With the season of gift-giving upon us, literature provides some great examples of the delicate art of parcelling prose
Giving books as presents is a tricky business. Give the right person the right book at the right time and minor miracles can occur – horizons broadened, home truths revealed, the very landscape of an individual's mind changed for ever.
But influence works both ways. Give the wrong person the wrong book at the wrong time and the effects can be disastrous. One may inspire a life of debauchery, install a sense of Gothic paranoia, or – perhaps worst of all –prompt nothing but a resentful boredom.
As a collector of the inscriptions in second-hand books celebrated in my book of "the forgotten friendships, hidden stories and lost loves" that they suggest, I often wonder about their previous owners, and how and why the book came to be abandoned.
I can only hope that their secret histories are as interesting as my favourite examples of book-giving in fiction. My top 10 contains a mixture of real and fictional books – but, annoyingly, I was unable to find an example of Lovecraft's infamous Necronomicon ever being treated as a gift in his fiction. Anyone?
*1. The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism , purported to be by Emmanuel Goldstein. From Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell*
Having declared himself an enemy of Big Brother, Winston Smith is surreptitiously supplied with a copy of the book: the absolutely forbidden anti-Party tract detailing the philosophy behind the totalitarian state. "The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction … The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."
*2. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. From Money by Martin Amis*
John Self senses that his life of sex and drugs and booze is not all it's cracked up to be. He longs to "burst out of the world of money and into … the world of fascination. How do I get there? Tell me, please. I'll never make it by myself." By reading books, seems to be the answer suggested by his friend, Martina Twain, who buys John 1984. Noticing parallels in Nineteen Eighty-Four to his own life, John concedes that "Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read a bit more and thought less about money."
*3. The Treatise on the Steppenwolf: Not For Everyone! From Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.*
Misanthropic divided-self-about-town Harry Haller is handed a small book by a stranger in the street. Rather surprisingly (or perhaps not, for this poetic novel) the book presents Harry with a portrait of himself: "a clever study by an unknown hand [giving] the unvarnished truth about my shiftless existence … [showing] clearly how unbearable and untenable my situation was. Death was decreed for this Steppenwolf."
*4. The Son of the Wolf by Jack London. From Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. *
Poor Pnin. His life bumps gently along from one small failure to the next. Even the simple act of buying a Jack London novel for his ex-wife's visiting son, Victor, becomes yet another lesson in compromise and disappointment. Wanting a copy of Martin Eden, he is only able to find an old edition of London's lesser work The Son of the Wolf. "'I think I'm going to like this,' said polite Victor."
*5. Poetry collection – author(s) unspecified. From Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.*
The second Mrs de Winter, already driven to distraction by an unknowable husband and by her unmentionable predecessor, Rebecca, finds a book of poems dedicated to "Max – from Rebecca". An innocuous enough dedication, you might think, but one that does little for her peace of mind: "Max. She called him Max. It was familiar, gay, and easy on the tongue … Max was her choice, the word was her possession; she had written it with so great a confidence on the fly-leaf of that book. That bold, slanting hand, stabbing the white paper, the symbol of herself, so certain, so assured … And I had to call him Maxim."
*6. The Art of Seduction (author unknown) – as featured in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann*
Introduced into the feverish atmosphere of the Sanatorium Berghof by tubercular rake Herr Albin, this "badly printed booklet" causes a minor sensation and quickly becomes the must-read book amongst the bedridden romantics. While the men tut disapprovingly, the women squabble in excitement and actually come to blows over who's "next in line" for the scandalous text.
*7. Hollywood Elegies by Ross 'Irish' O'Flaherty. Featured in Wise Children by Angela Carter.*
The books given to Dora Chance by her old flame, alcoholic writer Ross "Irish" O'Flaherty, are intended for self-improvement. (Daisy Miller, Mansfield Park, Schopenhauer.) But it is "his poisoned gift, the page proofs of Hollywood Elegies, inscribed to his 'gilded fly' and signed with his full name, thank God" which proves the most practical. "I sold it at Sotheby's last winter when we were a touch pressed as to how to pay the electricity bill."
*8. Against Nature by Huysmans, AKA the yellow book . From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.*
Not content with stoking Dorian Gray's vanity to such an extent that Dorian makes a Faustian pact to remain forever young, Lord Henry compounds his folly by sending Dorian a yellow book in which "things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him". Thus begins Dorian's decent into amoral debauchery. Later, Dorian berates Lord Henry for ever introducing him to the book: "You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm."
*9. A Variety of Gothic Fiction. As featured in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.*
Already reading Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine Morland's passion for Gothic fiction is encouraged by her new friend, Isabella, who compiles a list of titles for the pair to read together: "Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries." With such a reading list, it is no wonder that Catherine nearly scuppers her blossoming romance with the innocent Tilney by imagining that his equally innocent family harbour all kinds of hidden horrors behind closed doors.
*10. Crash! by William Goldenstein, III. As featured in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend.*
The books exchanged in Adrian Mole make for a catalogue of thwarted good intentions. When his girlfriend, Pandora, goes on holiday, Adrian buys her Crash! "by a bloke called William Goldenstein, III. It is very good on what to do if the worst happens … Pandora read [it] in the coach on the way to the airport. When her flight was called she had slight hysterics and her father had to carry her up the steps." Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.
Giving books as presents is a tricky business. Give the right person the right book at the right time and minor miracles can occur – horizons broadened, home truths revealed, the very landscape of an individual's mind changed for ever.
But influence works both ways. Give the wrong person the wrong book at the wrong time and the effects can be disastrous. One may inspire a life of debauchery, install a sense of Gothic paranoia, or – perhaps worst of all –prompt nothing but a resentful boredom.
As a collector of the inscriptions in second-hand books celebrated in my book of "the forgotten friendships, hidden stories and lost loves" that they suggest, I often wonder about their previous owners, and how and why the book came to be abandoned.
I can only hope that their secret histories are as interesting as my favourite examples of book-giving in fiction. My top 10 contains a mixture of real and fictional books – but, annoyingly, I was unable to find an example of Lovecraft's infamous Necronomicon ever being treated as a gift in his fiction. Anyone?
*1. The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism , purported to be by Emmanuel Goldstein. From Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell*
Having declared himself an enemy of Big Brother, Winston Smith is surreptitiously supplied with a copy of the book: the absolutely forbidden anti-Party tract detailing the philosophy behind the totalitarian state. "The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction … The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."
*2. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. From Money by Martin Amis*
John Self senses that his life of sex and drugs and booze is not all it's cracked up to be. He longs to "burst out of the world of money and into … the world of fascination. How do I get there? Tell me, please. I'll never make it by myself." By reading books, seems to be the answer suggested by his friend, Martina Twain, who buys John 1984. Noticing parallels in Nineteen Eighty-Four to his own life, John concedes that "Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read a bit more and thought less about money."
*3. The Treatise on the Steppenwolf: Not For Everyone! From Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.*
Misanthropic divided-self-about-town Harry Haller is handed a small book by a stranger in the street. Rather surprisingly (or perhaps not, for this poetic novel) the book presents Harry with a portrait of himself: "a clever study by an unknown hand [giving] the unvarnished truth about my shiftless existence … [showing] clearly how unbearable and untenable my situation was. Death was decreed for this Steppenwolf."
*4. The Son of the Wolf by Jack London. From Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. *
Poor Pnin. His life bumps gently along from one small failure to the next. Even the simple act of buying a Jack London novel for his ex-wife's visiting son, Victor, becomes yet another lesson in compromise and disappointment. Wanting a copy of Martin Eden, he is only able to find an old edition of London's lesser work The Son of the Wolf. "'I think I'm going to like this,' said polite Victor."
*5. Poetry collection – author(s) unspecified. From Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.*
The second Mrs de Winter, already driven to distraction by an unknowable husband and by her unmentionable predecessor, Rebecca, finds a book of poems dedicated to "Max – from Rebecca". An innocuous enough dedication, you might think, but one that does little for her peace of mind: "Max. She called him Max. It was familiar, gay, and easy on the tongue … Max was her choice, the word was her possession; she had written it with so great a confidence on the fly-leaf of that book. That bold, slanting hand, stabbing the white paper, the symbol of herself, so certain, so assured … And I had to call him Maxim."
*6. The Art of Seduction (author unknown) – as featured in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann*
Introduced into the feverish atmosphere of the Sanatorium Berghof by tubercular rake Herr Albin, this "badly printed booklet" causes a minor sensation and quickly becomes the must-read book amongst the bedridden romantics. While the men tut disapprovingly, the women squabble in excitement and actually come to blows over who's "next in line" for the scandalous text.
*7. Hollywood Elegies by Ross 'Irish' O'Flaherty. Featured in Wise Children by Angela Carter.*
The books given to Dora Chance by her old flame, alcoholic writer Ross "Irish" O'Flaherty, are intended for self-improvement. (Daisy Miller, Mansfield Park, Schopenhauer.) But it is "his poisoned gift, the page proofs of Hollywood Elegies, inscribed to his 'gilded fly' and signed with his full name, thank God" which proves the most practical. "I sold it at Sotheby's last winter when we were a touch pressed as to how to pay the electricity bill."
*8. Against Nature by Huysmans, AKA the yellow book . From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.*
Not content with stoking Dorian Gray's vanity to such an extent that Dorian makes a Faustian pact to remain forever young, Lord Henry compounds his folly by sending Dorian a yellow book in which "things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him". Thus begins Dorian's decent into amoral debauchery. Later, Dorian berates Lord Henry for ever introducing him to the book: "You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm."
*9. A Variety of Gothic Fiction. As featured in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.*
Already reading Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine Morland's passion for Gothic fiction is encouraged by her new friend, Isabella, who compiles a list of titles for the pair to read together: "Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries." With such a reading list, it is no wonder that Catherine nearly scuppers her blossoming romance with the innocent Tilney by imagining that his equally innocent family harbour all kinds of hidden horrors behind closed doors.
*10. Crash! by William Goldenstein, III. As featured in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend.*
The books exchanged in Adrian Mole make for a catalogue of thwarted good intentions. When his girlfriend, Pandora, goes on holiday, Adrian buys her Crash! "by a bloke called William Goldenstein, III. It is very good on what to do if the worst happens … Pandora read [it] in the coach on the way to the airport. When her flight was called she had slight hysterics and her father had to carry her up the steps." Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.