Daily Gusto: Marginalia

May 18, 2004

Marginalia

Like Billy Collins in his poem "Marginalia," I find notes in the margins of books fascinating. While they often can be distracting, other times they are sufficiently strange to arouse more than a passing curiosity about the person who wrote them. For instance, I have a used copy of A Confederacy of Dunces with the scrawl, "Go to E.R. and ask for sedative. You're upset." then the big letters "EMERGENCY ROOM," with an arrow to "E.R." Was someone upset by the book, so much so that he or she needed to be immediately medicated, or was the 1982 First Revised Black Cat Edition the only paper nearby in an apparently dire situation?

I'm currently reading a library copy of Iris Murdoch's The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, which has a number of curious inscriptions. As I've read, I've begun to feel I know the inscriber, who is kind of like a sweet but slow-witted friend who explains the jokes on Seinfeld. ("That's funny because George's mom caught him masturbating!")

I've taken the liberty of snapping a few photographs of some of my favorite notes. I hope you're not offended wherever you are, random feminist stating-the-obvious woman.

Notes from a Previous Borrower of an Iris Murdoch Library Book

A similar adage must apply to the reader whose pen cannot stop moving as she reads.

She asserts her independence.

Not she!

Apparently new to Murdoch's work, our heroine fastidiously keeps track each time a character disobeys the seventh commandment.

Zip. Ouch, indeed.

Posted by Jennifer at May 18, 2004 10:30 AM | TrackBack

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i recently checked out a copy of Wise Child by monica furlong in which a previous reader had underlined all the (presumably) unfamiliar words. i enjoyed imagining this reader looking them up later.

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