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Literary Review
The book thief
MOST book lovers confess to having pinched a book or two in their young life. Others speak of having wanted to but not daring it. "God, I wanted to lay my hands on it so badly", they will say of a particular book. Some will just grin sheepishly and you must understand that they approve of stealing books. Not, however, clothes, jewellery, cars, cash. There's something so individual and personal about a book that people excuse bibliokleptomania in a way they would never excuse stealing a pair of pants or a stereo. The reasons for stealing books and the methods vary. Much of it happens when you are a student and can't afford to buy a new book. "The best way to do it," explains a veteran book thief who is at it even today, "is to leave your shirt out and tuck the book into your pants. If you wear a sweater or a jacket, you can even walk away with two books. But make sure it isn't, like, hot outside — otherwise the owner will wonder why you came in wearing a jacket." Why does he still do it? "Because at the most I can afford to buy one or two books in a month but there are, like, 20 books I want from a bookstore. How do I get around to reading them?" Another book lover told me she would pinch books from her favourite bookstore, read them quickly, and put them back before the store realised they were gone.
In college, there were a bunch of us who didn't always return books to the public library. We largely saw it as a rescue operation. Our rationale was that noone else would love and admire these books as much as we did. Also, our public libraries being what they are, we felt they would soon fall apart from neglect. We saw ourselves as custodians of these precious books. Years later when I met other book lovers, I heard the same thing. "We couldn't believe they actually had a copy of A Sentimental Education sitting there!" Or, "Imagine, Kenneth Rexroth's translation of Greek and Chinese poetry collecting dust on the stacks. The borrower's slip showed that no one had taken it out in 10 years! It was as if the book was waiting for me to come rescue it." When a friend heard I was writing on stealing books she told me she had once borrowed a book from the British Library, had fallen in love with it and decided not to return it. She ignored the notices sent to her. Some five years later she felt compelled to tell them she had stolen it. She walked into the library one morning and did just that.
"The Library Policeman" is a Stephen King short story about public libraries that employ detectives just to track down members who hoard books. He based it on a true incident where a detective hired by The New York Public Library found an old woman in Brooklyn with 800 unreturned books. "Bibliomania", Flaubert's first published story (1836, he was 14) is about a Spanish monk who was "literally willing to kill to posses a book he wanted for his collection." In Philip Roth's "Zukerman Unbound" the hero's brother "marries a girl as the only way to repossess a book he had lent her." Why, there was even a time when I had to steal my own books! This is how it happened — a "friend" couldn't remember having borrowed books from me. One day when he had left his room for a bit, I quickly ransacked his shelf and found them tucked away in the second row. I helped myself to the two books I wanted back badly and left the rest.
A writer friend of mine is convinced that borrowing books from friends and acquaintances (not libraries) and forgetting to return them is a subtle, decent, grown-up form of pinching being practised today. He told me of another writer and book lover who would never return his books. "Did you try asking for them back?" I asked. "Of course!" he shot back. "Of course I tried asking him — several times. And do you know what he'd say? He'd say: `My need of it is greater than yours.'" The underlying reason for pinching books — whether from a bookstore, library or a person's house — is always the same: no one else deserved the book as much as they did. And it was not about possessing some books, it was about possessing THAT book.
The greatest book thief in history is probably Stephen Blumberg who stole 22,000 rare books from 327 libraries, estimated at 40 million dollars. Though he had only passed high school he would masquerade as a professor in University libraries. His modus operandi ranged from wearing long coats with specially sown long pockets inside to hiding in the library after it closed. He didn't see it as stealing — he saw it as building a unique collection of books. At his trial he said he always meant to return them. He had preserved them carefully in an old house, housing the books in 180 bookcases that went from floor to ceiling. To get the glue off the library cards he would lick them. He licked the glue off a hundred books a day and would stop only when he got sick. His lawyers pleaded insanity as defence but the judges wouldn't buy it. Librarians were outraged and felt Blumberg had given bibliomania a bad name because the word originally meant "an intense love for books". Book collectors saw his passion for books as something noble, even romantic. The problem with both arguments is that they are too cut-and-dried. Biblioklepts love books but it is more than a passion with them: it is an obsession, a madness.
pradeepsebastian@hotmail.com
PRADEEP SEBASTIAN
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