Question: How do you start a fight at a book club? Answer: Ask them about marginalia.
Marginalia — the practice of jotting down notes in the margins of a book — is a divisive topic. The mere mention of it guarantees a bust-up among the bibliophiles, transforming the literati into the Bitter Arty. What’s more — as is so common these days — there’s a distinct line between the two feuding sides.
One faction thinks that marginalia is a foul habit. By nature, I’m with these guys and gals. My every instinct says that defacing a book is wrong. As my university housemate said, when proffered newspaper as a substitute for (too-lazy-to-buy) toilet paper: “I refuse to wipe my arse on print.” I agree — the written word should remain unspoiled and, indeed, unsoiled. (It is also unlikely to be double-quilted.)
And yet there are some who see marginalia as a wonderful thing — a conversation between writer and reader. What’s more, it can be a tool for writers, forcing them to absorb the content. As Austin Kleon says:
I believe that the first step towards becoming a writer is becoming a reader, but the next step is becoming a reader with a pencil.
Also, as Mark Twain proved, marginalia can be both cruel and hilarious.
So what’s a good, semi-clean-cut boy to do? On the one hand, my writing arm seizes up at the horror of graffitiing those precious pages; on the other hand, I am, you know, kind of a lazy reader. I could do with the practice.
I’ve decided to break myself in gently, with the radical new technique of Underlinia. (I’ll work on the name.) Active reading without the wit — surely I can manage that.
Which leaves me with just one problem: during the next bookworm brawl, how am I meant to pick a side?