DAY FIFTY SEVEN

 Why do we own the things we do?

 

I woke to automated emails from my library saying that a number of the seventeen books I have on loan are about to become overdue. Handily, unlike in years past it only takes a few groggy presses on my phone and they are renewed. This is a double-edged boon. Without physically going to the library how will I pick up another seventeen books which I am almost certain not to read.

This has been a life-long habit with me. Of course some of the many thousands of books I must have borrowed will have been read, but many many more will not have been. Same goes for the books I have bought and which now ornament my shelves. The big question is this: Why do I need a constantly replenished supply of borrowed books not to read when I have my own collection of books not to read? 

There is, inevitably, a Japanese word for the buying of books one doesn't read: Tsundoku. It originated in a satirical sense so I understand but is now used simply to describe a widespread phenomenon, one without which I hazard to suggest the world's publishing industry would collapse. Imagine if in general we only bought those things we were actually going to use. I have to say I think the world and we in it would be the better as a result, but that horse disappeared over the hill centuries ago.

 

What tsundoku speaks to is the way we like to possess certain things simply for the reason of possessing them, not for their designed or intended purpose, but for some other quality inherent in the object.

 

Which brings me to arts, crafts and making. The origins of 'art', as such, are a touch obscure. We know where, and when, but we don't really have an adequate explanation of why. Best guess is that it served a utilitarian purpose - communicating something important about the world to other members of the tribe or inter-generationally - before it became something which was done for it's own pleasure, purely to express something or to brighten up the place for the delight and enjoyment of others.

Crafts I think we can say originated almost wholly for utlitarian reasons. They fixed a problem. Weaving cloth with which to keep warm, making pots or baskets to carry forage home and store it, basic woodworking to make tools for the field, more solid homes, enclosures for animals. Perhaps the work of the better craftspeople also attracted praise and recognition beyond the strict utilitarian purposes but it's difficult to imagine a potter in past times, however elegant their work, being praised if the pot leaked. All the same, well made crafts came to attract ideas of inherent beauty and form which in some cases approached ideas usually reserved for art.

 

As with books we have gone beyond the utilitarian in much of what we do. Art is clearly 'ART' in many cases, crafts are as much about making objects of beauty as they are about simply making something which 'works'. It's a strange turnabout in some ways. I have to admit to occasionally experiencing a sense of disappointment because a hand-made craft object leans a little too much towards the utilitarian and practical. 

 

This is a nonsensical and impractical attitude I think, but as real as tsundoku nonetheless. I expect there is a word for it.

Onwards...possessively

Picture credit: Taken by the author. This sculpture of books sits outside Cambridge Univeristy Library. They rotate on a spindle so that each passer by can rearrange the shape of the pile.