BackBooks with a story
A physical book, unlike e-books, can have a contextual meaning flowing from who owns it, when it was bought, the physical wear and tear, etc
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Readers of this newspaper may occasionally ask themselves whether to stop buying physical books and switch to e-books altogether. The question—I still have not made up my mind—gained new significance recently when browsing the shelves of a private library, owned by the maharaja of Tehri Garhwal. The library is tucked away in a small room of a beautiful hilltop palace, overlooking the meandering Ganges in the valley far below. The surrounding rooms are decorated with portraits of the family lineage and black-and-white photographs of the court of King George VI—portrayed as “Bertie" in the film The King’s Speech.
Most books were from the period before World War II. My eyes wandered across the volumes in the dimly lit room while my feet produced soft creaking sounds from the wooden floors. Yet in a flash, my mind somehow connected three specific titles that stood scattered across the room’s shelves. All were published in the early 1930s, when the “Empire" was still large and strong. Their spines had paled, but the titles sprang out nonetheless. And together, they foretold the coming of great historical events and of a maharaja that sensed it. The first was written by a German count, Pückler, and objectively assessed the military strength of Britain at that time. The second, written by a Japanese military commander, called on the Japanese to attack Britain. But the third was a notorious one, called Germany, prepare for war! by Nazi ideologist Ewald Banse. Written with a consuming rage, it called for war and the use of bacteriological weapons to expand German territories and inflict a humiliating defeat on Britain so that “this country, that was last conquered in 1066, will once more obey a foreign master".
Banse’s book was banned by the German government that preceded Adolf Hitler’s and smuggled out of the country. In the introduction, written without the consent of the author, the British publisher warned that this was the dangerous rhetoric that was rising in Germany. Unfortunately, the British government only listened when Hitler stated his intentions in 1940.
The visitor that picked these books from the palace library in the Himalayan foothills was holding a piece of history in hand. I was excited. Sometimes, the meaning of a book stems from its rarity. Yet in the age of Google Books, old manuscripts are scanned and their rarity drops to zero as reproduction becomes costless and sharing limitless. The meaning of these books was not due to the current relevance of their content either. Their real meaning stemmed from the actual presence of these particular books, in this particular library, acquired at that particular moment in time, by this particular person.
My mind pieced together a story. The photographs in the palace suggested that the maharaja had held relatively warm relations with the British nobility. King George’s portrait was signed, as was that of Lord Mountbatten. Perhaps, then, the maharaja had personal and survival motives for understanding the European politics of the 1930s. Perhaps he sensed the coming of events that would change the world and that of India and himself. These three books, still in his library today, might have been part of his efforts to understand the sentiments against the British empire, the likelihood of war, and its possible outcome. In the event of a war on Britain and a defeat by Germany, the entire Commonwealth might have fallen into Hitler’s hands. In hindsight, one can only shiver at the thought of what would have happened to the people of the subcontinent if the 20th century’s darkest ideology had been implemented in India.
Physical books can have a contextual meaning flowing from who owns it, when it was bought, why it was read, the physical wear and tear, etc.—beyond content or rarity. I left the library feeling that a fascinating piece of history had unfolded that afternoon, with a great sense of realness.
But would such experiences be preserved in our switch to digital, I wondered? Or would they be lost and disappear in between the device and software updates across the decades? In 80 years’ time, would the current maharaja’s iPad be placed in this library so that the public could browse his e-book or iTunes collection? And are such e-books devoid of context, would they tell a story too? Perhaps. But perhaps not. In which case, we may be in the process of deleting a lot of meaning.
Tjaco Walvis is the managing director of brand consulting and advertising agency THEY India, and a speaker at the Outstanding Speakers’ Bureau. He writes a fortnightly column on the softer cultural aspects of marketing that often tend to be ignored by marketers.
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