Between the Bookworm and the Bibliophile

Identity Conflict Among Readers

Gurmeet Brar, Academician, Writer, Director, likhtam@hotmail.com

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”It is with these words that Francis Bacon, he wrote more than four hundred years ago, described the diversities in how we interact with books.His observation is also very timely today.It is an ideal point of departure to see the identity crisis that is continuing among the readers the tensions between the bookworm that digests content and the bibliophile that worships the book as an object.In between them is a sizeable and somewhat lost crowd that reads lustily but collects much more than it can consume.

The bookworm represents the thoughts of Bacon of books to be swallowed or even chewed and digested.This reader reads books everywhere, on trains, in waiting rooms, during power failures or on the wedding when the speech is interminable.To them, the book is more of an idea and story conveyer.The physical appearance does not count much; a dog-eared paperback with tea-stains is just as valuable as a fresh edition.The bookworm reads in a hungry fashion, and he tends to change his reading much too fast, either to swallow up whole novels, or to patiently digest deep ones.They are concerned with what is accomplished and what is learned.

The bibliophile, on the other hand, treats the books more reverently than Bacon in his categories of reading.Although in certain cases they can taste, swallow and even digest some quantities, their association comprises of ownership, preservation and beauty.They enjoy the font, feel the paper, the decoration of the binding and the symmetry of the cover.A lot of their books are tasted or not eaten at all, and are not consumed as objects of cultural wealth, but rather pre-served and presented as a monument of cultural worth.The lending out of it is a risk to its physical safety, not out of egoism, but guardianship.

The majority of contemporary readers, nevertheless, dwell in the broad middle ground – a place to which Bacon gives elucidation through silent wisdom in his quote.They go into book-stores with the intention of making one purchase, and go out with many, and of making a rationalization of every purchase: to swallow, another to taste, one to digest thoroughly, and another, because it felt like a significant book. Thousands of new titles are being published annually in India, contributing to this habit.However, reading sur-veys have high engagement and low completion.The consequence can be seen in the urban houses: the number of books that need to be read is increasing, a contemporary expression of the opposition between tasting, swallowing and digesting.This contradic-tion can be found in every-day decisions, like lending a book or not.The book-worm views lending as a logical method of sharing ideas – to get other people to taste or swallow them. The bibliophile is hesitant and is worried about the state of the book as a par-ent is to an asset.

This gap has been cut and also blurred by technolo-gy.The digital forms will allow the bookworm to consume hundreds of books at once on the same device, which fits well into the concept of reading not curiously or part by part as proposed by Bacon.The committed to their collec-tions resort to the conven-ience of e-books and this creates overlap on the spectrum. The model developed by Bacon also makes us remember that the distinction between the bookworm and the biblio-phile is not a one-dimen-sional one, but a continu-um.

There are those readers who mostly taste and pass on. Others swallow greedi-ly. Some few chew and digest are industrious.Most of them read all three modes according to the time, mood and the book they are reading at that moment – to read unfiltered hunger of stories and awe of the objects that bear them.

What too many people fail to realize is that both impulses are working towards the same worthy goal keeping a living culture of reading alive.The book-worm makes sure that ideas are fed on and argued.The book lover takes care of books and maintains them as cultural heritage.In the absence of the latter, books will be just dusted decora-tions.The latter would also make even the best editions not survive long enough to be rediscovered.

In this era of digital content that passes too quickly, the old wisdom of Bacon seems to be of a particular urgent need.It is the same whether you are swallowing a filed paperback on a rock-ing train, or you are tender-ly building your own library in your own home: the fun-damentals are the same and they are to read, to think, and to dream.

The distance between the bibliophile and the book-worm is not paradoxical, it is the opulent, needful spec-trum, the very spot, where tasting, swallowing, chew-ing, and digesting are all united.And in that fruitful conflict the culture of read-ing silently forms.