Books and Covers
by Teri Ong
London is a very old city, and for some time it has been one of the most populous in the world. The housing is antiquated and very dense. Rows of houses will sometimes have strange gaps in them that look like the smile of Irish hurling teams– that is to say, minus random teeth. The houses on either side of the gap are kept from collapse by ingenious arrangements of braces and scaffolding. Then in the gap will grow a new tooth, looking just like the old one on the outside, but sleek and ultra-modern on the inside.
My husband remarked that it seems very silly to choose a home based on the outward appearance (the way Americans often do), since what affects most the quality of domestic life is on the inside. We have observed the same phenomenon in the world of books. We came across an elderly evangelical bookseller who deals in used and antiquarian books. Some of his 60,000 volumes have been used more than others– all the way back to the 18th and 19th centuries.
Some of the greatest treasures in his store house are missing a cover or even two! Some have been marked and inscribed. Some have obviously had several owners. The saddest ones to me are the ones that have pages that have never been cut apart. That means that no one in the history of the book has ever read it through. Evidently it has been owned by the “wrong kind of reader,” as C. S. Lewis astutely analyzed in An Experiment in Criticism.
The most humorous array of books we encountered was at the Minstrel’s Library in the Mitre Hotel at Hampton Court village. We spent an extremely happy afternoon sitting on leather sofas, sipping coffee, and reading books we had brought with us while our students enjoyed a tour of the palace. The books on the shelves in the “library” were ornately arranged by color. Charlotte Bronte might be sitting on the shelf next to P. D. James, Tom Clancy, or a book on engineering or pharmacopoeia as long as the spine color matched. Book furniture! Just like in Alexander McCall Smith’s Portuguese Irregular Verbs!
I was somewhat less annoyed than Smith’s Moritz Maria Von Igelfeld (upon learning that his unsold books were to be sold by his publisher to an interior decorating firm because of their excellent bindings), since the books were not my own. And the arrangement by color made more sense than the one contrived by an American interior decorator who turned all of the spines toward the back so that only the neutral shades of the papers were visible.
Dr. Alan Storkey exhorted our students, “Choose your guides wisely.” As we gain education, writers guide us as much as our pastors and teachers, and we must evaluate every idea as the Bereans did, against the objective standard of God’s revealed truth. But with that qualification, I hope that I will be a collector of worthy ideas and not just a collector of books. I would rather have a soul “thoroughly furnished for every good work,” than a wall furnished with attractive bindings.
While we have been in London, the “plain jane” lady from Scotland named Susan Boyle set a record for pre-sales of her CD album of vocal solos. Susan Boyle– nicknamed Subo by the pop press– is admittedly nothing to look at. But then again, how many of us are something to look at? She does, however, have a pleasant voice and can more than do artistic justice to the types of songs she sings.
I don’t understand why people are so concerned about her very average physiognomy. I thought that one bought CD’s to listen to– not to hang up the cover photos as works of art. Isn’t the vocal ability and talent more important than the physical case that holds it?
On the next pages of the newspaper with the article about Ms. Boyle were pictures of various UK and US glitterati that would (or at least should) curl any aesthete’s hair. Are these truly the “beautiful people” among us? They are all show and no substance. Sadly, in many cases, their “inside content” is often so foul as to even make Dorian Grey blush with shame. I hope that Susan Boyle will be able to enjoy her time in the sun without getting burnt.
It is a scriptural truth– man does look on the outward appearance, while God does look on the heart. God, grant that I will read books and not just see covers. God, grant that I be a meaningful book and not an empty dust jacket!
