The Dismantled Library: martin walker

Friday, November 23, 2012

Life

LIFE! Why We Exist...And What We Must Do To Survive by Martin G. Walker
2006
Weight: 4. 8 oz
Method of Disposal: Left at Chocalatte off Shallowford

This book got great reviews. I cannot personally review it for you...sorry. I realized soon after picking it up that I just cannot get into the philosophy mindset right now. I am not convinced the time will come anytime soon. I was drawn in by the title. I want to know why we exist and what to do with it! I guess I am just not ready to hear the answer yet. I kept reading it and thinking, what is the point and how does this really help me continue to exist? Even a reason for life does not give my life the reason I need to make it matter. Why do I care about life's perseverance? I do not claim any fault with the book. I did not even finish it. I am sure it is as good as so many other people have said, and I hope it reaches one of its intended readers now that I have let it go.

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

Friday, November 23, 2012

Life

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