How Books Move Around

Recently, I found a book. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. It is a typical Greene book, at least, it reminded me of The Power and the Glory, which I read two years ago. These books dive deep into the lives and anxieties of flawed but relatable people. Much like Greene himself, they struggle to live with the faith which they simultaneously and stubbornly refuse to give up.

They are the broken people, but they are so in a way that shows, between the cracks, the paradox of power revealed in weakness. They fall, they fail, they turn away, they try again, but somehow they survive. Of course, the affair between Bendrix and Sarah ends, it has to, but it ends to reveal love.

Crucially, Sarah and Bendrix learn to give themselves fully to love. But they give themselves away so completely, that they have nothing left. They don’t just fall in love, but they fall into the source of all love, into the ultimate act of self-giving.

I wonder why this book touches me. I am no Bendrix, just as I am not the whisky-priest from The Power and the Glory. But there is something deeply relatable about these characters and their struggle with faith. In my experience, it is not easy to keep faith alive. It is a miracle there is any faith at all. Yet, at the same time, it is undeniably true, good, and all I ever want. It is strangely comforting to discover that I am not the only one who is struggling with this. I knew that already, but it helps to get those reminders every so often.

But books such as The End of the Affair are more than just this communion of sinner-saints. It does something which very few books do, it awakens, re-awakens, a deep longing within. As someone once put it, “it makes you want to be good.” It makes me want to belong to this holy madness. Even though it doesn’t quite make sense, I want to belong to this truth, this goodness. This book makes me cry with Thomas, “My Lord!”

But how do books end up in my library, to begin with? We find each other.

The other day, I found a nice book in one of those roadside book exchange libraries that people put up in many places in The Netherlands. The hunter-gatherer in me loves them. Usually, I catch nothing of interest, but every once in a while a kind soul has left the right book for me. Yesterday I picked up the Dutch translation of Georges Duby’s The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society 980–1420. I love churches and I love the Middle Ages, so it was not a difficult decision. 

On my way home my daughter, who is home from university, asked me whether I intended to read the book.  Honestly, I’m not sure, and, I added, I don’t think that is a problem. I have always collected far more books than I can read. This situation is helped by the fact that I am a slow reader. But more importantly, I believe that being in the presence of books is good for me, I feel at home with books around me. As someone said: a house without books is a body without a soul. 

Then I realized that my book collection habit was also part of my parenting strategy: I firmly believe it is important for children to grow up in a house with books everywhere. Not because they will read them all, of course not!, but I wanted to expose them to the risk of running into that one book that opens the world for them. I know that I have always had a good sense of the timeline of major events in European history because my father had (and still has) a nice collection of books in his study (don’t you dare call it an office, it is the study 🙂 Most of his books are about Reformed (puritan, really) theology and Dutch organs. In addition, he had a somewhat random collection of books. I vividly remember books about subjects such as bee-keeping, harpsichord building, photography, Greek-Orthodox Churches, five books about the First World War, and a ten-volume encyclopedia which I have read back to cover. And a few hundred others. 

In the case of my own family, it seems the strategy has paid off, we have plenty of books in the house, everywhere. Every family member has experienced the joy of new worlds opening up through books, whether it is the 19th-century English novel, art history, or dinosaurs. While we have regularly moved between houses and countries, a good selection of books has always gone with us. We have always picked up good books between moves and we always left some behind for other readers. 

This is why I collect books: I want to help find a reader for a book or a book for the reader. Since I don’t always know the right combination in advance, I just try to be generous.