On Buying Books > IDEAS & IDEALS

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 I have a friend who has extraordinary passion for books. Almost always he buys one or two books whenever he drops in the bookstore. The moment he catches sight of the shining new  books displayed in his favorite corner, his eyes, which are usually glazed with laziness and boredom, begin to twinkle and shine with life and delight. Even when he finds out he has not enough money in his wallet to buy the book he wants, he is not disappointed nor discouraged. He buys it on credit. I know he has already bought enough books, more than enough books to read in his lifetime, and his small house has become smaller by the overflowing books. They have not only filled all the book-cases and the shelves he has; they are piled along all the empty walls of the rooms and the floors. He needs the money, I think, more for a new pair of pants or shoes. They are too old and worn-out to maintain the dignity of a poor scholar. But he continues to buy books for reasons unknown to me. It seems that the passion for buying books has become a disease for him, an incorrigible disease.

     Strange thing about the habit of buying books, often too many books, is that no one criticizes the act of spending good money in such a foolish way. You can buy anything you like on your way home, but you must be ready to fight all the criticism from each member of your family on the quality, the price and the usefulness of the purchased item. But when you arrive home one day with a package of books, no one dares come out to say anything against your noble purchase. They just look at you with wonder and admiration, and even respect.

     Sometimes people can even steal books with impunity. I remember reading a newspaper report a few weeks ago  that a poor graduate student of a famous university had stolen from a bookstore in downtown Seoul two or three very expensive books which he needed badly for his studies, and was caught in the act by a clerk, but he was not sent to the police, nor harshly rebuked, nor put in public shame for his misdemeanor. On the contrary, the master of the bookstore, moved almost to tears by the present plight and poverty in which the young and noble ambitious scholar, the thief, finds himself, not only let him go scot-free, but also gave him the books he had stolen, for free, and encouraged him to study hard and become a great scholar.

     Books are a very strange thing, indeed. The more you buy them, the more you will be respected by the people around you who do not buy as many books as you do. You cannot buy that many new clothes or hats or shoes without being stigmatized as extravagant, even crazy. But you can buy as many books as you want even in poverty without incurring such stigma. Funny, isn't it? The funnier part of the matter is that rich men cannot buy books with the same pride and pleasure as the poor can. They, the rich, are supposed to buy books, babbles the poor, not to read but to decorate their rooms.

     Yes, indeed, books are very good for decorating your rooms, too. Books are very exquisite things in their size, color, design, and in thickness, and they are as pretty and elegant as anything in the world when they are well and neatly arranged in book-cases or on book-shelves. They make your room look no less comfortable, dignified, and refined than any other luxurious furniture in your room. That is why all the upstart rich order a complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica without fail along with the imported tables and sofas for their newly built mansion.

     Some are criticized for buying books as a hobby. Yes, indeed, buying books can be a good hobby, too. Like collecting stamps or knives or match-boxes, or artificial frogs, it is a great fun to collect variously sized, colored, titled, and dated books, and to keep them well and neatly displayed to show off, not to use. There is absolutely no reason for you to be ashamed to buy books solely for the decoration of your walls, or as a hobby, because some use them for much more dubious and sinister purposes.

     Some use books, like me, in intimidating those who do not possess as many books as they have. I keep my meager collection of books, mostly English books, on the book-shelves standing against the four walls of my office at school, on purpose. From time to time some of my students walk rudely into my office to protest against the bad marks they received from me in the exam. Entering, they look around at the walls filled with books in wonder and fear, and the wonder and fear of books turn instantly into the wonder and fear of me, and in most cases the students who came in like an angry lion or a fierce boar become gentle and mild all of a sudden, like a lamb or a dove, before the books, and take a hasty leave with a great and obedient bow, closing the door carefully and gently behind them, forgetting completely the original purpose of coming to see me.  

     You can be really safe in the protection of books. You can hide behind them. You can hide your laziness, weakness, ignorance and stupidity behind a towering collection of books. No one questions your intelligence or even common sense when you mumble something incomprehensive or incoherent, if only you do that with your back to a huge stack of books. That is why all the big names in every field of society always have their photos taken and  have their interviews in a study surrounded by books.

     I have been buying books myself for no explicit purposes until now. Now I have to admit that they have served me better and more as a wall decoration, a hobby, a bodyguard, a cat to scare the rats away, than what they are traditionally known and supposed to be and to do. I feel ashamed of the fact that there has always been some kind and degree of snobbery and hypocrisy involved in my act of buying books.

     However, I try to console myself with the truth that no human motives or activities, especially in the intellectual and artistic fields, can be all that pure and simple from the beginning. Had there not been that snobbishness or pretentiousness, I would never have been to the museums or special art exhibitions, nor would I have ever bought the ticket, at a horrible price, for the London Royal Ballet or Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra that came to Seoul, and consequently their world of heavenly beauty and grace would have never opened to me. That is also why I continue to meet with my friend who continues to buy books, with an affectionate smile.
          (Spring 24, 1992)