Why Bother with the Books?

Sipping on our black coffee, my grandad and I sit together in his living room every morning. We drift between comfortable silence, where I return to my book, he returns to his paper, and short bursts of conversation. A new restaurant is opening in town, he says. I called the bank earlier, I say. What time do you start work, he asks. Yes, I will remember my umbrella, I respond.

One day he swivels around in his chair, turning to face the bookshelf behind him. He repeats the thought that has so often plagued him, what are we going to do about all these books when he’s gone. My grandmother and grandad were big readers. She studied and taught literature, while he read nearly as much. Once, he directed my attention towards the twin recliners that sit in front of the big window that overlooks the fields. The deep brown leather chairs are separated by a grand coffee table and accompanied by two identical reading lamps. There they once sat, every morning, to read the paper. He tells me, when the paper used to come in two sections, we used to sit in those chairs, I would read one, your grandmother the other, then we would trade. I was quite struck by the account of this simple pleasure, the romantic possibility of two halves of a paper for two people; two people separate in their own right, but nevertheless joined, just like the paper.

There are too many books, he says, more, even, downstairs. Rows and rows of books. We used to receive a new book each month, he says. The mark of this collection was a beautiful spine. The shelves of my grandad’s house are filled with these. I have scanned them time and time again, searching for names I recognise.

I didn’t discover I really cared for literature, until five years after my grandmother’s death. Growing more curious about her reading habits, my grandad directed me towards where she kept all her books that were written in English (predominantly those that she must have studied). Having recently read Pride and Prejudice, and knowing that she was an Austen fan, I scanned the shelves for the familiar name. I found Sense and Sensibility, which I quickly took possession of. Over the years I gradually recognised more titles, I found The Catcher in the Rye, Mrs Dalloway, The Essential Hemingway. When I later began studying literature and Mrs Dalloway was assigned on one of our courses, I knew exactly where to look.

Inside I found my grandmother’s notes in the margins. On the opening page where the heading reads ‘Mrs Dalloway’, she had written ‘Richard Dalloway MP’. I remember being puzzled as to why she had decided to jot this down. I wondered what this clarification amounted to, what its purpose was in relation to how she read and understood the novel. It’s difficult to decipher the notes that my grandmother made. My own theory is that perhaps she wanted to be rid of the ‘Mrs’, to identify who that represented right from the jump. What was left, was Clarissa. This is most likely just my own ideals of what my grandmother was like, shining through my analysis of her analysis. Regardless, her thoughts lie here, whether I can decipher their meanings or not. Through the books she owned and read I have an ongoing conversation with her, even beyond death. My grandad flips through his scrapbooks, gazing at the face of his wife, looking at the moments of their life together, thinking perhaps of her smile, her laugh, her mind. I, who did not get to know her mind, gaze at the signs of its genius within the pages of her books.

For Christmas last year my mum gifted me a copy of Jean Rhys’s After Leaving Mr Mackenzie. She bought it second hand (she was trying to be more economical this year). The edition contained many of the previous owner’s thoughts on Rhys, with passages carefully underlined. I find it almost impossible to be unaffected by another’s annotations, the blue ink used to underline, physically shouts out to you. With a sense of indignation, I search for significance elsewhere, I find my own lines worth underlining. But I just re-read their chosen passages again, and again. When I have found another, more entertaining or enlightening, I’m puzzled as to why this person believed their passage to be worth the blue ink. Yet again, I find myself engaged in conversation, though this time with a person of total anonymity. I wonder also, if a book was worth annotating, why someone would give it away. Perhaps I am just overly sentimental, and, no doubt, too crazy about Rhys to ever fathom giving up any one of her novels. But, this person had.

Once, searching for books on my assigned reading list, I was in Primrose Hill and turned into a used book shop. I presented the list to the man behind the counter, and he very enthusiastically flew from his post to the storage room. He came back with one of the novels, it was Lucky Jim. I bought the book for no more than three pounds, thanked the man most heartily for his help and made my way home. At the end of the day, as I was flicking through the pages, out fell a copy of a photo automat strip. A couple, decked out in what looked like sixties attire, glared back at me. All three of us appeared taken aback by this encounter. I ran to show the picture to my dad, and he confirmed that it must be from the sixties. How could anyone part with a book that contained such a sentimental bookmark, I thought, as I stared at the faces in the picture. Or, perhaps, with their lives, so full of happy memories, pictures, and books, they had simply forgotten this one. Through their discarded book I was suddenly privy to their past. I could imagine their lives, why and when they chose to take this photo. I imagined that they had just then decided to get married. They were young, seemingly reckless, but more in love than practical. And this photo represented that. It almost felt too intimate of a memory to keep, but I decided to return it to the pages.

I have gazed at my grandparents’ books my entire life, reading the obscure names, tracing the style patterns, considering. The primary issue, for myself at least, is that most of the books are in Norwegian. I do the majority of my reading in English. My Norwegian reading level is, slightly lower. To read something rich and complex would take me much longer and require unwavering concentration. It is this fact alone that accounts for my grandad’s scepticism of mine inheriting any of his books. Although, I have assured him that even if I am never able to read them all, I would very much like to have them. It is also that he believes that they are more of a burden than a gift. He doesn’t see why anyone should really bother about the books.

Today he pointed to a row of books and asked me if I knew who Doris Lessing was. I responded that I did, though, I admitted that I was yet to read any of her books. We found The Golden Notebook, in English. There were the familiar scribblings of my grandmother, alongside Lessing’s musings. My grandad told me to put it back on the shelf. Now, he said, I would know where it stood. This book I would inherit. I would discover Lessing’s work through my grandmother’s own such discovery. Although I am to inherit jewellery and paintings from my grandparents, these books are equally important, equally sentimental. The paintings my grandfather loves reflect his nostalgia for his youth, for a time before his youth. They depict Norway through images of farms and woodland. The image of a horse pulling a cart through the snow can be found all over his house. This is the art he loves. The books are some of the art my grandmother loved. Here lies her voice. In my grandparents’ shared collections lies their companionship. I think I will bother a great deal about the books, despite the shake of my grandad’s head.

Mia Cresswell-Melstrøm is an English-Norwegian writer based in London. She recently graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a Masters in Literature and Modernity. Her literary interests lie mainly in Modernist novels of the early Twentieth century, with a focus on the cities of London, Paris, and Berlin.