True or false III

Today I will try to conclude this series of commentaries on lines about literature found in Matthew Pearl’s novel The Last Bookaneer.

Writers must write and they suffer if they don’t. Then they suffer if they do.

True. It’s a different kind of suffering, however. The first kind is similar to what anyone else feels when denied the opportunity to do what they love. Writers gets ideas or characters or plot lines flying around in their heads, and it can be frustrating not to be able to release them onto paper. Afterward the suffering comes from the conviction the published result is not as good as it might have been.

A man’s library opens up his character to the world.

True. Just the fact that you have a library, when so many other people don’t, makes a statement about you. The books in your library add their own comments about not just your character but also your tastes, your interests and your passion for reading.

The biggest secret kept by the literary world ... is that the best way for a book to become successful is to be unread.

False. This statement has two parts, the “biggest secret part” and the “best way” part. I doubt that either is true. To be sure, many people have owned popular books they have never read, the Bible, for example, or books by Stephen Hawking or Will Durant. Some books we buy just to feel better about ourselves. But I’m sure publishers prefer books people actually read so they will want to buy subsequent books by the same authors. James Patterson wouldn’t have sold nearly as many books if nobody actually read them.

A real author would never introduce himself as an “author.”

True. Authors seem to refer to themselves as writers, not authors. The word author sounds pretentious, but it also has the advantage of being more specific. An author is someone with at least one published book, while a writer can just be someone working on a book, or someone who writes for magazines, newspapers, a blog or whatever.

How odd it must be to go through life believing that a book is a book.

True. Overstatement, but still true. The point being made is that a book, or at least one that has been owned and read, is more than a book. It is a museum of memories. We can often recall where we were and what we felt while reading a particular book. Books sometimes contain underlinings, notes, inscriptions, pressed flowers, business cards, photos, newspaper clippings or anything that can be put into a book. Pearl quotes Charles Lamb telling Coleridge that “books are not just the words on the page, but the blots and the dog-eared corners, the buttery thumbprints and pipe ash we leave on them.” So true.