Endpaper
This gentle madness
By Pradeep Sebastian
Graphics: Netra Shyam
AN old friend who I had not seen in some time told me he has been reading "Endpaper" whenever he chances on it, and added as an afterthought, "you seem to be saying the same thing in all of them." Was I really repeating myself? I wondered later. Thinking about the remark a little more, I realised he had been pointing out to something that was very true of "Endpaper"; not that I was saying the same things over and over again but that there was the same constant, singular refrain in all the pieces: the eternal passion for books.
Writing an obsession
Whatever it was that I was looking at in a particular piece — first editions, marginalia, browsing — the underlying refrain has always been the Indian book lover's relationship to books. For the indifferent reader or the casual browser it might feel like repetition but the inveterate reader can never get enough of reading about her obsession. But perhaps now it is time for "Endpaper" to... er... end. The 40 or so pieces I have written over the last few years have explored several aspects of the passion for reading and book collecting. From the large, obvious themes like the lure of first editions and second-hand bookshops to small, fringe asides about reading in bed, bookshelves and book titles. The column has been one long meditation on what the passion for reading and book collecting was centuries ago (so beautifully) called — a gentle madness.
One aspect of "Endpaper" that I have never been able to properly acknowledge in the column has been the informed, interesting and often delightful responses (via e-mail) of its readers, specially its regular readers. Invariably these readers turn out to be ardent book lovers and book collectors who feel "Endpaper" articulates their "gentle madness". I can't thank them enough for reading me faithfully and carefully, and for joining me in obsessing over books. "Endpaper" was begun with the idea of a column that would go beyond book reviews, interviews and features on literature to subjectively looking at what readers felt, the inner life of a reader as it were. For instance, the editors of The Hindu and I decided to call the column "Endpaper" because it stood for those last few blank pages in a book meant for a reader to scribble her responses — not just about the book at hand but reflections on the act of reading itself.
Some regrets
I regret not being able to write about some things: on my two most favourite writers, for instance, Bernard Malamud and J.D. Salinger. Because it is hardest to write on the things you know well and care for deeply. Several times I attempted trying to say something about Malamud's two overlooked masterpieces, A New Life (about a teacher, after failing many times, trying to be a better person) and Dubin's Lives (about a middle aged writer facing a writer's block and a failing marriage) but discovered I couldn't really say what I wanted to. With Salinger it was wanting to write on the Glass stories, which have always been my favourites, not his other much-written-about book. I would also liked to have written about Sheldon Vanauken's little known religious masterpiece, A Severe Mercy, one of the most beautiful and truthful books on love, God and death; on Donna Tart's The Secret History, the definitive campus novel and an eternal favourite, Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet, a remarkable, one of a kind fictional journal that defies description; a piece on that rarest of genres — the literature of failure (looking at Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano and Fredrick Exley's A Fan's Notes, books about failing); a piece on extraordinary literary critics such as Michael Dirda, Craig Raine, and Dale Peck, a piece on favourite poets and poems, a piece on the revolution in Indian children's literature kicked off and sustained by publishing houses like Tara in Chennai, a piece on the literary mysteries of Jasper Fforde and a piece on my favourite bookstore in India — Lotus in Mumbai.
The enthusiastic response from readers of "Endpaper" amplified what I had always been feeling — that writing about the intellectual life of a reader wasn't some fringe literary subject; that it was long overdue. In America entire essay anthologies are put forth every year that describe and contemplate the reading life. These essays now make up a whole new sub-genre in non-fiction literary writing called "books about books" or "books on books". And at "Endpaper" I reviewed several of them as soon as they were published in the hope that book lovers here would know there were others voices like theirs; voices that accurately, beautifully and wittily spoke for book lovers everywhere. With "Endpaper", I wanted to speak for book lovers here, and so, apart from writing in a confessional way about my own literary obsessions, I included, from time to time, other book-haunted voices. It has been fun and instructive to look so closely and for so long at this obsession, this gentle madness.
pradeepsebastian@hotmail.com
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