Making Marginalia

(Some of my annotations in The Odyssey)

When I re-read The Fellowship of the Ring a few months ago, I found myself with a pencil at the ready. I hadn’t ever really annotated a book on my own before, other than out of necessity for classes. But my copies of The Odyssey and The Aeneid, covered in notes from two years of A-Level Classics, are among my prized possessions, so I figured I should give it another try. And in the end, it made the intimidating process of going through a text I hoped I still loved more fulfilling. But I also remember the disdain I used to feel for ‘ruining’ books with yellowed pages, creased covers, broken spines, and — a deep, shuddering breath — annotations. A permanent stain on a beloved novel? Surely these are a true bookworm’s greatest sins.

So listen, little H. There’s nothing sacred about a bundle of paper, ink, and glue. (Well, perhaps that’s not true. There’s definitely some ancient magic that's released as you breathe in the freshly printed pages of an unread paperback.) Either way, active reading is so powerful. You’re not just soaking the words in. You’re contributing to their meaning, drawing out the things you find important. And ‘important’ means lots of different things, too. Repeated phrases, recurring themes, funny dialogue, the unexpected joys of finding the familiar, the new, the strange. As a writer, I know how much effort and love and care and craft goes into even a single turn of phrase. Beautiful passages deserve a passionate underline, or a scribbled thought, or a wobbly bracket and a pencil heart. Especially when these captured reactions have a rather beautiful name: Marginalia.

Trust me, I understand the allure of uncracked spines and pristine pages. But I don’t want my shelves to look like a bookshop, with perfect rows of untouched stories. Bookstores have a different kind of allure: anticipation, possibility, dormant potential weighed in your hands. I prefer my shelves as a personal library, for my books to hold the extra weight and width of being read, carried, loved. Books are tools, gateways, windows, mirrors, sliding glass doors. Stories are meant to be thought about, pored over, pulled open, dug through. You step into them. You’re supposed to get your shoes dirty.

I doubt I’ll annotate every book I read. I’ve just finished reading Till We Have Faces by C S Lewis, and I found myself betraying another old pet peeve: dog-earing pages, to remember to come back to passages I loved, to share with people later in the day. But maybe, just maybe, it’s actually not the end of the world to have a book look slightly different after its path has crossed with yours. Maybe the odd spill or stain doesn't matter. Maybe it’s okay to fold a corner or two. Maybe writing your thoughts in the margins is actually rather lovely. Maybe your books could do with a bit of decoration.

It’s okay, little H. Books are places you live in for a while. You might as well make it your own while you stay.

So go, make marginalia, and fare well, wherever you fare,

— H