THE ZEN of CLEARING UP
Do you remember the last time you did a major clear up of your home? ‘Traumatic and enlightening at the same time,’ declared a friend who has just moved house. Traumatic, as you have to continually decide: should it stay or should it go. Enlightening because it gives you an opportunity to reflect on times forgotten, lovers and friends from your past. And for me nothing delivers this double-whammy more powerfully than letting go of a houseful of books. It’s moving time!
Decluttering, downsizing and spring -cleaning: all words designed to depress a messaholic. When it comes to my library, she wants them out, while I want to hang on to them for, oh, so many reasons.“Just wait till we get to the clothes,” I mutter under my breath, as a lovely Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is haggled over.
“When was the last time you looked at this?’ comes the brisk question
“Um, well, you never know…”
“You can get it all online.”
“But – it’s an attractive cover,” is my feeble response, reluctantly consigning it to the Oxfam charity pile.
It’s easy to be ruthless with someone else’s stuff. That’s why there’s a whole industry of professional de-clutterers, who make great claims that, zen-like, this will free your soul and clear your mind for loftier goals. Not to mention that old saw, ‘it makes the room look bigger!’
Why does it need to look bigger? Buyers aren’t stupid – this room is 5 metres by 4 metres, whatever it’s stuffed with. I’m hoping that a likely purchaser will appreciate the beautiful chaos of a family home. That lived-in, slightly worn feel of a real household, not the minimalist fantasy of a Sunday colour supplement ‘living space.’ I mean you can’t live in space – at least not without a whole lot of technology – yet oodles of designer brainpower goes into creating this stripped back illusion.
A film-maker friend made a documentary detailing the messy working environments of many creative minds around the globe. He staunchly defends his blissfully messy study, asserting that no neatnik with their ‘weapons of MESS destruction’ will be allowed near his historic piles of books and papers.
Refuting this view, in a fit of notional neatness, I once bought a Japanese book on the art of de-cluttering. It might sound obvious to say that it was shoved behind other volumes on a bookshelf, and I wasn’t able to locate it for a year. Ironic, yes, but to my shame, perfectly true.
Books as Friends
The trouble with books is they are far more than cloth, paper and ink. They tell the story of your life in numerous ways, sitting patiently (often unread) on the shelf, reminding you that you can’t let this one go because:
*Someone you love -or loved - gave it to you. (You may not recall the occasion, but look, here’s the loving dedication.
*It reminds you of a time when there was time for reading.
*You got one great insight from this one, so perhaps the lightning of illumination will strike again when you re-read it, or
*This selection of John Cowper Powys novels will baffle and impress anyone who inspects the shelf. (I certainly haven’t finished a single one of them, though I love what I’ve read so far.)
But how did I ever think it was a good idea to learn Greek, understand the latest thinking on AI (that is, this week’s thinking) or get to grips with Byron’s later years. Especially as I’m rather hazy – ok, totally ignorant – about the poet’s early years, this seems a purchase too far. Also it tells me I’m completely unrealistic: there’s a vast ocean between my reading aspirations and the likelihood of ever achieving them.
Surely one of the reasons for believing in reincarnation is to have a life where you do nothing but catch up on all the books you meant to read this time round. Although we could all copy Bill Gates’ approach, taking a week off just to read the important, epoch-making books he’s set aside to devour. Hmm… I don’t expect there’s any Lee Childs or Dan Brown on his list.
Are we what we read? Kind of, although there are other life lessons here. Why do I have two copies of Tragically I Was an Only Twin, a collection of pieces by the great master of English comedy, Peter Cook. Naturally everyone should possess at least one testament to the founder of Private Eye, but two? I reflect on how careless I’ve been with my book buying.
Painfully I realise that my book-buying life, like my actual life, is erratic and fragmented, and any fantasies of an ordered existence should be terminated forthwith. My bookcase is a silent testament and mirror to this insight.
Making the Cut
Books are living entities that speak to me. It’s irrational but irresistible to hear those siren voices. I’m suddenly overcome by an urgent desire to absorb Vaclav Havel’s Living With Truth, and postpone the next round of culling for a burst of frantic reading. No matter it’s been gathering dust here for 10 years: it’s telling me that it must be read, and now! Then Herman Hesse’s Journey to the East lets me know it must be revisited this weekend. Remember the first time? I do, and hope it will do the trick again.
Like second hand record stores describing their CDs as ‘pre-loved,’ most of your books were once at least pre-liked. Well, most of them. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is easy to dispense with: there must be charity shops with shelves groaning under the weight of unread copies.
To stay? PG Wodehouse Penguin paperbacks – especially the Mr Mulliner and Blandings Castle series – are clear remainers. Although again emotion leaks through: the choice is bittersweet, as I only resort to these when I’m feeling low. I recall a wonderful Mulliner tale in which one of his relatives invents a tonic called ‘Buck-U-Uppo,’ which does just what it says on the bottle. A prim bishop is turned into a drag-wearing all night party animal after a dose. Guiltily I find myself flipping through - the dust cover really lives up to its name - to find the amusing tale. We all need a fix of Buck-U-Uppo sometimes – I wonder what yours is? For me a brief flirtation with Wodehouse usually does the trick, so these will stay.
More significantly the clear up makes me think of past friendships, places, fascinations and obsessions. But much as I love Shakespeare I don’t think two copies of his collected works makes me any smarter, and if I’m seized by the urge to read Troilus and Cressida, it’s a desire that doesn’t demand immediate gratification by placing it on my bedside table. The Bard once observed:
“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.”
Maybe not, but I can discover a good deal about my mind’s construction by looking at this small library, and the way in which I deal with its diaspora.
I ask the young woman helping me sort my bags of books in the charity shop whether donors ever re-buy the books they’ve given away.
“All the time,“she tells me.
I look at the books for sale, recognising a number of mine from last week’s trip. Have you ever noticed how much more attractive your own books appear on someone else’s shelf? I finger a pre-loved dictionary of etymology, but pull back from the verge of obsession. It’s like saying goodbye to an old friend.
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My role model in the realm of slimming down is a well-read Professor friend who only ever has ten books in his possession. If he acquires a new volume, one has to go.
Will I ever achieve this acme of minimalism? Right now I’m finding it hard to let go of my familiar companions, brimming with inspiration and perhaps one idea that will, as the jacket blurb proclaims, ‘change my life.’
Well, you never know…
Nigel Barlow
Oxford, February 2020