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PSA: A guy at the bindery in Ann Arbor showed me his 40 year old copy of Ulysses and I don't know if I'm inspired or depressed
I was picking up some bookcloth at a supply shop in Ann Arbor last Tuesday and got talking to this older guy named Walt who was rebinding a copy of Ulysses. He flipped it open and showed me his signature on the colophon page, dated 1983, and said he rebacks every book he owns about once a decade and this was its fourth trip through his hands. The spine looked brand new but the boards were soft and dark where his thumbs land, and he said that wear is the whole point because a book you can't see you've read is just furniture. Part of me thinks that's the truth of the craft, that repair is a relationship you keep up like changing the oil, and part of me thinks about my own shelf and how I baby everything in phase boxes and never let a cover soften or a corner fray. The debate in my head is this: is a binding meant to outlive you in mint shape, or is it meant to get used up and come back to the bench again and again? Walt clearly picked repair, but I keep wondering if the repairs are half the reason his copy is still around or half the reason the original boards are gone. So which camp are you in, build it to last untouched in a case, or build it to be handled until it needs you again?
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