Anne
Fadiman’s book Ex Libris contained eighteen exquisitely crafted essays which chronicled
the author and her family’s dedication to their books and bibliomania. The
first impression the book left me is its Latin title and its lists of low
frequency words which conveyed the author’s erudition on reading and writing. Indeed,
it is only natural that Fadiman would have an excellent command of Latinate
words, with a long pedigree of writing in the family (a renowned
television personality father and World War II correspondent mother). Fadiman (1998) wrote her family “viewed
all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament” (p. 14) as she and her
family would complete for the now defunct weekly television program “G.E.
college”, a show where two teams of four students representing different
universities went against each other for scholarship money. Self-described as
Fadiman U., she confessed they only lost to Brandeis and Colorado College in
six years of competition.
This is definitely a book for people
who cherish books and like to read a book about books as Fadiman (1998) recounted
her family’s unbridled love to books and editing. Specifically, “Insect a
Carrot” described about one time when the Fadiman sat down in a restaurant for
dinner, they could not help but fervently start proof-reading the menu as if the
act of editing would have satiated their appetite. Or in “The Catalogical
Imperative”, where Fadiman confessed her love of reading and editing Nordstrom catalogues
even though she should have no business receiving those catalogues. Another
topic which may interest bibliophiles is Fadiman’s description of other famous
authors’ book collections in “My Odd Shelf”. For example, George Orwell collected
ladies’ magazines from the 1860s and he enjoyed reading them in his bathtub. Moreover,
Fadiman’s classification of carnal and courtly book lovers would definitely
bring a smile to many people interested in underlining, making marginal notes,
tearing pages out or continuing reading books until they fall apart.
Despite these accolades, there are
still some limitations to this book. First of all, this book reads more like a
collection of autobiographical essays whose purpose is to present a bibliomaniac’s
life-long love affair with her husband, her children and her books. Therefore,
readers who are specifically looking for guideline on writing will definitely
be disappointed because the only tip they can get is to mimic Anne Fadiman’s
style, which is helpful to some extent, but nevertheless is not the same as to
read a writing guide. In addition to its content, some of the essays are
commissioned pieces that Fadiman wrote in a column called “The Common Reader”
in Civilization Magazine (Lehmann-Haupt, 1998). Although Fadiman did bring some
age-old topics such as secondhand books, reading aloud and plagiarism a new life,
lack of a central theme make these chapters disjointed. Finally, readers not
familiar with Western literary works would find some part of the book
unreadable due to lack of prior knowledge on the subject. Although more
familiar authors like George Orwell or John Updike were mentioned, authors like
Ernest Thompson Seton and Father O’Reilly are less familiar to the general public.
The unfamiliarity may impede comprehension of what Fadiman (1998) was trying to
get across in those passages.
Overall, Fadiman provided witticisms
and entertaining details on a seemingly mundane subjects like editing and
reading. If you are an avid reader who enjoys Western literature and are undaunted
about the sometimes trifling task of looking up some esoteric words that you
have never before encountered in your life, this is the right book for you.
翼鵬
德州農工大學
乙未年仲冬書於潛龍齋
