notes in the margins

[helenic]

One of the things I love most about academia is the books. I don't mean any particular content but the books themselves, the editions in college and faculty libraries, which are often beautiful and interesting not only in their age and texture (there's something about the smell of books, the feel of proper binding and canvas or leather covers, the way often the pages are fraying and irregular on one side where they were torn to size) but in the way they're read. Academic library books are the only books, in my experience, where the tradition of reading as an engaged - rather than passive - activity endures. Students leave underlinings, notes, in-jokes and cross-references scrawled across the page with little or no discretion - much of it makes for very amusing reading, particularly when the commentator went on to become a professor or writer themselves. I've seen the articles of people who have lectured me mocked in anonymous pencilled cursive on the way their writing mirrors some ideosyncracy of their lecture style, and on a couple of occasions I've got the joke, even if the note belonged to a much earlier generation of scholars.

I like trying to match the handwritings to the names and dates inscribed beneath each other in the front cover, and the most entertaining reading arises when the various commentators seek to argue with and outdo the previous in the same sort of way as bathroom wall graffiti - only with a much more literary intellectual slant. Just as historical scribes and scholiasts wrote notes, criticisms, thoughts, sketches and even compositions in the margins of many of our ancient manuscripts, so degree students still feel the urge to leave their mark. It's one of my favourite things about buying books second-hand - only in the context of an academic institution one feels an even greater connection to the previous commentators. Even if the pencil scrawls are thirty years old, we are the same age at the time of writing, living in the same environment, reading the same texts and reacting to much of the same scholarship. Reading suddenly becomes more than an author-reader interaction; you have the criticism of other readers to consider as well as your own. It broadens the mind - wondering why has s/he underlined that particular word? does it have some significance I've missed? what does this cryptic comment mean? - and at the same time intensifies the feeling of intimacy, of becoming the other readers almost, whilst at the same time reacting to them.

One day I shall compile a dictionary of amusing, interesting, useful and downright bizarre margin comments in academic texts. My favourite thus far belongs to the Cambridge University Press 1948 edition of W. W. Tarn's biography of Alexander the Great. (I have a particular love for this in any case, as it contains within the back cover the delicious surprise of a fold-out map, carefully drawn, of Alexander's route - surely the greatest beauty a book can boast! ) In the edition belonging to Downing College library there are two commentators, one with a florid cursive style and the other more cramped and angular. The former seems to have developed a fond relationship with the subject of the work ("Oh, Alex ... !" s/he reproves beside a paragraph describing how the commander was outwitted by Darius; "Jesus would disagree," noted thoughtfully after the line no other story has spread like his; and "NO!" next to a suggestion that "Alex" gave no thought to the slave world), makes lists of personal reminders and chronologies, and asks cutting questions ("Officers. Whose?" "Parmenion's," replies the second commentator, in small but firm ink; and a couple of chapters later, in response to the pencilled "What IS this?!" the latter writes scornfully (and with wonderful double irony) "Invention of dialectic, duh!").

But best of all is the final page, which I would photograph if I had a good enough digital camera, but instead I shall type it out:

... Above all, Alexander inspired Zeno's vision of a world in which all men should be members one of another, citizens of one State without distinction of race or institutions, subject only to and in harmony with the Common Law immanent in the Universe, and united in one social life not by compulsion but only by their own willing consent, or (as he put it) by Love. The splendour of this hopeless dream may remind us that not one but two of the great lines of social-political thought which until recently divided the world go back to Alexander of Macedon. For if, as many believe, there was a line of descent from his claim to divinity, through Roman Emperor and medieval Pope, to the great despotisms of yesterday, despotisms "by the grace of God", there is certainly a line of descent from his prayer at Opis, through the Stoics and one portion of the Christian ideal, to that brotherhood of all men which was proclaimed, though only proclaimed, in the French Revolution. The torch Alexander lit for long only smouldered; perhaps it still only smoulders today; but it has never been, and never can be, quite put out.¹

1. I have left the latter part of this paragraph substantially as written in 1926. Since then we have seen new and monstrous births, and are still moving in a world not realised; and I do not know how to rewrite it.

And, as if that footnote were not entertaining enough, the first commentator has added underneath in pencil:

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Comments

[mijra.livejournal.com]

I recently encountered, in the margins of a text, "What?! At least fucking cite it! Who? Which work? Where do you expect us to find this?"

It was impossibly not to leave a reply ("Try the 'Works Referenced' section at the end") as there was a perfectly useable citation, and a more complete reference among the list of "Works Referenced" at the end, which I found easily and without confusion.

I imagine our one-sided dialogue will entertain some bored or frustrated reader later. At least, I hope so.

Your paragraph, footnote, and scribbled hilarity are together certainly more amusingm though. Thanks.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Yours is fantastic too - rampant stupidity is always great, particularly when accompanied by scathing remarks. It's even better when the writer of the book is the one being stupid - it's on these occasions that I really feel the work as a whole is being added to, rather than just used as spare notepaper. Margin notes are best when they actually contribute to your understanding of a book, although they can be hilarious even when they don't :)

I'm trying to think of other examples now; I'm sure I've come across some other fantastic ones before. Perhaps we should start a livejournal community for people to contribute amusing margin notes as and when they encounter them, rather than trying to remember them in context after the book in question has been returned? (or, often better, entirely out of context) What do you think?

I wonder if such a dictionary already exists, anyway? I shall have to look it up.

[mijra.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about starting a community merely because I rarely post in or keep up with any community at all.

It's certainly worth it to keep note of margin notes. I'm sure someone somewhere has started a compilation of the sort...

If you one another example--at least, of pointless modification--, someone altered a diagramed sentence in my Linguistics text to say "Damn those beavers who have been building dams on the river again" by adding "damn" and "who". Not particularly clever, but amusing because other than damn/dams it seems utterly random and useless.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

Ah! the randomness! the effects of caffeine on the brain ... ohhh my. Fantastic.

As of this conversation I'm EXTREMELY tempted to make a community actually, I can think of several people on my friends list who might well be interested, and even if you didn't join it yourself I'd probably ask permission to use the ones you've posted here, with permission ;)

good luck FOLDING your socks! xx

[mijra.livejournal.com]

Of course; please do use them. And let me know what the community is, just in case I change my mind... you can have an invite-code if you need one. Let me know.

Socks folded; thanks! Eep!

[verte.livejournal.com]

This is the best post ever. I am saving it for sad rainy days.

How do you annotate, then? Mine just tend to be a series of enormous '!?????' when I don't understand something. Where I was sitting in the lecture theatre today someone had scribbled on the desk 'Alex is a kinky bitch!' yay. xx

[libellum.livejournal.com]

you are too kind, and this was all just procrastination because without the margin notes, biographies of Alexander the Great really aren't very interesting at 1.25am. I don't tend to annotate library books except in response to other peoples', and then only when there seems to be a running joke in existence. I should probably get into the habit, actually. In my own texts, my notes are mostly linguistic - explaining unusual occurrences of morphology or syntax - I underline when making essay notes, and have been known to reference to lectures &c. From now on I'm determined to make my annotations either more engaged and relevant or as cryptic as possible, depending on mood.

I'm going to start noting down lecture desk graffiti now as well, I'm sure I've seen some fantastic ones before but it's way too late to remember them. what are you still doing up anyway? and more importantly, I'm very tempted to make this community now and would you join it?? get some sleep. you kinky bitch. xxx

[walterbenjamin.livejournal.com]

Ohmigod i so empathise with this!! I used to constantly update comments in books in the ul and then see if they'd been updated and i identified hotspots in the library (unfortunately, the best was the cottaging bit of the ul too - have you found it yet?) and the mens toilets have amazing conversations lining the cubicles.
xxxx

[libellum.livejournal.com]

gosh, it's like livejournal comments all over again!

unfortunately I am only a lowly undergraduate and am not allowed to withdraw books from the library, and have not yet had the long afternoon necessary to really make use of it in peace. I intend to though. I wonder what the graffiti in the ladies' is like in the UL? I shall have to ask the_alchemist...

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

My favourite version of the Ongoing Comment Conversation was where someone had printed up a fake newspaper article headlined KING'S CURRY CLUB FOUND TO BE FULL OF WANKERS not exclusive because everyone knows it anyway, to which someone, (presumably a member of said club) had added 'In a civilised society there is no need for this kind of rudeness.' To which some unsung genius had replied 'No, you idiot, it is precisely the mark of a civilised society.'

Generally speaking, marginalia kind of annoy me - there are few things I hate more than finding several pages of text all underlined. Or where someone has written a lengthy (and idiotic) refutation of the book's subject on the fly-leaf. But then I hate lengthy, idiotic and non-relevant crap that thinks it's being really smart in any context. Nonetheless, I'm disinclined to annotate books for the most part; pristine pages are nice.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

hee! I like it! repost it in the community? that's really rather fantastic. Social Critique Lives On, Not In King's Curry Club.

I can ignore the usual one word or phrase comments that basically re-iterate a significant point in the text ... and yes, excessive underlining gets annoying. But the witty ones, and the conversations, are just .... wonderful. It's a personal fixation, I guess. I just HATE that feeling of turning a page and seeing a sea of rubbings-out. I want to know what they were saying damnit!

I just want a glimpse into the minds of other readers, really. I suppose that's something the internet is unparallelled, particularly places with guestbooks, or things like livejournal - you read a piece of writing, react to it, think and feel certain things, and then often before you actually phrase your response you are exposed to the varying and often entirely different viewpoints of others. Sometimes it changes your reaction, sometimes not, but it's just a culture of critical response that is SO lacking in most oter aspects of society. Argh! I'm sorry, I'm getting a little passionate.

[ex-skyward540.livejournal.com]

I don't write in margins anywhere near enough, this could be the kick up the arse I needed. Vandalism and in - jokes for all

[libellum.livejournal.com]

worthy causes all! I think we can count on you to be creative rather than destructive in your vandalism :)

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

Very cool... different, i suppose: when i was in grade school, we were (literally) fined for every mark or blemish left in a textbook when it was returned at the end of the year; even books which i own and which i bought to read for a class seldom if ever see so much as an underscore let alone a margin note. An unfortunate matter of how i've been trained.

There is, i'm quite sure, a book of marginalia, it may be comments left in the margins of a particular title; i don't remember exactly.... but if i encounter it again i'll be sure to note the title for you.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

surely unnecessarily harsh? we were obliged to annotate our books at GCSE, because in english exams you were allowed to take the text into the exam, but no other notes. students therefore crammed as much information as possible into the smallest, most concise notes they could squeeze onto the page. While, for the most part, I love and respect books (and would be loathe to scribble all over my own, especially in pen) there's something about academic texts that just makes a running commentary seem the right thing to do. I suppose it's the historical aspect of it, what with the hellenistic scholars and medieval scribes and renaissance men scrawling and sketching all over their copies of the Iliad and the Bible, I mean most of our classical texts wouldn't be anywhere near as complete without the later commentaries. It's a matter of discretion, i guess. Luckily, it seems, the type of people who tend to do classics and care enough about it to actually read and annotate the books can be relied upon to say interesting things about them. is that a terrible thing to say? I'm never quite sure.

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

i remember the day books were handed out, we were instructed to record any marks already in the book we were given so that it would not be counted against us at the end of the year. Flipping through the pages looking for stray pen marks, describing scratches on the cover, dreading getting a new book because at the end of the year the corners would surely be bent... yeah it was pretty insane.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

oh, and marginalia is a much better word than "margin notes". Damnit, I should have called the community that. Actually I looked it up and there did use to be a community called /~marginalia on lj, but it's been deleted. I couldn't find anything else that was similar. The mystery deepens...

[satonthefence.livejournal.com]

Hello.
I just joined margin_notes in a fit of impulsion and then I decided a good idea would be to read this. So I did. I was struck by it's beauty, eloquence and intelligence and, also because I'm a awful narcissist, how it relates to me. This led to me, in a fit of impulsion, leaving a practically inane comment on your journal.

For this I sincerely apologise.
Rachelle.