Libraries of the Mind
Published on 20. May 2025
Book
Hardback
200 pages
978-0-691-26742-5 (ISBN)
Description
How we build our invisible libraries
Erich Auerbach wrote his classic work Mimesis, a history of narrative from Homer to Proust, based largely on his memory of past reading. Having left his physical library behind when he fled to Istanbul to escape the Nazis, he was forced to rely on the invisible library of his mind. Each of us has such a library-if not as extensive as Auerbach's-even if we are unaware of it. In this erudite and provocative book, William Marx explores our invisible libraries-how we build them and how we should expand them.
Libraries, Marx tells us, are mental realities, and, conversely, our minds are libraries. We never read books apart from other texts. We take them from mental shelves filled with a variety of works that help us understand what we are reading. And yet the libraries in our mind are not always what they should be. The selection on our mental shelves-often referred to as canon, heritage, patrimony, or tradition-needs to be modified and expanded. Our intangible libraries should incorporate what Marx calls the dark matter of literature: the works that have been lost, that exist only in fragments, that have been repurposed by their authors, or were never written in the first place. Marx suggests methods for recovering this missing literature, but he also warns us that adding new titles to our libraries is not enough. We must also adopt a new attitude, one that honors the diversity and otherness of literary works. We must shed our preconceptions and build within ourselves a mental world library.
Erich Auerbach wrote his classic work Mimesis, a history of narrative from Homer to Proust, based largely on his memory of past reading. Having left his physical library behind when he fled to Istanbul to escape the Nazis, he was forced to rely on the invisible library of his mind. Each of us has such a library-if not as extensive as Auerbach's-even if we are unaware of it. In this erudite and provocative book, William Marx explores our invisible libraries-how we build them and how we should expand them.
Libraries, Marx tells us, are mental realities, and, conversely, our minds are libraries. We never read books apart from other texts. We take them from mental shelves filled with a variety of works that help us understand what we are reading. And yet the libraries in our mind are not always what they should be. The selection on our mental shelves-often referred to as canon, heritage, patrimony, or tradition-needs to be modified and expanded. Our intangible libraries should incorporate what Marx calls the dark matter of literature: the works that have been lost, that exist only in fragments, that have been repurposed by their authors, or were never written in the first place. Marx suggests methods for recovering this missing literature, but he also warns us that adding new titles to our libraries is not enough. We must also adopt a new attitude, one that honors the diversity and otherness of literary works. We must shed our preconceptions and build within ourselves a mental world library.
Reviews / Votes
"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year" "Libraries exist as physical things, but they also have a second form as abstract ideas about how we should organize and preserve information. In this philosophical but accessible book, Marx shows how better understanding our invisible libraries allows us to rethink our relationship to literature, culture and the forces that threaten both." * The Washington Post * "Renew that library card. This deftly written book reflects on the history of how we organize knowledge, classify books, and give meaning to our lives through reading. . . . An eloquent plea for reading by a true scholar of world literature." * Kirkus Reviews * "Absolutely packed solid with provocative ideas that will . . . offer you new ways of thinking and articulating the way you think of reading and storing what you've learned from your adventures with literature."---Terry Potter, The Letterpress Project "Libraries of our homes and minds can now more easily than ever include literature translated from myriad languages. Such broader reading enhances our capacity for valuing beauty and wonder not only in literature but in the world all around. Awareness of this reality-that there are many more beautiful books than we could ever read-perhaps heightens the pressure to read well and choose wisely. But in the age of AI and everything digital, it is also a beautiful reminder that to read is human."---Nadya Williams, Providence "A curious little book. . . . Every person should have a library of his own, Marx says, one in the mind, which is the first tool of intellectual growth and flexibility, not to mention an escape from parochialism."---Mark Bauerlein, First Things "[Libraries of the Mind] is that rare volume on libraries and classification systems that reads simultaneously as an erudite philosophical treatise and a page-turning thriller. . . . Essential." * Choice * "[A] sustained and more than interesting reading."---David Marx, David Marx Book Reviews "It would be futile to try to list the riches of Marx's infinitely expandable and debatable little book. Its various lines of inquiry browse and sift material culture, the individual subconscious and collective unconscious, the self-serving political appropriation of values and fetishized concepts, or yet a cultural history of the different ways, always incomplete, in which the many elements, semantic, emotional, visual, etc., woven together by a subject form the 'mental image of works.'"---Didier Coste, Migrating MindsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
7 b/w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 181 mm
Width: 114 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
254 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-26742-5 (9780691267425)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
William Marx
Libraries of the Mind
E-Book
03/2025
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€24.49
Available for download
Person
William Marx is professor of comparative literature at the College de France. He is the author of The Hatred of Literature, The Tomb of Oedipus: Why Greek Tragedies Were Not Tragic, and other books.