Chapter: The Psychometry of Books

An excerpt from Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson:

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I was brought up without books. An early unprinted existence where paper was something pasted on to walls and likely reading matter was either The Bible or the Army and Navy stores catalogue, always open at the underwear.

There was nothing perverted in this; without proper heating and in chilly Lancashire, a thermal one-piece was the essence of God; all-protecting, embracing, saving, generous. I still have a talent for sleeved vests, although mine now come from the Burlington Arcade, but without one of my early cast-offs, I might never have been brave enough to buy that first First Edition. I am wearing one now, book and vest. I have been wearing one since I was a small child, book and vest. Books and vests bound up together. Both protect me.

Brought up without books, my passion for them was, if not directly forbidden, discouraged. At that time I knew nothing of First Editions and their special lure but I associated books with magic. Their totemic qualities aroused me and I believed that to possess them was power.

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I trust books, and a wild trust is part of passion. If 'Nature never did betray the heart that loved her' then why should language? Nature was not forbidden to me, and it was through her silent speaking, that I began to understand the physical power of special objects, a power evident in my own library. Books that have the power to move me.

Never lie. Never say that something has moved you if you are still in the same place. You can pick up a book but a book can throw you across the room. A book can move you from a comfortable armchair to a rocky place where the sea is. A book can separate you from your husband, your wife, your children, all that you are. It can heal you out of a lifetime of pain. Books are kinetic, and like all huge forces, need to be handled with care.

But they do need to be handled. The pleasure in a book is, or should be, sensuous as well as aesthetic, visceral as well as intellectual.

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[Pg 121-123]