I find the notes and random enigmatic markings people leave in books to be tremendously fascinating. Since people generally don't leave markings in books for other people's benefits, they're often completely incomprehensible to any following readers. Hell, if the people who leave notes in books are anything like me, they're probably totally meaningless to themselves after a month or so.
So, divorced from the original intention as they so often are, I find it fascinating to speculate on why someone would take the time to mark a passage or write a word or two. What was it about that passage that they felt needed comment, or deserved coming back to? And, of course, some people will use the blank pages at the back of the book, or the inside back cover, to write more general thoughts on the work itself. But usually these are no more understandable than something written in text. My favorite note is in a copy of Beckett's Watt at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's library. Just above the start of the text someone wrote, in large letters, "You're supposed to like Watt." Do they mean the character? Do they mean the book as a whole? If it's the former... well I don't really think that's a requirement, but whatever. But if its the latter, that's just hilarious. Were they some burgeoning Beckett scholar, but just couldn't stand Watt (which is totally understandable)? "Goddamnit, I just hate this book! But if I don't like it... what kind of a Beckett scholar will I be? No! I HAVE TO LIKE WATT! I'm just going to write it here so I remember that."
Library books are great because, if its a popular book, they might actually have a multitude of voices. But people are often squeamish to write in library books, so more often than not you get virgin pages. Many people cringe at the idea of defacing a book at all. This is probably a good thing, I'll admit. If there wasn't a general reverence for books, the entire text would be underlined, and that's no fun. And, of course, most people's thoughts on books are totally banal anyway.
Fortunately, I landed a sort of windfall for my personal connection awhile back. When I worked at UWM's library literary critic Ihab Hassen donated an enormous cache of books to the library. I got the privilege to go through a great deal of them and figure out whether or not UWM already had copies of them. These duplicates would be sent to the book sale, but they had to go through my discerning tastes first. So I have a lot of books with "Ihab Hassen" scribbled on the inside front cover. Much more interesting though is what's marked throughout the books, and what's written on the back cover. Hassen almost always marked passages of interest, and wrote what appears to be themes he noticed, or thoughts he had in the back of the book. Most of the time I have no idea what he's talking about.
I just recently finished Hassan's copy of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, and on the back cover he wrote:
Anyway, Contact, the notion of understanding the ocean is usually capitalized in text, and Hassan's marks often coincide with passages dealing specifically with it... but, now, this second part confuses me. Mostly because I'm not as Hassan and have no clue what connection he's drawing here.
Initially I had no idea who "Berton" was. I still don't have a very good idea, actually. If you try to search for "Berton Surrealism" in Google, Google assumes that you actually meant "Breton Surrealism". Well, I didn't mean "Breton Surrealism" when I typed it in, and somehow I doubt Hassan meant to say "Breton, and connection with Surrealism." First of all, I just assume that he's familiar enough with Surrealism to know how to spell one of its founders names correctly. Second of all, saying "Breton, and connection with Surrealism" is kind of like saying "Freud, and connection with Psychoanalysis." So I told Google that, no search for what I originally wanted to search for. But even then Google persisted in assuming I'm an idiot and assumed that I probably meant "Burton Surrealism" as in Tim. No. No. No I definitely didn't mean that. Fortunately, you can tell Google to definitively fuck off by putting a "+" in front of what you really don't want it to correct. Finally, that yielded some results (though, admittedly, most of them were people talking about Surrealism and misspelling André Breton's name).
So, from what I gather, Hassan is talking about Germaine Berton. She was a young outspoken anarchist who assassinated Marius Plateau, an "extreme right activist" associated with the Camelots du Roi in front of quite a few witnesses. She fully admitted to the crime and was then acquitted. You know, even though she admitted to it. I'm gathering most of this (and inadequately summarizing) it from the following chapter in Jonathan Paul Eberne's Surrealism and the Art of Crime. You can find the relevant chapter here
So, divorced from the original intention as they so often are, I find it fascinating to speculate on why someone would take the time to mark a passage or write a word or two. What was it about that passage that they felt needed comment, or deserved coming back to? And, of course, some people will use the blank pages at the back of the book, or the inside back cover, to write more general thoughts on the work itself. But usually these are no more understandable than something written in text. My favorite note is in a copy of Beckett's Watt at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's library. Just above the start of the text someone wrote, in large letters, "You're supposed to like Watt." Do they mean the character? Do they mean the book as a whole? If it's the former... well I don't really think that's a requirement, but whatever. But if its the latter, that's just hilarious. Were they some burgeoning Beckett scholar, but just couldn't stand Watt (which is totally understandable)? "Goddamnit, I just hate this book! But if I don't like it... what kind of a Beckett scholar will I be? No! I HAVE TO LIKE WATT! I'm just going to write it here so I remember that."
Library books are great because, if its a popular book, they might actually have a multitude of voices. But people are often squeamish to write in library books, so more often than not you get virgin pages. Many people cringe at the idea of defacing a book at all. This is probably a good thing, I'll admit. If there wasn't a general reverence for books, the entire text would be underlined, and that's no fun. And, of course, most people's thoughts on books are totally banal anyway.
Fortunately, I landed a sort of windfall for my personal connection awhile back. When I worked at UWM's library literary critic Ihab Hassen donated an enormous cache of books to the library. I got the privilege to go through a great deal of them and figure out whether or not UWM already had copies of them. These duplicates would be sent to the book sale, but they had to go through my discerning tastes first. So I have a lot of books with "Ihab Hassen" scribbled on the inside front cover. Much more interesting though is what's marked throughout the books, and what's written on the back cover. Hassen almost always marked passages of interest, and wrote what appears to be themes he noticed, or thoughts he had in the back of the book. Most of the time I have no idea what he's talking about.
I just recently finished Hassan's copy of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, and on the back cover he wrote:
The issue of Contact"The issue of Contact," makes plenty of sense. It's kind of the theme of the whole novel. On the other hand, since it's capitalized it could be talking about a very specific type. The book is about researchers attempting to make contact with a mysterious life form covering the entire planet of Solaris. The life form, which is described as an ocean, does various mysterious things (like building structures, apparently controlling the orbit of the planet, building landforms, swallowing them up, &c.) that generally leave every scientist baffled. It's most recent trick is sending precise duplicates of humans that have had a certain traumatic connection to the researchers currently hovering around the planet. It's not really too much of a spoiler to point out that they fail spectacularly again and again to make contact with the ocean, and, ultimately to make a dent in understanding the damn thing. But they keep trying. And that's the important part. 'A' for effort and all that.
Berton, and connection with Surrealism.
Anyway, Contact, the notion of understanding the ocean is usually capitalized in text, and Hassan's marks often coincide with passages dealing specifically with it... but, now, this second part confuses me. Mostly because I'm not as Hassan and have no clue what connection he's drawing here.
Initially I had no idea who "Berton" was. I still don't have a very good idea, actually. If you try to search for "Berton Surrealism" in Google, Google assumes that you actually meant "Breton Surrealism". Well, I didn't mean "Breton Surrealism" when I typed it in, and somehow I doubt Hassan meant to say "Breton, and connection with Surrealism." First of all, I just assume that he's familiar enough with Surrealism to know how to spell one of its founders names correctly. Second of all, saying "Breton, and connection with Surrealism" is kind of like saying "Freud, and connection with Psychoanalysis." So I told Google that, no search for what I originally wanted to search for. But even then Google persisted in assuming I'm an idiot and assumed that I probably meant "Burton Surrealism" as in Tim. No. No. No I definitely didn't mean that. Fortunately, you can tell Google to definitively fuck off by putting a "+" in front of what you really don't want it to correct. Finally, that yielded some results (though, admittedly, most of them were people talking about Surrealism and misspelling André Breton's name).
So, from what I gather, Hassan is talking about Germaine Berton. She was a young outspoken anarchist who assassinated Marius Plateau, an "extreme right activist" associated with the Camelots du Roi in front of quite a few witnesses. She fully admitted to the crime and was then acquitted. You know, even though she admitted to it. I'm gathering most of this (and inadequately summarizing) it from the following chapter in Jonathan Paul Eberne's Surrealism and the Art of Crime. You can find the relevant chapter here
Of course, Eberne's mainly talking about this through the eyes of the Surrealists, which Hassan was concerned with as well. In my mind Surrealists probably liked Berton a lot because they're wacky and like crazy shit like that. But, Louis Aragon, as the book points out, used her as a sort of moral compass, in a usually surrealistically wacky way.
So, really, all of this is fascinating, but, Goddamnit Hassan, what does it have to do with Solaris?!
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