Marginalia
| May 18, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
…is the general term for notes, scribbles, and editorial comments made in the margin of a book.
Holy cow? There is an actual term for this? The subject of whether or not “marking up” books is to defile them has been on my mind a lot lately. It’s always something I’ve been vehemently against (in addition to dogear-ing corners) but lately I’ve decided to give it a try, namely after consuming a whole book in a single sitting, something else I’ve never done before.
How do you feel about this? Do you write notes in your books? Or do you view it as vandalism (even in the books you own)? If you do, do you have a method? Code marks? What kinds of things do you mark or underline? Do you fold down the corners so you can find your notes later? Do your notes enhance or take away from the book on multiple readings?
I am, personally, not physically capable of marring the pages of a book as I read it. However, I was reading a book recently, that I bought used from amazon.com, and it had notes made in the margins. At first this really annoyed me, and I almost thought of emailing the seller b/c this was *of course* mentioned nowhere in the ad. As I started reading the book, I realized that the notes must have been made while the first owner was taking a course that analyzed the book, and the they were surprisingly insightful. So, in the end, I was actually glad to have gotten the book with “marginalia” in it! Unfortunately, a lot of the writing was in another language!
I highlight or underline misspellings and grammatical errors, it is a pet peeve of mine. Of course I only do this on my books. I never dogear as I use airplane boarding passes for book marks.
i like that you brought this up. i always thought this was a personal struggle unconfronted by others. up until my senior year in high school i didn’t even open my books all the way for fear that the spine would crease. but in senior year i became friends with this super arty girl who not only wrote reading notes in her books but wrote to do lists and drew in them and just made the book her own. i talked to her about it and she just looked at me and tore a page out. she told me that books are for inspiration and they can’t do their job if you don’t get involved.
that totally made sense to me. so ever since then i’ve marked books up. and it’s true, i feel a deeper connection with them. and the best part is that when i look at them again they become a time capsule of my life. i can remember what i was doing when i read it first. and of course i make more notes. so they become your own personal art. a palimpsest of your relationship with your book.
so my point is, go for it.