Ramblings on bibliophiles, gatherers and a labyrinth (probably part1)

Bibliophile/byb-li-oh-fyl/ noun a person who collects or loves books. (Compact Oxford English Dictionary. 2005. p.86)




I think I am addicted to books. It takes all the will I have to walk past a book shop. A second-hand book shop is even worse, especially if I already bought something there. Then, about a month ago, a fellow bibliophile gave me a small classified advert for a library book sale. Needless to say, I went to the sale and walked away with a bag o’ books for the price of one new paperback.

Now, I didn’t just buy books by the yard, but really found some interesting pieces –

including a book with woodcuts from a Bible in the renaissance, various classics and even a leather-bound reprint of medieval romances with the names of the various owners in the front cover. The first date being 1932.

But it was only as I dusted the books and arranged them on the shelf that I found the names on the inside cover. My mind started to wander over the people that had held the book and the places it had been. It also made me think of a wonderful book that I had finished reading not long ago:



The History of Reading by Alberto Manguel

http://books.google.co.za/books?id=QrdZHgAACAAJ&dq=a+history+of+reading&hl=en&ei=5B4fTKbDFMmI4QaL2bmmDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ

As it traces the magical, joyful, and mysterious craft of reading, this book spills over with scandalous tales of book thieves, book burners, censors, and anarchists; of the women of 11th-century Japan, who had to invent their own reading material; of the African American slaves forbidden to read under penalty of death. Replete with over 140 arcane and beautiful illustrations, this witty and ambitious book will delight every reader--from the browser to the bookworm.



My eye fell on another volume I had picked up a year or so ago; judging it by its cover and title:

The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

http://books.google.co.za/books?id=UuLmRgAACAAJ&dq=the+island+of+lost+maps&hl=en&ei=WB8fTL6wKaCK4gbS8N2vDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA



Harvey himself sometimes seems obsessed as he explores the obsession of those who collect maps. Still, this is a challenging and erudite exploration of the explosion in "map culture" and the damage wrought by one determined con man with cartographic passions. Harvey's primary narrative (which originated as an article for Outside magazine) concerns the exploits of Gilbert Bland, a man who on the surface, according to Harvey, did indeed seem bland but who stole approximately $500,000 in antique maps from poorly secured rare-book libraries. Bland was apprehended in 1995 at Baltimore's Peabody Library; he was ultimately charged in several jurisdictions after numerous universities discovered extensive losses, but he plea-bargained for a light sentence. Harvey painstakingly reconstructs the map thief's various identities--for Bland, a "chameleon," had abandoned a number of spouses and children and had engaged in questionable business ventures. Thus is Harvey launched into a larger meditation on the lure of "terra incognita," both literal and metaphoric, whether of Bland's enigmatic life or of undiscovered continents. Harvey uses the Bland case to explore both cartographic history and the dangers of obsession. One collector he examines is controversial map megadealer Graham Arader, considered responsible for cartography's newfound commercialism. Harvey's pursuit of all possible tangents (he even visits a map factory) causes his narrative to become unwieldy at times. But he offers dry wit and a fine sense of the dark places in our contemporary landscape, and he successfully captures both the story of Bland's bizarre "map crime spree" and the underexamined history and politics of contemporary cartography. Agent, Sloan Harris. 50,ooo first printing; 8-city author tour. (Sept.)



Then, of course, there’s the exceptional The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and his labyrinth-world-map of a library, leading me back to Jorge L. Borges, The Secret Garden, The Neverending Story, Elantris – and then, of course jumping to Atlantis – and on… and on… not to mention those that I have yet to read… that have yet to be written… and is yet growing in ghostly shadows of tree rings, waiting to be released.



The irony is that I inherited my grandfather’s enormous collection of matchbooks. No, I do not keep these collections in the same room.