Friday, August 04, 2006
On keeping journals
When I read (for at least for one significant block of time daily, unless circumstances are wildly beyond my control) I usually have a little chit of paper tucked in the book at hand, and as I come across sentences I want to remember, I jot down the page number and first word of the quote on the chit. Then when I finish the book I go back and copy these quotes over into my journal. I got into the habit of keeping a journal in college, although I also kept diaries as a teenager (oh the shame), and now it's something of an addiction. I could never bring myself to underline passages in my books, so this is my alternative, and the beauty of it is that interspersed with my journal entries I have a tidy history of my reading life. It's rare that I read a book and don't find something to copy out of it. I like the act of copying another writer's sentences into my own book - it lodges the quote in my brain, and lets me revisit what I thought was important when I flip back through years' worth of pages. I think I've called it a commonplace book, or books, before now on this blog, I can't remember. But mine has the quotations mixed in with everything else.
All this is on my mind today because I've been searching in my old journals for the entries concerning certain paintings (I also make a tiny thumbnail sketch in my journal when I make a painting, as well as writing about the painting itself). I've been lax about labelling my work this year, so this is a catch-up project. The up side of this is that I'm re-reading old quotes, which is always fun, they bring back the best of what I read last year. Here are a few things I found in Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler (Turtle Point Press 2004), which I read last fall, long before (gasp!) I started to blog:
"It seems to me that I've been so GOOD that I couldn't hate myself more. I don't see why I couldn't have been born a robber baron type instead of a fool." (p.33)
On work: "It isn't that it helps so very much, it's just that when your mind is engaged you can't brood with quite the intensity as when you're staring at the wall or lying on your back or washing the same cup over and over." (p.40)
"...Irving Thalberg had wonderful ideas about how beautiful and glamorous beauty and glamour are." (p.115)
"...I've always imagined that true maturity would be to read, enjoy and understand a Sherwood Anderson novel. A day I hope to postpone as long as possible." (p.198)
I see that Schuyler's letters to Frank O'Hara are due to be published in September (they aren't included in the above collection), can't wait...
So who underlines books? Who dog-ears pages? (Have I asked this question before? And did anyone actually answer?) And when you do these things, dear readers, do you ever actually go back to the book in question and re-read what you've marked, or is it an exercise in futility? I see an awful lot of underlined books in my travels, and I try not to let them into my shop, though they sneak in somehow. I have a friend who keeps his commonplace book on his computer, all indexed by author and even subject. I wonder if he reads it, I'm too shy to ask. I used to use plain black sketchbooks, the kind I used in school to keep art journals for my painting and drawing classes, but a few years ago I switched to the ubiquitous Moleskine journal, still plain, black, and unlined, but smaller and easier to keep with me when I'm out and about. I've filled five this year. Expensive little buggers, when you go through them quickly. Hang the expense, they were Bruce Chatwin's notebooks of choice. As soon as I found that out, I was lost.
All this is on my mind today because I've been searching in my old journals for the entries concerning certain paintings (I also make a tiny thumbnail sketch in my journal when I make a painting, as well as writing about the painting itself). I've been lax about labelling my work this year, so this is a catch-up project. The up side of this is that I'm re-reading old quotes, which is always fun, they bring back the best of what I read last year. Here are a few things I found in Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler (Turtle Point Press 2004), which I read last fall, long before (gasp!) I started to blog:
"It seems to me that I've been so GOOD that I couldn't hate myself more. I don't see why I couldn't have been born a robber baron type instead of a fool." (p.33)
On work: "It isn't that it helps so very much, it's just that when your mind is engaged you can't brood with quite the intensity as when you're staring at the wall or lying on your back or washing the same cup over and over." (p.40)
"...Irving Thalberg had wonderful ideas about how beautiful and glamorous beauty and glamour are." (p.115)
"...I've always imagined that true maturity would be to read, enjoy and understand a Sherwood Anderson novel. A day I hope to postpone as long as possible." (p.198)
I see that Schuyler's letters to Frank O'Hara are due to be published in September (they aren't included in the above collection), can't wait...
So who underlines books? Who dog-ears pages? (Have I asked this question before? And did anyone actually answer?) And when you do these things, dear readers, do you ever actually go back to the book in question and re-read what you've marked, or is it an exercise in futility? I see an awful lot of underlined books in my travels, and I try not to let them into my shop, though they sneak in somehow. I have a friend who keeps his commonplace book on his computer, all indexed by author and even subject. I wonder if he reads it, I'm too shy to ask. I used to use plain black sketchbooks, the kind I used in school to keep art journals for my painting and drawing classes, but a few years ago I switched to the ubiquitous Moleskine journal, still plain, black, and unlined, but smaller and easier to keep with me when I'm out and about. I've filled five this year. Expensive little buggers, when you go through them quickly. Hang the expense, they were Bruce Chatwin's notebooks of choice. As soon as I found that out, I was lost.
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I am guilty of marking up my books, underlining and occasionally writing thoughts in the margins. For poetry books, I mark the poems I most like, and write the page numbers at the front of the books, in categories ("friendship", "love", "nature")... that way I can quickly pull out pertinent poems for events.
I actually make a point to buy books with underlines & markings 'cuz I love to see what other people (before me) liked about the book.
And I’m a re-reader of books, so I will revisit my markings, and sometimes it helps me remember where I was at that point in my life… (I focus on different things as I "mature" ;)
I remember reading a Levenger book (little guide to your well-read life?) and one of the proponents for marginalia was a woman who had inherited her mom’s book collection. She found markings her mother had made, and felt like she was able to know her mom on another level. I love that. I told my dad (who also makes notes in margins) that I want his books when he passes on. It’ll be like having a conversation with him even when he’s physically absent….
Just my two cents. Thanks for the informative comments on journaling/scrap-booking!
- Vicki
I actually make a point to buy books with underlines & markings 'cuz I love to see what other people (before me) liked about the book.
And I’m a re-reader of books, so I will revisit my markings, and sometimes it helps me remember where I was at that point in my life… (I focus on different things as I "mature" ;)
I remember reading a Levenger book (little guide to your well-read life?) and one of the proponents for marginalia was a woman who had inherited her mom’s book collection. She found markings her mother had made, and felt like she was able to know her mom on another level. I love that. I told my dad (who also makes notes in margins) that I want his books when he passes on. It’ll be like having a conversation with him even when he’s physically absent….
Just my two cents. Thanks for the informative comments on journaling/scrap-booking!
- Vicki
# posted by 
: 10:32 PM
: 10:32 PM
I dog ear, except for certain valuable books. Occasionally I write in the margins. I often go back to favorite books and search out the dog ears.
The worst case is Christopher Morleys Ex Libris Carissimis, with 28 dog eared pages in a 134 page book. I think he wouldn't mind, since every one was to mark a writer that he was recommending in his Rosenbach Fellowship talks.
As for writing quotations, I admire those who make the effort to write them elsewhere. The only ones I copy are sentences using the word tryst. I started this coming back from a spring break trip in college many years ago (I don't remember why) and have continued to do so for some unknown reason.
Dan
The worst case is Christopher Morleys Ex Libris Carissimis, with 28 dog eared pages in a 134 page book. I think he wouldn't mind, since every one was to mark a writer that he was recommending in his Rosenbach Fellowship talks.
As for writing quotations, I admire those who make the effort to write them elsewhere. The only ones I copy are sentences using the word tryst. I started this coming back from a spring break trip in college many years ago (I don't remember why) and have continued to do so for some unknown reason.
Dan
# posted by : 12:37 AM
: 12:37 AM
Anne Fadiman has an essay about this in her book Ex Libris;she divided readers into the Courtly(the type who won't even put an open book face down on a surface)and the Carnal(folks who have no qualms with dog earing pages and such). I'm afraid I fall into the Courtly catagory-once,I saw a man sitting across from me on a bus underlining pages in a hardcover copy of Anna Karenina with a RED pen*shudder*!
On the other hand,some marginaila can be very interesting. I have an old copy of Northanger Abbey that has notes on the inside back cover from 1952,listing several of the books mentioned in NA. I also have an old library copy of Mrs. Dalloway that has some interesting underlinings-makes you wonder"Why did someone need to highlight the phrase"I prefer men to cauliflowers" here?"
On the other hand,some marginaila can be very interesting. I have an old copy of Northanger Abbey that has notes on the inside back cover from 1952,listing several of the books mentioned in NA. I also have an old library copy of Mrs. Dalloway that has some interesting underlinings-makes you wonder"Why did someone need to highlight the phrase"I prefer men to cauliflowers" here?"
Marking books is loving them--but I do use pencil, and I'd never lay a book face-down or mangle it any other way. ;) I revisit underlined passages very frequently, and will often copy them into other journals as well.
I also agree that reading a loved one's or even a stranger's marginalia is a rare, sweet, intimate kind of acquaintanceship with another's thoughts.
Anne
I also agree that reading a loved one's or even a stranger's marginalia is a rare, sweet, intimate kind of acquaintanceship with another's thoughts.
Anne
# posted by : 2:20 PM
: 2:20 PM
I dream of the day when I find marginalia by an author of renoun - in a fine book of some sort. I always read accounts in books written by antiquarian booksellers about finding some rare book then realizing that Isaac Newton or Thomas Jefferson or someone made notes all the way through it as they were reading. I did find a book with marginalia by historian Samuel Eliot Morison in it, come to think of it. Thanks for the comments, everyone - most enlightening! Books and reading are so personal, it does seem natural to make remarks as you read, I just can't bring myself to put pencil to printed page... so I compulsively journal-write instead. Those Moleskine journals are good for another reason - the elastic band that holds them closed also doubles as a handy place to clip my fountain pen, so when I want to make a quick note I don't have to fish around for it.
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