C.S. Lewis and Bibliophilia

I am slowly working my way through "Surprised by Joy" by C.S. Lewis. It's not that I'm not finding it interesting or well-written, but it requires so much "real" attention that I cannot just casually read it. So ,eventually, I'll finish it and move on to another book in my stack. Next is "James and the Giant Peach." :)

A short side note, when I read C.S. Lewis...I just discovered this...the narrator in my head is Anthony Hopkins. Which could be another reason that it's taking so long...Anthony Hopkins is a slow reader. :) Why would Anthony Hopkins be the narrator? Well, quite simply because he played C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands...great movie by the way if you haven't seen it.

The last chapter I just completed in "Surprised by Joy," Lewis speaks about a couple of things that he learned from a friend he had as a boy. One of these things is a respect for the body of a book.

"One other thing that Arthur taught me was to love the bodies of books. I had always respected them. My brother and I might cut stepladders without scruple; to have thumb-marked or dog's-eared a book would have filled us with shame. But Arthur did not merely respect, he was enamored; and soon, I too. The set up of the page, the feel and smell of the paper, the differing sounds that different papers make as you turn the leaves, became sensuous delights. This revealed to me a flaw in Kirk (a headmaster, aka Knock). How often have I shuddered when he took a new classical text of mine in his gardener's hands, bent back the boards till they creaked, and left his sign on every page.

"Yes, I remember," said my father. "That was old Knock's one fault."

"A bad one," said I.

"An all but unforgivable one," said my father. "

I have always had a respect for books themselves...Unless you are truly a book lover you do not know the pleasure that can be given when one touches a book and hears that first crack of the binding and that clean paper smell. A bibliophile...A lover of books.

This person is often a collector of books; regardless of their topic. I have several beautiful old books that I purchased at book sales simply because of the cover of the book or the texture of the paper. It's almost as though it were an addiction, an illness at the very least. My personal book collection was well over a thousand volumes right before I married Aaron. Sadly, there was simply no way to keep them all and many were sold or donated. But, over the course of our marriage I know our collection will grow. Hopefully, our children will respect and cherish them as much as we do and they will be passed on.

A little quote to share that kind of summed up my attitude about books in college. "If I have a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." Erasmus.