Today is the start of a string of days off from work, a little vacation of sorts. Last night I was feeling so lazy that I almost didn’t even turn on my computer to check my email. Needless to say, a blog post was beyond me. I had thought that today I would write a long post about Memoirs of Hadrian since I had the time to think carefully about it, but now I am just not feeling it. I know I keep dangling writing about the book out like a carrot (maybe not a carrot, could be a stick, depending on how you look at it). You’d think I didn’t like the book but I did. Really.
Today I thought instead of a book review I’d pop in and write something about blank books. Have you heard that Bram Stoker’s notebook has been discovered? It contains bits of his earliest writing efforts and hints of the style and ideas he would later use in Dracula. The notebook is conveniently found and due to be published in time for the 2012 centenary of Stoker’s death.
What does that have to do with blank books? Well, Stoker’s notebook was a blank book until he wrote in it. I came across this interesting YouTube video lecture of “The Blank History of the Blank Book.”
Blank books have been around for as long as books have. Used mostly in business to keep records, the manufacture of them has been, and is, a large segment of the book industry. I’m not certain there are so many new patents for them these days, but in earlier times, patents for various bindings for blank books were a big deal. Who knew? I was also surprised to discover that three-ring binders are considered blank books as are spiral notebooks.
Personally, when I think of blank books I think of books sold in bookshops for use as diaries. I have a shelf full of three decade’s worth of blank books that contain my thoughts and dreams and fears and the goings on of my life. In addition to the ones with writing in them there is probably another decade’s worth of still blank ones waiting to be filled. I have to admit though that my pace in filling these blank books has decreased since I began blogging and nearly stopped when I began library school. I am just beginning to make my way back to them.
One thing that struck me as I was watching the video is that is seems the more digital our daily world becomes, the more people express interest in things like blank books, handwriting, letters, printed books. Is it nostalgia? Fear of change? Is it a worry about losing a connection to the simple, the mundane, the physical as we jet off into cyberspace where there is very little to ground us in the world and frequently a tenuous connection to context? Or is it something else?
What is the likelihood of a not yet famous young writer’s notebook being discovered in an attic in 100 years? Do young writers today keep paper notebooks? And if not, if all their notes are on a computer, what will we lose by their disappearance? Does the discovery of Stoker’s notebook make a difference to readers in general? If it doesn’t, then will the loss of discovering a current writer’s notebook in 100 years matter? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, just thinking out loud and welcome your thoughts on the matter.
On a different note, I will be participating in the 24-hour read-a-thon tomorrow. I am happy to say I miscalculated my start time. I thought I was going to have to start at 5 a.m. but I don’t start until 7 a.m.. I’m an early riser but the idea of getting up two hours before sunrise to start reading had me rolling over in bed and pulling the covers over my head. But 7 I can do, no problem. There is still time to join in if you haven’t signed up yet!
Weeds 
Lovely post (and it’s okay, I can wait patiently for that review!). I love the story about Colette’s father, Captain Colette, who kept these beautiful notebooks in his study for the books he was writing. When he died and the family were finally able to open them up, they found they were completely blank, apart from a title page. It’s always tempting to imagine that Colette took on the task of filling them, imaginatively.
But I think the fear of digitalisation is the fear of no longer leaving a trace. Archives are so important to people, and there’s nothing like holding a proper diary or bunch of letters in your hands. If all we have is email, which is deleted or lost when someone dies, what can we have to hold onto? What really remains to prove we have been alive? My mother-in-law is moving house and brought us all the letters my husband had written her when he was a teenager and away from home. It was fascinating to read them, and I just wished there had been more. It’s like having a whole new set of memories of my husband. If they had been emails and she had deleted them, all the details of those years would have been lost. So I hope people will keep writing letters, because they are special.
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Hey, I haven’t even managed to finish the Yourcenar yet (due to a major reading slump I hope ends soon), so no guilt here.
The question of what writerly discoveries will be like looking back on the current internet age is such an interesting one. I hoard old documents and photos as much as the next person and yet I can’t help feeling there is an overload of information online, which makes me cavalier about deleting things. My partner archives all his email, for example, but I only keep things of particular sentimental value.
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I know that feeling of wanting to write about a book, and one I enjoyed, but just not having quite enough energy to do so! Best not to force these things. I miss letter writing. As nice as email can be it’s just not the same as getting a card or letter in the mail. And while technology can make life so much easier (well, most of the time), I do worry about losing that link to the past–the tactile link. I wonder if museums have the same concerns as library’s do with this move towards all digital? Have fun reading all day–I wish I could join in–but weekends always seem to be taken over by all the things I didn’t have time for during the work week (unfun things, too!).
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There’s something pleasing about the physicality of writing in a book, you feel much more grounded in the actual process of writing. You often find yourself more attune to different thoughts when writing with a pen/pencil rather than typing. And though keyboards are tactile a pen/pencil forces you to become an artist instead of an information input machine.
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Another excellent post! Lots to think about in the questions you raised…and an intriguing lecture. I really enjoyed it — of course, I love blank books. I didn’t know there were patents on blank books either, but it got me thinking about all the different bindings I’ve come across, and there is a wide variety.
I will always have a blank book (or two) underway for my own journaling & note-taking; I was lucky enough to have a printing business in the family when I was young so developed my paper addiction early on 😉 I could spend hours in stationery shops, both for letter paper and the hard-to-resist beautiful blank books…then there are the pens… yes, I really do find it difficult to resist these tactile items.
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I love blank books and crave them when I find in a story. But I tend to not purchase – I already have so many. But. if it is especially gorgeous or feels inspirational in my hands, I will buy it.
Happy READATHON! Cheers
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I mean, in a STORE. but story is good, too…
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Too many excellent questions, Stefanie, I don’t know where to start so I’ll just go personal. I love blank books and have a few gorgeous ones in the cabinet next to me bed now. The trouble is I find it very hard to start writing in a quality one. I feel that my jottings have to be worthy of it whereas when I kept a journal (pre blogging and my busy online life) I had not trouble writing in the pretty but fairly cheap journals I bought for that purpose. I LOVE the idea of of carrying a blank book around and jotting ideas in it, doing sketches (if only I could sketch), sticking in little oddities, but I never actually do it.
And, I do think, like A Damned Conjuror, that writing by hand does involve different thinking. Sometimes I really feel like mapping something out by hand BUT most of my handwriting these days is lists (I still mostly do shopping and to do lists by hand) and marginalia (unless it’s an e-book)!
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Litlove, thanks! That is an excellent story about Colette’s father! I like your thoughts about the fear of not leaving a trace. What marvelous letters your mother-in-law saved! What a treasure to have them. I have a couple of boxes of letters from family and friends throughout the years and while I have never gone back and read them again, one of my biggest nightmares is the house burning down and all those letters with it.
Emily, you are not the only one who is cavalier about saying digital items. Most people don’t save email and if they do, they don’t know what format to save it in and they rarely back it up. Saving the digital is a lot more work than saving paper.
Danielle, I love getting cards and letters in the mail and I think most people do but hardly anyone takes the time to do it anymore which is rather sad. Museums do think about the same digital issues as libraries do and now historians and anthropologists and all those different professions who rely on and study the ephemera of everyday life are worrying about it too.
DamnedConjuror, the physicality of writing is very pleasing especially when writing with a quality pen or pencil on beautiful paper. it does ask us to think differently for sure. I know it slows me down, makes me more meditative.
Melwyk, thanks! I could spend hours in a stationery shop too. There is something so very beautiful and appealing about fine paper. And pens, don’t get me started on those! 🙂
Care, I too always lust after pretty blank books. But, like you I have already collected so many I can’t justify buying more though sometimes I manage it if I come across something particularly special.
whisperinggums, I’ve always loved the idea of carrying a blank book around with me too and tried it once but after a week it was still blank and only made my bag heavier so I gave that up but I still like the idea of it. I used to have trouble with the thought of writing in a beautiful book but I did manage to get over it somehow. I completely agree with you and Damned Conjuror about how our thinking changes when we write by hand. Writing by hand forces me to slow down and think more carefully because once I put it down in pen, there is not taking it back! I love lists and still make handwritten grocery lists. Poems of food.
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sardines and grapes
I’ve bought a pencil and pen!
Weekly shopping list.
oranges
plums potatoes carrots
garlic celery
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I used to be passionate about book and paper arts, blank books, journaling, visual journals, and yes, even learned to bind my own blank books and visited exhibitions of hand-crafted books and journals. I was totally absorbed by the art and craft of these beautiful creations… all before I started blogging four years ago. Your post has brought me back to the days before I’m a blogger. The art of making things by hand, and writing with a pen in a journal, and making the process an artistic expression. So in a way, blogging and the digital revolution is a reduction. Not nostalgia, but the demolition of an art form. Thank you for this post, Stefanie. It presents a ‘generation gap’.
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Damned conjuror, excellent shopping list poem!
Arti, interesting observations! I agree that the digital revolution is in some ways a reduction, but in others it presents opportunities of a different sort, digital art, web design, e-book design, etc. A completely different approach and a completley different creative experience to be sure.
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