Musing 8 July or the smell of old books

Did you know that the smell of old books, that scent of time and unread words, is caused by the decomposition of the cellulose and lignin, both plant polymers? What's even better is that smell has a name, bibliosmia. That's the smell of words being forgotten, stories being lost, the book returning to its composite parts.

I love that smell, and I'm sure many of you do too.

I started collecting old books for crafts. I would disassemble them and create other things out of the paper and bindings. Collages, frames, assemblage art, etc. The act of disassembling a book is troubling, given how precious books have been until quite recently, so I started reading them before I took them apart. I then got interested in them for their own sake. 

Old books are different creatures from modern. The paper feels different, the fonts vary more, and sometimes the bindings or illustrations are delightful. They reveal outdated ways of thought, lost music and poems, and have their own weighty presence.

Now I have a corner of the living room, devoted to old books and oddities. If I'm in a thrift store or yard sale, my fingers itch for old paper. It's kind of ridiculous. I'm never going to read all of the new books I have, let alone the old ones, but it feels like someone has to rescue them from rot, and that someone may as well be me.

I could say something here to turn all of this into a metaphor. Lost knowledge. Each death the end of a library (young or old). my own gradual decay into irrelevance. But I won't. Let the books exist for their own sake which is, of course, why I give them shelf space. 

We each have our own odd little fascinations. Welcome to one of mine.

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