Bibliophilia

[steepholm]

An exchange between sartorias and jade_sabre_301 in the comments to sartorias’s latest post has got me thinking about love. Book love, that is. Could it be, they were wondering, that fan ficcers are more attracted to books with flaws than to “perfect” books (Queen of Attolia was mentioned as an example of the latter), where you can do nothing but stand back and admire their awesomeness?

Sounds plausible to me. Moss grows in the fissures, where the perfectly smooth surface is sterile. But it’s got me wondering about the different kinds of love we can have for a book, and how these may relate to the different kinds of love we may have for a human being.

Let’s look at three types of human love (and I'm sticking to the romantic kind, to keep things "simple"):

a) You love someone because you think they're the bee's knees, and just about perfect. It's a kind of hero worship.

b) You love someone because you see the kind of person they could be, if only they'd believe in themselves, or take a bit more care about their appearance, or not drink so much, or learn to relax, etc. You see the best expression of your love as helping them to become the person they have the potential to be. (Yes, this is the fan fic equivalent, and yes, I’m aware there’s more to fan fic than this.)

c) You love someone, and while you see they have faults, you're prepared to accept them - and maybe even love them too, because after all we're all human, the faults are relatively minor, and you're more interested in loving a human being than a plaster saint.

Now, it’s quite possible to feel all three ways about the same human being, if not at the exact same moment then at least in rapid succession, and I think that good relationships may well be built on this triple foundation (with a rather more of b) and c) than of a), to be sure, though I’d hate to give up a) entirely, and with lady_schrapnell I've lucked out in that respect). Is that the case with books, too, or in the rather more one-sided relationship we have with them do we tend to opt for just the one kind of loving – where we love at all?

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm in two minds about Cymbeline. It has beautiful bits, of course ("Fear no more," etc) - and personally I'm rather fond of Cloten: "We will nothing pay for wearing our own noses" is just the kind of thing I can see becoming a Revolutionary slogan in 1776. And it gives a fascinating glimpse of life in Milford Haven before the oil tankers. But all the same, it's hard to read without the phrase "Load of old tosh" flitting unbidden through one's head at least once. (From that point of view the only way to make it look good is to come at it right after Pericles.) And Posthumus must vie with Claudio and Bertram as one of the least sympathetic romantic heroes ever to get the girl.