In (More) Defense of Marginalia

In February I wrote a short defense of marginalia. To me, marginalia makes used books more interesting and borrowed books more personal (let me be clear I don't write in books I borrow - I am referring to my own books that I borrow out, or books I borrow from others who have written their own annotations). It marks ownership and reveals reader's nuances. It's also a way of connecting and responding to the author - alive or dead.

Recently I stumbled across an article in New York Times Magazine that made me quite happy: "What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text", in which Sam Anderson writes a longer, much more eloquent defense of marginalia,

This wasn’t exactly radical behavior — marking up books, I’m pretty sure, is one of the Seven Undying Cornerstones of Highly Effective College Studying. But it quickly began to feel, for me, like something more intense: a way to not just passively read but to fully enter a text, to collaborate with it, to mingle with an author on some kind of primary textual plane.

Then he touches on a ereader fantasy that I found quite interesting. With the advent of ereaders, we have a way of gathering the marginalia that is found written in physical books, most notably the best and most intelligent marginalia written by famous authors and literary critics, and offering the readers an option of viewing this marginalia on their ereader. In short, the ability to read notes from "history's most interesting book markers". He calls this a sort of "readerly utopia" and I couldn't agree more. Amazon has already got something in the works that will enable public note sharing on its Kindle, which may suggest Anderson's fantasy isn't so distant.

For those of you that abhor marginalia (I remember quite a few of you from my last defense) rest assured this feature wouldn't affect your reading experience. As Anderson explains,

I understand the objection, but in the world of e-books, marginalia would be purely value-added, appearing and disappearing at the touch of a button. It would be like the option of watching a film with the directors’ commentary — a nice bonus but also easy to ignore. And it would allow a whole new wave of readers to discover the pleasure of the words in the margins.

Now that people, that would give me reason enough to buy an ereader.

Marginalia: Use or Abuse?

mar·gi·na·lia (n) - marginal notes or embellishments

I'm a big fan of marginalia. I never write in pen, or use a highlighter, but you can bet any book I love is filled with penciled annotations and underlined passages. I find the more I like a novel, the more marginalia I scribble inside of it.

Word has it marginalia began as a result of the scarcity of paper. Authors who were poor borrowed the blank spaces of the page to write their own words. Voltaire composed in book margins while he was in prison. Then it adapted into a way of remembering and finally, a means of noting interpretations or enthusiasms. Edgar Allen Poe titled his fragmentary work "Marginalia". Samuel T. Coleridge's marginalia were published in a five volume set.

All of us mark our books somehow - whether that be dog-ears, post its, scribbles or stains. To me, marginalia makes used books more interesting and borrowed books more personal (let me be clear I don't write in books I borrow - I am referring to my own books that I borrow out, or books I borrow from others who have written their own annotations). It marks ownership and reveals reader's nuances. It's also a way of connecting and responding to the author - alive or dead.

So there it is - my short defense of my marginalia. If you're interested in more detail, check out H. J. Jackson's Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books.