I wanted to write a short essay entitled “Too Many Books.” It seemed like an original title to me. But other so many times, they have beaten me by the hand. The fact that they have first me gives me the old idea that everything is already written. Literature, however, makes use of reversals that provide new perspectives: subjective and singular perspectives that come with new edges to themes that have accompanied man since the beginning of time.
Fabio Morábito, in his homonymous essay, writes that, just as there are trees on which a forest rests, the same happens with books. Our library leans on a few. “They may not be the oldest, nor the ones we love the most, nor the ones we have read the most times, but for some reason they have determined the direction and character of the ensemble,” says Morábito.
“A writer who owns more than a thousand books becomes suspicious. What is he writing for, I wonder. It should only be written to alleviate any lack of reading. There where we notice a hole in our library, the lack of a certain book in particular, it is justified that we take a pen to, in the most decorous way possible, write it ourselves. Write, then, as a corrective. Write to keep reading ”.
Perhaps the first essay written with this title is the one published in 1972 by Gabriel Zaid, a Mexican poet and intellectual. In the book, which he won the Anagrama Essay Prize, Zaid lists ideas that arouse the reader’s curiosity. For example, mention three types of books: for the resume, for the market and the classics (or with inspiration from tradition). His Malthusian vision says that something like Malthus’s Law happens in literature, there are too many books and few readers; just as food was not going to be enough for the human population, readers will not run out of books.
Zaid argues that while books multiply in geometric proportion, readers multiply in arithmetic proportion. If the passion for publishing does not stop, we are heading towards a world with more authors than readers. He says that time to read (because of its scarcity) is the most expensive thing about reading. Ironizes about certain attitudes in the world of reading, comparing it to hunting, where the trophies acquired are shown. Reading is a “duty” that almost no one does, not as much as it should or not. Zaid scoffs at what he calls the “Categorical Imperative to Read and Be Worshipful”, within a reality of vast culture. Through real and imagined anecdotes, phrases from thinkers who have seen the problem, and a mosaic of experiences, it is revealed that too many books are a crushing reality, despite and sometimes favored by recent technologies.
“What the hell does it matter if you’re educated, up to date, or have read all the books? What matters is how you walk, how you look, how you act, after reading. If the street and the clouds and the existence of others have something to tell us. If reading makes us, physically, more real ”. Zaid concludes.
In my case, too many books, those I procrastinate, threaten to kill the reader. That is why you should only keep essential books. The rest must be circulated. Because books are not loaned. They are given away.
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