too many books

I spent part of today going through the shelves of my bookcases to see what I can get rid of tomorrow. As much as I've tried to keep my personal library to a reasonable amount, each year its' size slowly grows, threatening to over-take my apartment. Where the hell do they all come from? A couple of times a year I do this, either selling or donating three or four bags full, but not only are there no fewer books, the collection is continuing to grow. The four bookcases I've had since my mid-twenties are now two rows deep, and they've spilled out to the rest of my home.

Do I really need all these books? Of course not, but each new title joins the ranks with ones I've owned for ages...books I irrationally refuse to let go of. This is particularly strange, since I'm not a collector, and not given to nostalgia for people or things. For instance, I own far fewer movies than one might expect. I know people that burn every DVD they rent, out of a compulsion to possess films they may have not even watched yet.

It's not much different with music. While it would be reasonable to say that I own more music than, say, typical iPod People (who I assume fill their devices with nothing other than the songs they remember from high school dances and music they're introduced to in movies and television commercials), my collecting has never risen above the status of a dilettante. According to allmusic.com, the Nightcrawlers compilation I'm presently listening to falls short of covering their entire catalog by three songs, nor any singles by the later spin-off band Conlon & the Crawlers. And though I'd love to someday hear these excluded tracks, somehow I think my life won't be too empty if I never succeed.

But books are harder. I limit my music purchases to what I might reasonably someday listen to, and my movie buying is almost non-existent, but books are a serious addiction. This is compounded by the fact that, while the retail cost of a new book is a lot more than an album or DVD, their used price is a lot lower. There are any number of places I can hit on my book-hunting circuit, and for only two, three dollars, walk out with an easy dozen titles. Over the years I've developed my ability to find good used books to something like an art, and the current fire hazard that is my apartment is proof.

About four blocks from where I live is a humongous Salvation Army that seems to receive its' donations from some distant, sleepy college town. Usually S. A. is a bust for book hunters, but this one is out of the way enough that new arrivals aren't quickly picked over. I'm going to safely assume that books aren't a major concern in my neighborhood, since half the residents have only a rudimentary grasp of English, and the other half seems to preoccupied with mastering the current art-school fad for ironic red-neck chic. The thrift store competition is pretty stiff for Madonna statues and trucker hats, but for books, the field is wide open.

Why do I need to save what is damned near every book I've ever read? For a long time it was because I knew a lot of other people who also read, and we served as libraries for each other. I barely know anyone anymore who actually reads often, and I can't remember the last time I loaned out a book where it wasn't me desperately trying to improve the taste of my friends.

There is something sadder and more dorky at the play here; the need to be an authority. As improbable as it is that it will ever happen, there is still that geek-ass fantasy of some eager miss asking me to explain the difference between Pierre Louys and Joris-Karl Huysmans, a question I can only accurately answer if I have ready access to their major works. I'm sure that sounds absurd to the vast majority of people reading it, but there are also at least a few who -albeit reluctantly- nod in understanding. I can't change your oil or build you a robot, but I can read the fuck out of some John Fowles.

It can't be healthy to have this many books, but I struggle to separate myself from objects through which I had some many meaningful experiences. This can't be understood by non-readers, but there is something truly intimate in reading a book, a communication between the author and his or her reader. I'm looking at this moment at the half a shelf taken up by the complete works of Jerzy Kosinski, which I read through one summer eleven years ago. It's doubtful I will ever reread any of them except for "Painted Bird" and "Steps", but it somehow feels like a betrayal to dispose of the others, each of which brought me hours of joy (okay, not joy...there's nothing really "joyful" about Kosinski, but I did experience a weird uplift from reading his works, perhaps because my own bleakness paled next to the unearthly hell he consistently created).

As I've been sporadically adding a sentence or two to this update throughout the day I've been tossing books onto the pile, getting ready for tomorrow. And while the final pile is not as large as I had hoped (and in fact has barely dented the shelves), I have gotten together about twenty books that I'm ready to part with. I'm still grappling with the idea of getting rid of some of my failures, books that I couldn't finish. I've tried twice now to find traction in Don DiLillo's "Underworld", but I just can't do it. I'm starting to wonder if that means I should dump it. There are certainly books I had tried to read in my early twenties but couldn't grasp until I was older (for instance, "The Sound and the Fury", "Pale Fire" and anything by Celine). But maybe I'm old enough now to concede that if I don't get it now, I'm probably never going to. Of course, as I'm packing up the books that I just couldn't keep interest in, there's a sensually innocent voice in the back of my head, asking; "please teach me about 'Gravity's Rainbow'".