Marxist-materialist realization

[truepenny]

I have a thing about getting books signed.

It baffles Mirrorthaw and heres_luck, and I believe it baffled papersky when I asked her to sign Tooth and Claw at Minicon. But I was thinking about it again this morning (in the context of A Scholar of Magics and getting it signed so it can join A College of Magics on my Signed shelf) and realized what my deal is.

For me, getting the book signed closes the circuit between story and storyteller. It reunites the worker with their labor--granted, through a purely symbolic and relatively trivial gesture, but still meaningful, at least to me. The book as object and the book as medium come together, and since I, the reader, own the material book, it reminds me when I read it, or even just look at it on the shelf, that that wond'rous circle exists, that the story embodied in that object, paper and glue and ink, came to that embodiment through the flesh-and-blood body of the author who wrote it.

Since I'm a writer myself, there is a level on which the signed books remind me that books are written by real human beings, and if they can do it, so can I. But I was a reader, and a passionate reader, long before I dreamt of being a writer, and I think my real joy in having signed books is linking the two ends of the chain back together: the idea in the author's head with the material realization of that idea in the book.

This is why I will never be a successful ascetic. Material objects are freighted with too much meaning for me.

Comments

Well yeah

[dmsherwood53.livejournal.com]

I can get behind the concept tho I don't share the yearning

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Material objects are freighted with meaning for me. I will keep old tattered copies of books with hideous covers long after I have bought newer editions, simply because the older copy was the first one in which I read the book, and it's special to me.

But I don't get signatures and inscriptions, especially the little messages that don't actually mean anything. (An inscription from a friend -- whether it's the author or the giver -- is different.) They make me feel weird and awkward and fake. I thought I was alone in this, and it's kind of a relief to know that Mirrorthaw and h.l. share at least my disconnection from this activity, even if their reasons are different.

I feel like not taking anything to be signed at Wiscon is somehow wasting an opportunity, and yet it's not an opportunity for something I really want.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I thought I was alone in this

If you don't care about getting books signed, then don't. Q.E.D.

I feel relatively certain that *I*'m the weirdo here. It has a very particular meaning for me that I suspect it really doesn't have for anyone else. It's irrational and idiosyncratic, and I'm at peace with that. I don't expect anyone else to share my madness--although at least now I can explain where I'm coming from, even if only in highly academic language.

That said, you will take my signed copy of The Left Hand of Darkness away from me only when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

My most precious autograph is Roger Zelazny, I think. Either him or Theodore Sturgeon, except the Sturgeon was in a convention program on newsprint, packed away somewhere at my dad's house, and I'm scared to dig it out and see if it's faded away.

[janni.livejournal.com]

It never occurred to me that wanting books signed might be strange.

For awhile I worried that it would be a little declasse to ask a fellow writer to sign a book, even a little unprofessional. But then I saw how cool it felt when someone asked me to sign a story for the first time, and I decided there was nothing shameful in it at all.

The only downside is, if you have an uncommon name (I do), you hesitate to ever sell off even signed books you don't enjoy, because the thought of the writer finding them in a used bookstore and knowing you're the one who brought them there would be way too embarrassing. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Why I will never be a successful ascetic: the Ghirardelli company.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Yes. That makes a lot of sense.

I like getting books signed, too, even if it's just a friend's book and I'm teasing them and asking them where they get their ideas and is writing hard?

I just realized I never got my COLLEGE signed, though I do have a couple other of hers signed. My COLLEGE is paperback, that's why I guess, since it came out when I didn't have much money.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Beyond collection value, which isn't my thing at all, at all, this is the only explanation of wanting signatures that's really made sense to me. Mostly people don't have philosophical explanations beyond "It's cool!" or "I just want it," both of which are entirely valid -- but they don't help me understand.

And while I don't have any particular desire to collect signatures, which for me I think is tied to a very strong desire to not encourage my tendency towards overly-slavish adoration verging on stalking (albeit only in the privacy of my mind), your post made me realize that when I do see a signed copy of something (usually crossing my cataloging desk), it does make the author more real, more of an individual.

So, this makes complete sense to me, and thank you for posting it!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

V. welcome. I'm glad it went click! with someone else.

I don't mind being nuts, but it's nice to know I'm not alone. *g*

[janni.livejournal.com]

Just curious: what do those who don't see the sense in signing books (and who are also writers) do when someone asks them to do so?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It always baffles me. I mean I do it, and your explanation is a lot like the rationale I have for why people want it -- my theory is that my pen, my name, my words, add mana to the book for the people who think like that. It's a magic connection thing. Far be it from me to argue with other people's magic connection things.

It's just never been something I've been into myself. I have books signed because the author gave them to me, I have books signed because I wanted to meet the author and the event was "a signing", I have one Connie Willis book (Bellwether I think) signed because she was standing next to me when I bought it and she grabbed it and signed it, and I have a signed copy of Into the Slave Nebula because John Brunner took it off the shelf and signed it when I was in the kitchen.

But while I can get attached to the actual physical copy of a book -- the one time I cried during the divorce process was when I thought carandol was going to get my physical copy of The Wind's Twelve Quarters Volume 2 -- having it signed doesn't really do that much for me.