FYI or die

Writing in books was always a touchy subject growing up.   I once borrowed a book off my mum and wrote in the margins, nothing particularly scandalous but in ballpoint pen nonetheless.  Probably something like: nice, or maybe some ecstatic !!!! that I do when I like a turn of phrase or idea.  Alas, the outrage at my pen crime (no doubt, enough to revoke my pen license?) was substantial enough for me to NEVER EVER write in any book that is not my own again.  A basic but essential lesson for every child.

However, as an adult I can’t help but write in books.  (But only if I own them 100% outright, I promise.)   If I read something I like in a book my right hand begins to ache and intuitively reach out for a pen.  There was even a time when I was particularly nerdy and used to actually type out sentences and concepts I liked on my computer, accompanied with the book details and page numbers, as if I was going to someday use them in some imaginary essay.  At this point of my life it does seem rather fanciful that I am still collecting research for this imaginary essay intended for whom?  to what end? 

Alas, I was pretty happy to find out that one of my favourite writers, David Foster Wallace, no less, is also a book writer on-erer. (That is the PC term, FYI).   The University of Texas has recently made an archive of his writing available on their website.  This includes miscellaneous writing, his books and his miscellaneous writing on books.  It seems that if you ever had the honour of lending your book to DFW that shit would have come back looking like a sudoku abandoned on a train.  

Check out what he did to Cormac McCarthy’s face below.

And he definitely had a lot to say about Don Delillo’s Ratner’s Star.

Check them all out here.

Is it weird that this makes me want to reread Consider the Lobster while making scribbles in the margins?  Simple pleasures for simple people.