Anne Fadiman is--by her own admission--the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice.
This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony--Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.
Amazon.com: The subtitle of Anne Fadiman's slim collection of essays is Confessions of a Common Reader, but if there is one thing Fadiman is not, it's common. In her previous work of nonfiction, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, she brought both skill and empathy to her balanced exploration of clashing cultures and medical tragedy. The subject matter here is lighter, but imbued with the same fine prose and big heart. Ex Libris is an extended love letter to language and to the wonders it performs. Fadiman is a woman who loves words; in "The Joy of Sesquipedalians" (very long words), she describes an entire family besotted with them: "When I was growing up, not only did my family walk around spouting sesquipedalians, but we viewed all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament, a kind of holy water as it were, to be slathered on at every opportunity." From very long words it's just a short jump to literature, and Fadiman speaks joyfully of books, book collecting, and book ownership ("In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar"). In "Marrying Libraries" Fadiman describes the emotionally fraught task of merging her collection with her husband's: "After five years of marriage and a child, George and I finally resolved that we were ready for the more profound intimacy of library consolidation. It was unclear, however, how we were to find a meeting point between his English-garden approach and my French-garden one." Perhaps some marriages could not have stood the strain of such an ordeal, but for this one, the merging of books becomes a metaphor for the solidity of their relationship.
Over the course of 18 charming essays Fadiman ranges from the "odd shelf" ("a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection reveals a good deal about its owner") to plagiarism ("the more I've read about plagiarism, the more I've come to think that literature is one big recycling bin") to the pleasures of reading aloud ("When you read silently, only the writer performs. When you read aloud, the performance is collaborative"). Fadiman delivers these essays with the expectation that her readers will love and appreciate good books and the power of language as much as she does. Indeed, reading Ex Libris is likely to bring up warm memories of old favorites and a powerful urge to revisit one's own "odd shelf" pronto. --Alix Wilber
a chronicle of a love affair with books What this is is a collection of essays about books: reading them, shelving them, collecting them, etc. etc. It's a chronicle of a love affair with books.
Almost every essay struck a chord with me: reading a car manual because there was nothing else to read (done that), playing word games as a child (yes), compulsive proof-reading of menus and signs (definitely), etc.
I laughed aloud at the essay on plagiarism (no, not a funny topic, normally) with its overabundance of footnotes. And a light bulb went on when I read the essay on the difference between courtly and carnal love of books: I've always felt vaguely guilty for not keeping my books in pristine condition--I eat while reading, read in the bath, leave them lying around, and my best-loved books are all mostly falling apart from being read and re-read. Turns out I'm in good company.
The only thing I had to overlook was what felt like a prejudice toward reading only classic literature. But honestly, I'd expected that. A book of essays about books is not likely to be written (or perhaps it's just not likely to be published) by an avid reader of contemporary genre fiction.
In a lot of respects, it's quite similar to Eats, Shoots and Leaves. They're both written solely for people who share the author's point of view, and quite probably feel pretentious and elitist to anyone who doesn't.
The Joy of Book Fondling Beautifully Expressed Anne Fadiman is clearly one of us! If you, too, are among those who proofread and correct everything from restaurant menus to outdoor advertising, you'll love Fadiman's essay "Inset a Carrot" (with corrections, of course). A few years ago while visiting Monterey, California, I found myself finishing John Steinbeck's Canary Row. Later, when I read Fadiman's essay "You Are There," I realized there are many others who have experienced the thrill of You-Are-There Reading. If you're a book fondler, or if you love words, you'll enjoy Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris -- gracefully written and intelligently witty.
Material for the "Odd Shelf" In my opinion, the one redeeming chapter in this book belongs on the "odd shelf" of the book. It relays the story of the author's fascination with the untameable breadth and mystery of the Antarctic, and the even greater mystery of those who would seek to explore and overcome its caustic yet captivating terrain.
This chapter offered a rare moment in the heart of this contrivedly witty, cute but unconsciously trite account of the author's supreme relation to books and literature. It was the one chapter in which the annoyingly self-aggrandizing and (unsuccessfully) "common" pretense of the narrative voice opened up into a reflection far greater than the usual smart self-awareness and approving, pat-on-the-back revelation; here the tone, the narrative opened up into scintillating wonder of the "other" in the text, the "object" of Fadiman's reading rather than the subject (herself): the Antarctic explorers who strived and failed and endured insane extremities, motivated by a mystery that the author cannot seem to reduce to one of her many smart but smirky witticisms (though she tries at the end of the chapter, but here we tend to brush off the bizzare triteness of her concluding words, being so captivated as we are at the end of her sharp and wonder-inducing account of these fearless Arctic explorers).
Aside from the wonderful and well crafted trip to a far away place that this chapter offers, I found myself floundering through this maddeningly self-featuring narrative, wondering whether I should stop now before I was overcome by irritation and tempted not to pick up another book again, or to continue reading and let my feelings of annoyance build and deepen in some twistedly cathartic way. Here is a set of essays that attempts to evoke the "common" joy and passion for books and for all things literary, but ends up, instead, basking in an unpalatable celebration of one particular reader's (the author's) quizzical literacy.
Celebrating bibliophilia Within the pages of this slender little volume are the signs of a special community that will be familiar to all book obsessives.
There is indeed more than one way to love a book. Are you a courtly lover: one who sees the physical book as sacrosanct; or a carnal lover who sees the book as a vessel for the words and ideas? Or are you, like me, sometimes one and then the other?
For bibliophiles, books remain ageless and constant even though we do not. I find myself agreeing with so many of the points made by Ms Fadiman in her delightful essays. If you love books - their physical existence and their potential promise - then this is a book that you may well enjoy. Having read this book on the recommendation of a fellow bibliophile, I am buying my own copy. I may well need to write in it. And even if I don't it is a comfort to know that I am not alone.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
A Book of Books Ex Libris recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. Anne Fadiman, like many passionate readers, regards books that she loves as chapters in her life story. I can remember certain books that I read at certain periods of my life. Star Trek novels saved my sanity as I was training in Edinburgh for my postgraduate degree, far away from home and family.
Writing with remarkable grace, she (Fadiman) revives the tradition of well crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathological literary family. As someone who plays at blocks with her father's twenty-two volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castle") and who considers herself truly married only when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of flyleaf inscriptions, the perverse pleasure of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfaction of reading aloud.
A jolly good read for bibliophiles and bibliomaniacs and those in between.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
