh insights is the first anomaly and how about the idea of writing down your thoughts to clarify your thinking...not habits that we regularly practice anymore.

It’s kind of funny that marginalia is considered a bonus if it is done by some people but not by others.  It’s like the difference between Banksy spray painting your garage and the lowlife gang member who hangs out on the corner doing it.  I doubt anyone would admonish William Blake, Charles Darwin or Nelson Mandela for adding their thoughts to the margin, but only because they have intelligent thoughts to add - and because they went on to become great men.  Marginalia can give readers great insights, allow them to ‘hear’ the conversation between the reader and book.  It harkens back to a time when readers too the time to thinking, questioning and reflect on what they were reading.  We should all be lucky enough to own a personal library filled with worthy books and have the time to scratch down our ‘great’ thoughts.  Who knows, maybe someday they would be treasured at The Newberry Library.