We are the books we read – Tracey Thorn

We are tidying up some of the books, in part thanks to the youngest of my children who was home for Easter and finally decided to clear his room of everything I have forced him to read since. he was a child. Or at least, he probably sees it that way. He was never a keen reader, even though as a child he loved hearing us tell bedtime stories. Growing up he moved away from books, which failed to capture his attention. Too many other things were more at hand, and more fun.

In the boxes stacked outside his room, I find the readings I recommended. I often left the books for him on the bed, in the hope that leafing through them he would find the right one. Science fiction novels, detective stories, spy stories, detective stories, science fiction books, alternative comedies – I’ve tried them all. And someone caught her attention, even though I’ve never been able to predict what it would be.

However, I learned a lesson: the love of reading is something that cannot be imposed on anyone. Either we like to read or we don’t like it, and I had to accept the idea that maybe he would never be an enthusiast. Then one day he came home from school and told me they had read Dublin people, by James Joyce, and his eyes shone, no novel had ever struck him so much. That year for Christmas I gave him a poster of the original cover, which still has the honor of hanging on a wall in his room.

An example to follow
This is why it doesn’t bother me now to see him get rid of all those books that have failed to capture his attention. Inspired by her example, I begin to look at the shelves on the landing in front of our daughters’ bedrooms, still full of the books left here when they moved to college. Soon, instead of throwing things away, I immerse myself in the story told by the collection in front of me.

There is a huge volume, All the works of Shakespeare, which had been a school award. I don’t think it has ever been open. Here then The Faber book of science, next to a Jack Monroe cookbook, Sexual politics next to Skulduggery pleasant. Then I see a copy of The virgins suicide – I remember how much it struck me to read it, the concern I felt for the girls – and next to it Generation lost by Vera Brittain: I remember the tears I shed reading it.

I smile as I recognize and pick up the volume of The Miserables. Not only is it 1,647 pages long, but it is in French and my daughter, who does not speak French, read it: she was so impressed by the story that according to her the only version to read was the original language version. Another example of how teenagers are absolutely incredible and capable of setting the world on fire with their passions.

The more I look at their books, the more I understand how much they reflect their tastes and personalities. The periodic table is located next to The skin type solution; Louise Bourgeois near the Biology gods micro–organisms; Emma next to Cosmo by Carl Sagan. All of these books have helped shape the people they are now: young women who have read Brick lane, Difficult happiness (Prozac nation), This book is gay e Of the beauty, First do no harm, 1984 e Rebecca, the first wife.

Among the books chosen by them independently there are some of mine, such as the copy of the Poems by TS Eliot, with a cigarette burn that I had left on the cover. Deliberately left, I must say, when I was studying; and inside, notes written in the margin with my handwriting.

Oh God, what did I write? “Indifference is considered a universal condition”, “oppressive routine”, “sordid sexuality”, “destruction, madness, panic”. I guess I wrote a paper based on these observations. I must have probably opened my tutor’s eyes, leading him to understand the true meaning of the poems.

I shouldn’t laugh. That’s why we keep books, isn’t it? For the little ghosts of past versions of ourselves that they keep within them? The pages are littered with traces of who we were: what else were we doing when we read this book? What did we think? What were we wearing? I bet none of us reread the books in the house as often as we could, or think we should. But we like the way they look and we love the memories they arouse. Here is the story of a preserved life, here on the library.

I’m not going to get rid of many of these books.

(Translation by Mariachiara Benini)