URSABLOG. A Change in Space and Time 4: Books Do Furnish a Room

I did not expect that moving house would bring into focus my mortality, and on what to do with the time I had left on this planet. I had hoped and expected that it would be rejuvenating, and give me a new lease of life, but instead I found myself thinking about how long I had left, and whether it was enough. And the cause of this rather melancholy reflection? Boxes of books piled up in a solid massif in the middle of the room intended to be my office.

One of the deciding factors in choosing my new flat was the existence of a large blank wall on one side of the intended office. I had grandiose designs for a monumental bookshelf from floor to ceiling that once constructed would be able to absorb all the books in my possession. How foolish of me.

I had imagined that the bookshelves would be made of wood and started looking for a carpenter that could do this for me. I found one or two but found that the cost (my God!) was simply too much for a place that I didn’t own, not to mention that the time needed to design and fit it would mean me ending up living with a small city of boxes for months to come. So I scaled back my plans and contacted a kitchen fitter who had some time on his hands before the August holidays, and he came to discuss it with me. We agreed the design – measuring the size of books and the space available – and the price, all on two pieces of scrap paper – and I awaited his arrival the following week. He came, he installed, and after he left I started opening boxes to figure out what books would go where.

My first unwelcome discovery was that even though I had commissioned the biggest bookshelf I had ever owned – almost 3m by 3m – it still would not be enough to accommodate all my books. I had hoped that I would be able to get rid of the half-height standalone bookshelves I had accumulated over the years to free up some space, but it turned out that these would be needed too.

My second unwelcome discovery was how many of those books I hadn’t read yet, or at least so I thought. So purely as a temporary measure I put the books I thought I hadn’t read – mostly non-fiction – in the extra standalone bookshelves, with the uncomfortable feeling that they would soon become a permanent fixture, and started filling the big bookshelf with books I had read – mostly fiction – arranging and rearranging them into thematic groups (Victorian English, twentieth century American, ancient Greek, ancient Chinese, modern Greek and so on). This was satisfying work but raised other problems, such as do I put books by the same author that I haven’t yet read next to the books that I have read? Will they become lost and remain unread?

But gradually, the real issue began to make itself felt, and it wasn’t a simple matter of what books go where: do I have enough time left in my life to read all these unread books, and which ones should I tackle first? And what are all these books, read or unread, for? What good have they ever done me, and what good do I expect them to do for me? And has the time I have already spent – and the time I will spend – reading contributed to a good life, a life well spent?

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Reading books is a specialist activity, one confined to a minority of the population, and it has always been the case. There have always been occasional panics caused by the advent of new technology – “people don’t read books the way they used to, they don’t have the same attention span” – and then life carries on, with books continuing to be written, published, sold and read. The internet – even before the advent of Google, Amazon and the rest – was supposed to be the end of books. Before that television (and then satellite and cable television) was the big threat, before that it was cinema, and before even that it was the music hall, and comedy theatre and opera. Before that of course, the ability to read and write was an elite activity anyway, but that is perhaps the point. The concern came from an elite that worried that the masses would be swayed, distracted and corrupted by mass media, and the end of the world as we knew it was nigh.

Many of this elite railed against the proliferation of mass media – including trashy paperback novels, cheap magazines and scandal-ridden newspapers – worried that people would lose their mental powers, poisoned by products that were popular and satisfied their desires, even if only for a short while. And there was always a certain arrogance – intellectual snobbery, perhaps – that came with these worries, making the reader “better” than the non-reader.

George Orwell wondered why people didn’t buy more books, or spend more time reading, especially when the cost was equivalent to keeping a committed smoker in supplies. He knew what he was talking about: he was a committed smoker, a dedicated reader as well as a prolific writer. But I feel that he was somewhat missing the point; some people just have better uses for their time than having their heads stuck in a book.

Readers of books, especially those that advertise the fact, are a self-selected elite, one that has a fairly low bar of entry; as Orwell commented, books are not especially expensive, and cost far less than golf clubs, or yachts. This elite is also maintained by the simple fact that a large majority of people don’t like reading books for leisure; this is nothing new, it has been the case ever since the achievement of universal literacy. What better way of advertising your superiority to the rest of the masses than ostentatiously reading a book in a public space, particularly a ‘difficult’ book by a ‘challenging’ author? And for those of us that collect and build a library at home, what better way of showing how sophisticated you are than by putting all your books out on display?

Whenever non-readers visit a home with a lot of books on show, the first question is usually along the lines of “Wow! Have you read all these books?” The owner of those books will smile wryly and go on to explain that they have indeed read a lot of those books, but not all. There are also many books that they haven’t read: books they want to read in the future, or should read, or books that have been given to them by others who think they should read them, or gifts that will never be read but will have to be kept in case the givers come and search the shelves to check whether they’re still there and have not been disappeared. And there are many, many books in such a library that were simply picked up in a bookshop or elsewhere that the reader liked the look of, whether the design of the cover, the author, or the theme, or simply in the desire to broaden their knowledge, and remain in the library, waiting to be read when the time is right.

This rather smug and long explanation further enhances the elite status of the owner of such a library (at least in their eyes), looking down on those people who do not have the same access to the intellectual riches that they have invested in. On hearing this long-winded and most likely patronising reply the non-bookish person will probably be further confirmed in their opinion that books are indeed a bit of a waste of time, cost, effort and space.

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The sheer number of books I had not read was more, much more, than I had thought. So, once again constricted by space – despite the new monolith constructed on the empty wall – I decided, and I really had to force myself, to start disposing of the books I would never read. Two boxes were filled. Then I looked for books that I had read, would never read again, and could live without. This proved more difficult: I tend to throw out books that I dislike and never want to see again immediately, but in some cases – for example Welcome To The Poisoned Chalice by James K Galbraith which so angered and irritated me that it still shows the marks of being thrown across the room in disgust on more than one occasion – I keep them to remind myself of exactly why they inspired such anger.

Then there were the books that I thought I had read, but wasn’t entirely sure that I had. In this case I was lucky: I subscribe to a platform called Goodreads which allows me to log all the books I read as I finish them, and records my opinion of them (on a scale of one to five stars). I did find a few books that I had read but had no real memory of, and in those cases the choice was simple: throw them out. If they left no imprint on my brain, then they had no place on my shelves.

(When I say throw out books, I do not mean chucking them in the rubbish bin. In the area I have moved to I am blessed with the existence of many bookshops – it was a factor in my choice of area, even if it is a dangerous one, considering I am afflicted with tsundoku – so the ones that deal in secondhand English language books had a surprise on certain mornings of a box or two of homeless books, left there by me on my way to work.)

But this also led me to reflect – again – what was I doing wasting time and effort on an activity which left no obvious positive – or negative, or indeed any – effect on me? And then I started to think of all the mediocre meals, and pointless conversations, and fruitless emails, and wasted emotions that I had experienced in my life, and I was consoled.

The books that I cannot let go of, ever, are the ones that have inspired me, moved me, fed me, challenged me, led me onto different books or different authors, or different ways of thinking about thinking and doing things. And there are those books – series, or by the same author – that getting through them all brought a sense of achievement and fulfilment. The Inspector Maigret books – all seventy-five of them – by Georges Simenon remain on my shelves, as do his other books I have since read. Volumes by authors like Rachel Cusk, Elena Ferrante, Hilary Mantel, Julian Barnes, Fred Vargas and Haruki Murakami are also there together with Proust (that was a slog at times!), Conrad, Colette, Henry James and Yukio Mishima, books from earlier authors that I discovered later in life. Will I read them again? Maybe, maybe not, but they are there and will remain so: part memorial, part inspirational, part trophy as well as an archive I can dip into should the need arise.

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The hopelessness I felt when I first moved in here – seriously contemplating getting rid of so much physical stuff and replacing it with the digital equivalent – soon passed as I started arranging books, records, CDs and DVDs. That work is not yet finished: the books still have to be stacked in their appropriate places – genre, author, nationality, era, subject – in a system that makes sense to me, and helps me find them when I need them. The unread books are in their own bookcases, waiting to be browsed when I am in search of a new book to read. Physicality – of books, music, of people themselves – serves as a rebuke of those who would control us and what we think and – perhaps more importantly for them – how we choose to spend our money.

The physicality of books is also important for the new behemoths of AI. Anthropic, the company behind one of the most popular large language models, Claude (it’s my favourite too for the record), embarked on a programme to improve Claude’s training. Their solution – a dystopian one in my view – was one answer to my earlier question: what are books for? They are mines of information.

Anthropic wanted to train Claude on as large a dataset of high-quality language as it could, and preferably one created before 2022, when generative AI started to corrupt contemporary text. Claude needed as many language combinations as possible to improve its ability to predict language outcomes, and so Anthropic needed data, lots of it, and of very high quality.

How did they do it? They came up with “Project Panama”, a project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.”

As a recent court case – Bartz v Anthropic PBC – pointed out, the easiest way to get hold of the text would have been to secure copyright permission to use existing e-books. This would have been both legally difficult and costly, so rather than engage with the texts’ owners, Anthropic initially chose to use pirated sources instead, resulting in a US$ 1.5 billion out-of-court settlement between Anthropic and authors. That didn’t turn out to be so great an idea after all.

Anthropic then turned to “Project Panama.” This, according to the court case, required Anthropic’s vendors to supply books – millions of them – stripped from their bindings, their pages cut to size, ready to be scanned into digital form. Once scanned, the paper originals, or what was left of them, were disposed of. Harvesting the data required the destruction of the book.

The data, Anthropic hoped, in the form of “well-curated facts, well-organized analyses, and captivating fictional narratives” would help “Claude write as accurately and as compellingly as Authors”.

Leaving aside the legal niceties – mostly about copyright – that the court’s decision rested on, and the concerns that AI will not only eat all the books, but end up eating us in turn, for me – and I suspect I am not alone – I experienced a deep regret and sadness at the unnecessary destruction of the physical books themselves to harvest what they contained. As Judge William Alsup, who heard the case, noted: “For centuries, we have read and re-read books. We have admired, memorized, and internalized their sweeping themes, their substantive points, and their stylistic solutions to recurring writing problems.”

I would also add that books – as things, as well as containers of data – provide solutions to recurring problems that touch all areas of life, not just writing. But just because large language models consume, absorb, compute, analyse and train on large amounts of data far more than any individual human could, this will not make them the best writers in the world. There is a difference between thinking and processing; there is a difference between writing and synthesising. Humans, for now at least, have an inbuilt competitive advantage.

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With the ongoing improvement of digital processing – especially the increase in speed and power of synthesis – I feel that there is an increasing general distrust of readers, and of the time and effort they invest in their activities. Why waste time in reading something – word for word – when you can just get Claude or whatever to read it and summarise it for you? It saves time, it misses out all the fiddly bits, and you get to the point quicker. But Claude – as Anthropic itself says – sometimes makes mistakes.

I am not the best sale and purchase broker in the world and nor am I ever likely to be; that statement should be obvious to anyone in the market. I continue to try to become better, and use the skills and talents I do possess to optimise my chances as I continue to learn. But humans are complicated things that cannot be improved by simply flicking a behavioural switch, or overloading them with fresh data. I am who I am; I have to accept that. But reading is also part of who I am.

Reading books – particularly long, difficult ones – gets easier the older you get, and the more you persist. Trust me. But reading is not only an escape from the real world, it is also an entry into another one, one that has been created by someone else who invites you to live in it for a while. Not only does it require thinking, it also inspires reflection, and if it doesn’t necessarily change your life, it can change how you do things, and what you choose to do. It can also increase the ability to both hold and develop abstract concepts, and create new ones. It improves attention span, and attention to detail.

Developing and strengthening the skills required – as well as widening our knowledge – may help us become better at what we do. It may also make us better people. Reading – fiction or non-fiction – can vicariously help in the process.

When reading a long and challenging book, the brain needs to be able to process and retain huge amounts of data – often with conflicting, complex and irreconcilable concepts – that do not resolve in a satisfactory outcome for all. Just like a ship sale and purchase negotiation perhaps, successful or otherwise. Sometimes sheer will and power will not overcome differences of opinion and circumstances, however much effort is expended. Just like life perhaps, successful or otherwise.

But – and this is a problem – you may also become slower, more risk-averse, and spend more time trying to identify why your instincts tell you something is wrong, rather than trusting them. It may make you more reflective, wiser even, which can be very inconvenient and frustrating – especially to others – when what appears to be needed, and indeed necessary, is determined action, of any sort. It can confuse wisdom with uncertainty, and make you reluctant to try new things. At particular moments, it can even create stasis.

Reading encourages over-thinking, in its best and worst sense, and sheds light on areas that may be best left undiscovered, at least at that particular moment. It can give the impression that you are not connected with reality, and are happier to be lost in another world when the one you are in demands your attention and your action, and now.

But I do believe that reading books can confer a competitive advantage in many areas of life, being able to be quicker at analysing situations, and seeing solutions that others can’t. It can give insights into your competitors and your principals. And principles in general. It can give you a window into your own or others’ soul, but you may not like what it reveals. It can also cause you to make mistakes. It can bring you joy, beauty and power, or an illusion of it. It can also make you lonely, stubborn and narrow-minded.

Has reading made me a better shipbroker? I wonder: it depends. The answer is less about books as objects, and reading as a lifestyle, and more about how I have dealt with the data, knowledge and wisdom I have found, both between the covers and in real life.

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One of the series of books that I have kept is the twelve books of A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. The title of this blog – Books Do Furnish a Room – is also the title of the tenth book in the series. One of the characters is Bagshaw, a borderline alcoholic vagabond womaniser, an amusing cross between a jobbing, hard-up journalist and a shabby, literary figure, whose nickname is “Books”. As the book relates, the source of this nickname is derived from one of two rumoured anecdotes.

One relates an occasion when a semi-inebriated Bagshaw, attempting to extract a book out of a large and heavy set of bookshelves, pulled the whole thing – with all its contents – on top of him, muttering as volume after volume descended on him: “Books do furnish a room.”

The other tells of a stark naked Bagshaw – in the booklined study of a drama critic engaged elsewhere reviewing a premiere – approaching the sofa where the critic’s equally naked wife is awaiting the emotional climax of the evening, murmuring as he does so: “Books do furnish a room.”

I leave it to you to decide why this character appeals to me, and which of the two scenes is most apt.

I had read all the books in the series many years ago, but they were amongst the many that left my possession when I got divorced. Still wanting the set, in fact the same set from the same publisher, I scoured the internet and found all the volumes from various online secondhand book sellers and had them delivered to Greece. It seemed important to me somehow, but I am reluctant to analyse this desire too deeply.

And I am not in a position to definitively answer what is perhaps the real question: what are my books for? Comfort? Familiarity? A trophy of my reading life? Furnishing? Hope? Identity? A disaster waiting to happen? A backdrop to a potential seduction? Some, or all, of the above may be true, at any given time.

As physical things, not only are they an integral part of my life, but they represent my ideas, my history, my ambitions, my disappointments, my failures, my successes and my hopes. They are, therefore, for good or ill, a representation of my life.

But however important this may be to me – and however tiresome it may seem to others – it is perhaps what those books contain – other people’s creations, stories, ideas, theories, points of view, work, jokes, complaints, beauty, horror, sorrows, in fact whatever they have chosen to write and what I have chosen to keep – that is more significant, and substantial.

Is it possible for me to summarise all that these books contain in the time left to me on this planet? Obviously not; the effort would be as pointless as the result and would serve no obvious purpose. The point of reading, of books, and of literature in general, is that it is an end in itself, for both the writer and the reader. The benefits and consequences – for both the writer and the reader – are unseen, unintended, and unfathomable. But that, as in so many other things in life, does not render them meaningless. In fact, the absolute opposite.

Simon Ward