Book Love is a dangerous thing
Book love is a dangerous thing – an all-consuming, messy, and serendipitous thing, all rolled into one. It makes one want to do weird stuff, like becoming a hoarder, or scan old bookstores, and become a member of run-down libraries. It entails all the traditional responses of a lover of fine print – especially if the inheritance has come in a mass, as one solid bookshelf worth of things to be dusted and looked after, to be cherished.
The form of the book, and the content inside, are two very different things – with entirely different connotations. The form is the packaging and the way the content is presented, and this is extremely important. I cannot stress on the importance of this factor. It can mean a whole lot of things, be it the cover, the presentation, the font, the design, and all of these are like the butterfly skeleton of a beloved and imagined city skyline, so important and yet so overlooked. They say ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ but I think they should have said ‘Don’t judge a book only by its cover.’
After all, form and content are two completely different things. Content alone cannot get you the eyeballs and the initial ‘wow’ factor. It cannot get in the sidelong glances, the contention of ‘other publishers’ envy and owner’s pride’. It cannot get you a glossy catalogue, filled with pictures of covers in matt and gloss, with titles embossed in various colours. It cannot get you place of pride in a bookstore’s display section, such that passer byes are magnetically attracted to the cover, and want to go back and see what is inside.
True book lovers love to evoke sepia-coloured memories of summer afternoons soaking up the prose whilst enjoying mojitos and shakes, or perhaps the old-fashioned aam panna. They also love to examine thick and creamy pages with the eye of a cultivated layman, and see the embossed ink which does not run over with fond and loving eyes. Then, of course, it means, understanding where exactly does this book fit into your scheme of things? Where exactly does it melt down your intellectual defenses and you make the decision to purchase the beloved creation, which has inspired millions the world over, for so many centuries. As an object and also as a cultural memoir, a book has stood the test of time.
Books tell the tale of time – a tale so old and so wrapped in layers of mystery and desire that it evokes wonder even in the most tired eyes. They can evoke mystery, wonder, and poetry. They can generate energy and creativity and sometimes, even wanderlust. They can make you travel worlds without even moving from your chair or bed. They hide different cultures and different worlds between 2 covers and these worlds comprise of so much humanity and humanness that one is left ginger-eyed with wonder. Magic is a word associated with this object, which is both a cultural artefact and a tangible product which can be held, nurtured, and loved in all its glory. This is indeed beautiful and something to be cherished, year after year. Paper can simultaneously remind us of something wispy, something which smells of cookies, and something which is as mesmerizing as it is intoxicating. It has a value which goes beyond the obvious – a symbolic value, if you may – something which has stood the test of time, for years and years and years.
As a child, I was introduced to the world of books by my parents, both of them book lovers, and both of them storytellers, in their own right. They used to entertain and regale me with fairytales, adventure stories, and classics. I was not just watching Disney movies, but reading the originals in Ladybird classics even before they were released. I was a 10-year-old with a precocious attitude to life, something that was so embedded in my genes as a reader, that it was bound to stay on, even later in life. I remember the time when my sister’s Barbie doll was stolen from a bench in the park where we used to play as kids, and the first thing that struck my mind was ‘A murder mystery!’ It was fantastic, inspired by nebulous magical nights of reading Famous Five and Secret Seven.
Books are love, to me. They are the embodied idea that love can be concrete, apart from the love between human beings, and this love is no less, at all. It’s equally valuable, equally beautiful, and equally precious. It’s not just the candyfloss variety of love I am talking about: it’s also the meandering, subtle, and elegant types. It’s both. It’s the love for hardbacks and paperbacks, the love for dust jackets and the love for typographic covers. There are all kinds of book love, but there’s never the same book love twice.
Aesthetics aside, I love the fact that they can transport me to another world with the mere opening up of a page, and the mere flicker of words on a page. It’s pure magic.