When I think of my work as being surrounded by so many books, I become panicked. They are literally all around me – in this library alone there are more books than I could ever read or assimilate, more books than I could even conceive of – and in all the libraries in all the world there is, for me, a practical infinity of books. As with most practical infinities, this one has the paradoxical effect of making me feel claustrophobic. I look at the 150 pages left to go in this book I’m reading, I look at the spines of book after book of German philosophy next to the elevator and I panic. I am hemmed in, I am suffocated by pages, I am drowning in print.
But when I consider my work as being surrounded by so many ideas, by so many conversations, voices, and interactions, by the infinity not of print but of thought, then I’m happy. In this case, you see, all those books are all part of one enormous thing – the attempt to understand. And understanding requires a necessary magic of combination. It is the opposite of being stifled by infinity: it is being liberated by condensation.
The books directly behind my currently preferred carrel, for instance, turn out to be books about Anne Rice. I am about to read a section on gothic drama. Today I went to a lecture on linguistics and Lord of the Rings, which involves the turning of language systems into story and story into culture and culture back into story and back into language.
(I.e.: Tolkein wrote the books because he wanted to invent languages. But he had to give them a context so he made stories about them. Which then evolved into an entire fictional culture. Which influenced the culture of the world at large. Which began to tell its own stories about/with LotR. Which then made their way into/influenced language and the way we speak.)
All these things are related. They are related because they all have something to do with my human experience of the world. I might say, for instance, that late 18th century gothic drama, modern gothic/queerhorror, and LotR all have to do with translation. Or with geekiness. Or with wildly fictionalized realities/fictionalization of the past to suit changing sexual/cultural needs. I can connect them any way I want to – or I can not, or I can say that the connection is only that I looked all three things today. The thing I have power over is the magic of interpretation and relation – of transformation by transubstantiation, in a way.
I’m ranging pretty far afield from what I meant to say. But I think what I wanted was to reassure myself that I’m still okay. The truth is I’m having a hard time with this book, and there are so many other books I need to read, and this one is taking me a long time and a lot of thought to get through and how can I possibly be an academic if I get drowned in books? But I have to think it isn’t really that way, that that isn’t how I do my work. I do my work with ideas, not with books. And that I hope I can handle.
Postscript unrelated: at the grocery store one of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen was twirling down the aisle. She had wild flying blonde hair and a brown peasant dress. I couldn’t help it – I smiled broadly at her. She and her mother and sister got in line behind me and she began dancing and skipping around.
“Calm down, beauty,” her mother said.
“I’m skipping! I’m skipping! I’m twirling!”
“Morgan,” says her sister. “Let’s play the quiet game for two minutes”
Completely heedless, she twirled some more. Then she shouted, “My heart is beeping. SO FAST!!!”
But when I consider my work as being surrounded by so many ideas, by so many conversations, voices, and interactions, by the infinity not of print but of thought, then I’m happy. In this case, you see, all those books are all part of one enormous thing – the attempt to understand. And understanding requires a necessary magic of combination. It is the opposite of being stifled by infinity: it is being liberated by condensation.
The books directly behind my currently preferred carrel, for instance, turn out to be books about Anne Rice. I am about to read a section on gothic drama. Today I went to a lecture on linguistics and Lord of the Rings, which involves the turning of language systems into story and story into culture and culture back into story and back into language.
(I.e.: Tolkein wrote the books because he wanted to invent languages. But he had to give them a context so he made stories about them. Which then evolved into an entire fictional culture. Which influenced the culture of the world at large. Which began to tell its own stories about/with LotR. Which then made their way into/influenced language and the way we speak.)
All these things are related. They are related because they all have something to do with my human experience of the world. I might say, for instance, that late 18th century gothic drama, modern gothic/queerhorror, and LotR all have to do with translation. Or with geekiness. Or with wildly fictionalized realities/fictionalization of the past to suit changing sexual/cultural needs. I can connect them any way I want to – or I can not, or I can say that the connection is only that I looked all three things today. The thing I have power over is the magic of interpretation and relation – of transformation by transubstantiation, in a way.
I’m ranging pretty far afield from what I meant to say. But I think what I wanted was to reassure myself that I’m still okay. The truth is I’m having a hard time with this book, and there are so many other books I need to read, and this one is taking me a long time and a lot of thought to get through and how can I possibly be an academic if I get drowned in books? But I have to think it isn’t really that way, that that isn’t how I do my work. I do my work with ideas, not with books. And that I hope I can handle.
Postscript unrelated: at the grocery store one of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen was twirling down the aisle. She had wild flying blonde hair and a brown peasant dress. I couldn’t help it – I smiled broadly at her. She and her mother and sister got in line behind me and she began dancing and skipping around.
“Calm down, beauty,” her mother said.
“I’m skipping! I’m skipping! I’m twirling!”
“Morgan,” says her sister. “Let’s play the quiet game for two minutes”
Completely heedless, she twirled some more. Then she shouted, “My heart is beeping. SO FAST!!!”
Labels: anxiety, books, reading, the_profession
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