The Dismantled Library: Life Among the Savages

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Life Among the Savages

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
1997
Weight: 11 ounces
Method of Disposal: Leaving somewhere in Decatur, GA

Shirley Jackson is a brilliant author and, in this case, amusing. This book is an autobiography, and it shows the chaos and interlinked thoughts of a mother and a housewife. The whole book is just detail after detail about regular family life. The first few pages are my favorite.

I do not have any stories tied to this book. I bought it from a used bookstore. It cost me $4.25, and it would have retailed at $11.95. I recommend it, though I know that there are people close to me who will not enjoy it. There are others that will love it. Just be prepared for hectic, inappropriate, and loving family life. This is the closest I come to trying to understand.

3 comments:

SarahOctober 22, 2010 at 1:18 PM
No! Give it to me please! It is on my reading list!
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lauraOctober 25, 2010 at 9:11 AM
Then it is yours! I am glad to give it to you.

-Dismantled Library-
-Laura-
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SarahOctober 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM
Yay! Love on you!
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Among the Rubble of Fallen Bookshelves...

I have collected books for as long as I can remember. I worked in bookstores for years before I ended up at the animal shelter. I have gathered words, sentences, punctuation, and cover art to my own detriment. I purchased books before clothes, sometimes instead of food. I can see my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood sprawled across many shelves and shoved into boxes that sit collecting dust, just waiting for the next big move. I think I am a woman who is afraid of commitment, settling, and stagnation. Yet the things I love most seem to coincide best with a stable, secure, immovable life. I love dogs, books, and often one woman’s company above that of others. The dogs are here for the long haul. They are too wonderful for this world and yet they are essential to it. The woman is complicated. The books are sturdy, durable, constant, perfect, and full of intrigue. They are also very heavy. They are boxes of ounces, pounds, kilograms, weight. We have moved together too many times. Maybe we met at the wrong time in the wrong place, and I have just refused to let go all of this time. I have decided to dismantle this library of thousands of books. What am I holding onto really? I have books I loved, books I hated, books that made me uneasy for weeks, and books that made someone else uneasy for weeks. I have begun to treat these books like objects and not like the magical capsules they are. I am going to give away, sell, donate all of this weight so that others can enjoy it, collect it, share it, and so that I can move more freely through my life. Libraries are where it’s at. The problem: I am terrified to let the books go. We have been together so long and put each other through so much. The only way I can imagine sending them off is if I memorialize each and every one I have left at this moment. This blog is to honor my friends, my enemies, my lovers, my life, and my words as I have collected them through the books I have read and, finally, to move away from them and onto other things. I will never stop loving books. I will never stop reading. I plan only to stop collecting so much material, so much weight.

The Dismantled Library

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Life Among the Savages

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