A Book-Buying Maniac’s Self-Justification

7,905 characters2007.08.01

Quoting Lao Yang, my characteristic is “as addicted to books as to life, buying books by the mountain”; the books I have piled up already number beyond counting, and it seems that, like our universe, they are actually still expanding at an accelerating rate……

Many teachers and senior students had long since tried to persuade me that there was no need to buy so many books, because in the end these books would all be useless. They told me that once one has entered the proper track of scholarship, the more important readings are original foreign-language works; Chinese books are, on the one hand, unlikely to be of the highest quality, and on the other, their translations are unreliable, and so on. Of course, they also knew that, right now, just as they once did, I am still not taking any of this in; when the time comes, I will naturally change.

What I will be like in a few years, I cannot begin to predict—just as a few years ago I could never have imagined my present state. Perhaps I will awaken, as my elders say, or perhaps I will remain as I always have been; who knows? But one thing is certain: at present I am still buying books madly, without pause.

What my elders have neglected to mention are two facts. First, even among teachers who have achieved success in scholarship, there are still plenty who are enthusiastic about buying books; for example, Lao Yang, who prides himself on having collected innumerable editions of Dream of the Red Chamber, and several scientific intellectuals I know, still take pleasure in buying books. Second, my current pattern of buying books is not entirely like that of those elders who have “turned over a new leaf.”

I think the reason my elders once loved buying books should be that they first developed an interest in learning and scholarship. For them, buying books was for the sake of reading books, and reading books was for the sake of scholarship; hence the logic behind sayings such as “it is better to read the original foreign-language text than the Chinese version,” or “instead of buying books to read, it is better to borrow them from the library,” and so on. But for me, the interest in buying books, the interest in reading books, and the interest in scholarship are relatively independent of one another. In particular, it was under the stimulus of Dangdang.com that I fell in love with buying books—at the time, it was simply because of loopholes in the website that I crazily bought books at absurdly low prices, and this is what cultivated a stamp-collecting-like pleasure in buying books.

The pleasure lies in buying the books themselves, in the process of selecting them—if you can understand girls’ love of strolling and shopping, then I think you can also understand me…… The pleasure also lies in the beautiful sight created after placing the books on my own bookshelf—in my eyes, a row of books on a shelf is far more marvelous than a row of antiques and jade objects; and compared with those expensive decorative items, my extravagance in buying books really does not amount to much. If you can understand people who spend tens of thousands of yuan buying all sorts of bottles and jars, then I think you can also understand me……

As for reading, that too has its own inner pleasure. I do not buy books or read books in order to do scholarship; on the contrary, the reason I insist on following the ordinary path into academia is merely that I hope to preserve my habit of buying and reading books, because if I were not doing scholarship, it would be hard to find any other ideal profession that could support my life. In the final analysis, I read and think for the sake of my own interests and desires; even if some of my interests are useless or even harmful to scholarship, as long as I take pleasure in them, I will not give them up lightly—if I had to choose between my interests and the so-called “academic future,” I would choose the former without the slightest hesitation. At the time, I was willing to enter the philosophy department because I hoped I would not have to give up any interest whatsoever—mathematics, physics, history, society…… of course including buying books and reading books, and so on. So long as I have not grown tired of them myself, I will not abandon any interest for any other purpose.

Of course, I am also unwilling to admit that because I buy books only for inner pleasure, the books I buy therefore have no practical significance at all. A senior student said that excellent books, so long as one waits a little longer, can certainly be found in the Peking University library; if the library does not have them, then they are probably not good books. But at the same time, first of all, for books on certain subjects, the good books that can be found in the library can likewise all be found on my private bookshelf! Moreover, the library also contains many, many bad books; I believe the proportion of bad books in the library cannot be any lower than on my own shelves. Rather than trust the library’s judgment in acquiring books, I would rather purchase and appraise them myself.

In addition, the books in the library are worn-out, inconvenient, and often unavailable when you want to borrow them; the classification of books is chaotic (for instance, Aristotle’s Physics is in fact to be found on the physics shelf); popular and general-interest books, as well as unconventional books, are few in number (for example, The World of Father and Son is not there); you cannot immediately pick a book up and read it when the whim strikes you; you cannot write or underline directly in the book; and so on. These shortcomings make the advantages of a private library self-evident.

In addition, my collection of books can be directed by my own will: I can lend them, or give them away; at any time I can provide convenience to friends who share my aims. If these books are already no longer important to comrades who have entered the proper track of scholarship, then at the very least, for beginners like me—able to stimulate interest and broaden one’s train of thought—they are clearly useful,

August 1, 2007

at Fushan Road, Shanghai