Tsundoku

 

When I moved to Bruges ten years ago, I had to reduce my number of bookshelves, and ergo, the number of books, which were an almost unnoticed, but valued, feature of life, I felt a real dread at the task ahead at first. However, on mature reflection, I found I could easily discard my husband’s professional volumes which he had treasured when he was alive, and many of mine; both collections were not required any more. But when I came to move on from Bruges where I lived in a capacious family flat, to Bury St Edmunds to a much smaller apartment, the nine or ten much-loved bookshelves had to shrink to five with the concomitant shedding of yet more books. I did find this difficult because some books had to go which I still loved, had read and consulted, and perhaps would use no more but, just possibly, might need! They were, in fact, old friends, bringing wisdom and knowledge and importantly, evoking lovely memories. And, moreover, I loved them as part of the familiar décor of my living; books look good, familiar and somehow, comforting, and they also send implicit messages to the visitor of the possible intellect of the owner! So perhaps a touch of unconscious vanity there?

A serious example of Tsundoku

But, in another nod to the Japanese, I have stumbled over the existence of a marvellous word, ‘Tsundoku’ with ‘tsundu’ meaning ‘to pile up’ and ‘doku’ to read. The whole word describes the phenomenon of acquiring books and then letting them pile up on the floor or shelf, without reading them. Apparently, initially, tsundoku had a playful tone. It was first coined by writer, Mori Senzo, to cast aspersions on a teacher who was proud of his large library though he rarely read any of his books. For him, the teacher, the sheer joy of choosing and buying books, was more appealing than in actually settling down to read them! Thus, he was more of an avid collector rather than the voracious reader the casual observer might have concluded he wa,s after noting the size of his library!   

Encountering the word ‘tsundoku’ has really made me reflect!  I think I believe that the allowing of books to pile up, unread, is not necessarily because of neglect, but rather,temporarily deferred, as a source of joy and anticipation; unknown stories waiting to be discovered! Though the danger lurking there is that if the pile of books keeps growing, I imagine it could bring further stress as a constant, visual reminder of something we have not done yet but should be doing, or beginning to do, at least.   But for now, tsundoku has become a term to describe a universally acknowledged phenomenon which has spread far beyond Japan.

A fraction of my small collection, shelfless in Bury.

Benjamin's library card from the Bibliotheque
Nationale de France 1940.
After Paris fell to the Nazis, Benjamin fled to Spain 
but desolate without home and  his beloved books, he 
committed suicide in the Pyrenees in 1940.

In his splendid Unpacking My Library, Walter Benjamin writes eloquently of books, of collecting, of libraries, and I will no doubt return to him and his bookish philosophising. After moving house, he wrote,“The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience.” Walter Benjamin's whole life was writing and books.

In fact, there are many well-known writers who unsurprisingly confess to loving books, lusting after those not yet acquired, fondly remembering book-mad parents who filled the house with the results of their eccentric collections. In short, there are innumerable hymns of joy to books. I have recently come across what I think of as a ‘modern word’; 'non-fungible' and the definition is ‘non-fungible items have distinct characteristics that make them one of a kind.’ And that seems to me to be one perfect description of a book’

Collection in unruly formation

Overflow

Part of one of my remaining shelves