New column: By the Book

The Trouble With Spikol: By the Book

I came home and my books were spine-down on the floor, as though the bookshelves had heaved a great sigh and the books had slid off. Vince came in from the next room with more books in his arms.

What was he doing? Looting? While wearing a striped hoodie bathrobe?

He’d gotten tired of waiting for me to organize my books, he explained, and thought if they were all over the floor, I’d be forced to contend with them—a dire strategy, but warranted. I don’t contend with anything at home.

When Vince sees a spindly half-square of Life cereal on the bedspread, his head practically explodes. When I see it … well, I don’t see it. That’s the problem.

In Vince-o-Vision, a wet towel draped on a kitchen chair trips a blinding strobe light. Only returning the towel to the bathroom will shut the light off.

In Liz-o-Vision, the towel miraculously disappears, as does the chair. The room turns into a giant box of Life cereal, and I have to climb inside and crunch until I die.

Poor Vince was like a migraine sufferer. He had the flickering lights of my disorganized books in his eyes for two years.

But unlike anything else in my environment, I care about my books. And I’m vain—I think my collection is interesting and distinctive, and reveals the true essence of an eclectic, sloppy self. That’s why I’ve trucked crumbling, water-dodged volumes from one shithole to the next. The movers always said, “You have a lot of books.” I loved that.

And I loved the surprises. I’d be on my way to the bathroom and I’d catch sight of Delmore Schwartz’s letters, and I’d be reminded of my epistolary period, which started with Schwartz and ended years later with Laclos. “Screw Laclos,” I’d think. “He soured me on Schwartz.”

Or I’d run into a play by Brian Friel, and think, “Wait, didn’t he write something with Philadelphia in it?” and I’d comb through the wreckage and finally pull out Philadelphia, Here I Come from a cloud of cat hair and dust. It would be like running into a grade-school friend you thought moved out of town. You again!

But Vince wanted categories. His own books are beautifully shelved, and in sensible ways. When he wants to reference something, he knows just where it is. He knows to avoid certain shelves in certain moods; he knows where to go if he’s lonely for a particular voice. And there’s never any cat hair or dust.

His life is folded. Mine is wrinkled.

When Vince and I first started dating, I called my mother from his apartment: “Mom, I’m in over my head. His apartment is really nicely decorated with framed things on the walls. It’s neat and clean. There are scrubby things under the sink in the bathroom.”

“They’re called sponges,” she quipped.

I couldn’t imagine such a professional person would ever love me. I kept my messiness hidden for a long time. And by the time he knew I ate cereal in bed and cried for my dead cat, he’d moved from Chicago to Philadelphia. Too late to go home—but not too late to organize.

Vince suggested book categories I might want to use: 20th-century literary history, for instance, or cultural studies.

My categories, when I had any, were: books Bessie, my half-Beagle/half-Dachshund, ate when she was lonely, or super-old books I got for less than $10 but will be worth millions when I’m dead.

I did have all books about Chihuahuas in the same spot, but it just wasn’t enough. Hence the books on the floor.

As Vince and I worked together, I kind of got into it.

“Hey,” I’d marvel. “I forgot I had this.”

And then Vince would pick something else up and say, “I didn’t know you had this,” in a way that made me feel like the new girlfriend instead of the old muddled battle-ax.

But I did put my foot down about categories. Fiction. Nonfiction. Books with mostly pictures. Books with mostly words. That’s as far as I was willing to go.

After a few hours of toting books from one room to another, tempers flared. I hedged at alphabetization. I asked Vince if he insisted, half hoping he would just so I could stomp my foot and be mad. But he threw his hands up in the same way he does when I leave one sock in one room and another on the bed: “It’s hopeless.”

It seemed like a victory. “Hah!” I thought. “Miller before Melville. No one can infringe on my rights.” But later that week, when someone asked me about a book, I went over to the shelf and found myself annoyed.

“I thought the whole point of the organization was that we could find things,” I said irritably to Vince. Then I realized it was me who’d hindered perfection. Bah humbug, as they say on Fiction Shelf No. 3.

So tonight I’m putting Melville before Miller, and I’m ashamed to say I think I’m doing the right thing. I haven’t thought about what I’ll do if a new book enters this world order. But clearly it’ll have to behave. This ain’t no roadside flophouse. Not anymore.

Just the Facts

>> Best song about Delmore Schwartz: “My House,” by Lou Reed.

>> What Lou Reed had to say about Schwartz: “He was the smartest, funniest, saddest person I’d ever met. He had a large scar on his foregead he said he got dueling with Nietzsche.”

>> Best quote from a professional organizer: “Organizing comes from within,” says Rebecca Lang of Clutter Organizers (www.clutterorganizers.com).

>> Relatively local maker of custom bookshelves: Berg’s Craftsmanship in Wood, 477 Alleghenyville Rd., Mohnton. 610.856.7095. www.bergscustomfurniture.com

liz | 11:45 AM | Uncategorized