last year I’ve allowed myself to do marginalia, to allow me to write notes and whatever I want on the books I read while I read.
it’s inherently destructive, but it changes the whole experience. reading is no longer a passive activity but a conversation with the material. and I love it.
but felt guilty about doing irreversible changes to the book. then this shit shows up.
It’s destructive but it’s also constructive. That conversation with the material gives future owners new perspectives. At least in my opinion as someone who collects old subcultural texts. Notes in the margins adds to the experience of an old book
If you have really complex books with lots of story threads, I can imagine doing this. For example in Tolstoy’s War and Peace or GRRM A song of ice and fire books.
Almost all of my books are thrifted, which gives me the luxury of no guilt. And I get to argue with previous marginalia, which is fun because they can’t respond.
This is kinda how books worked throughout most of medieval history. Paper was expensive and anyway, the margins often become teaching tools in and of themselves. It becomes a centuries long comment section, so ideas get passed down and develop through the centuries. Like one of the most important books of medieval philosophy that probably no one without a doctoral in theology gives a shit about is Peter Lombard’s Sentences which is just a collection of common comments people in about books that he thought were good for teaching. (I have been working on implementing a HTML cross reference version of it using Twine, and have been trying to parse [pun intended] a theological discussion about what it means to enjoy not use god. Larger project is to recreate an accessible “medieval curriculum” through Twine)
As much as I’d fantasize about all my books preserved as a library, they’ll probably be separated from each other someday. The least I can do is put my soul in them - tuck a pamphlet or bookmark, a movie ticket. I’ve never been unhappy seeing a comment in a book - I was reading a 60 year old middle school text recently, and discovered a kid had wrote “[clearly female name] is a MAGGOT F_GGOT!!!” which was just so fucking hilarious.
Did you know that the Talmud is basically marginalia? it looks so weird because marginalia was turn into text then got another generation of marginalia
last year I’ve allowed myself to do marginalia, to allow me to write notes and whatever I want on the books I read while I read. it’s inherently destructive, but it changes the whole experience. reading is no longer a passive activity but a conversation with the material. and I love it.
but felt guilty about doing irreversible changes to the book. then this shit shows up.
It’s destructive but it’s also constructive. That conversation with the material gives future owners new perspectives. At least in my opinion as someone who collects old subcultural texts. Notes in the margins adds to the experience of an old book
it’s transformative, if I’m expected to change when reading a book so is the book
Since I turned 30 I write in the margins of books I read. The better the book is the more notes. Its much more engaging.
100%
maybe it’s my ADHD, but now I cannot read without a pen
Ok, but what is there to take notes about? Assuming it’s a novel, and not some reference book.
If you have really complex books with lots of story threads, I can imagine doing this. For example in Tolstoy’s War and Peace or GRRM A song of ice and fire books.
It would be more useful to take notes besides the book rather than inside it in that case. Maybe it’s just me, though.
I like the idea of this. It would make a re-read or even just flipping through the book years later a lot of fun.
and if another person reads it, they are engaging in that conversation as well and will know what you thought of the book and add to it.
Almost all of my books are thrifted, which gives me the luxury of no guilt. And I get to argue with previous marginalia, which is fun because they can’t respond.
This is kinda how books worked throughout most of medieval history. Paper was expensive and anyway, the margins often become teaching tools in and of themselves. It becomes a centuries long comment section, so ideas get passed down and develop through the centuries. Like one of the most important books of medieval philosophy that probably no one without a doctoral in theology gives a shit about is Peter Lombard’s Sentences which is just a collection of common comments people in about books that he thought were good for teaching. (I have been working on implementing a HTML cross reference version of it using Twine, and have been trying to parse [pun intended] a theological discussion about what it means to enjoy not use god. Larger project is to recreate an accessible “medieval curriculum” through Twine)
As much as I’d fantasize about all my books preserved as a library, they’ll probably be separated from each other someday. The least I can do is put my soul in them - tuck a pamphlet or bookmark, a movie ticket. I’ve never been unhappy seeing a comment in a book - I was reading a 60 year old middle school text recently, and discovered a kid had wrote “[clearly female name] is a MAGGOT F_GGOT!!!” which was just so fucking hilarious.
Did you know that the Talmud is basically marginalia? it looks so weird because marginalia was turn into text then got another generation of marginalia