Sydney Life

So, it’s is mid-semester break and I am supposed to be ferreting my way through mountains of research material, drafting proposals, writing reports, proofing my essays. However planned my time is, however pristine my to-do list, the crashing sense of defeat inevitably comes when I realise that the only reason why I plan so meticulously is to avoid doing any actual work. After another frustrating trip to the library, I have come up with the top five reasons why books should be banned. It is an entirely modest proposal. Please peruse it at your leisure.

1) Books steal your ideas
This is how it all starts. You walk into Fisher Library with buoyancy so buoyant you are practically walking on proverbial air. You are going to start your assignment! You are going to hand this one in on time. Your writing will be cogent, will be argued deftly, and will be well supported by research. Ah! Research. That is the very reason why you are in this behemoth of a building: you are going to get yourself some books. You scroll through the catalogue, pick out several that will help you turn your essay into one hell of a piece of literary criticism and then you muster up the courage to brave the Fisher Stacks. The stacks are levels upon levels of books upon books. They smell like the inside of a vacuum bag after it has been emptied (how do I know what a vacuum bag smells like after it has been emptied? Pfft…as if you don’t compulsively sniff your cleaning tools/ cleaning products/ Nanna’s sweater…). Usually when I begin to write an essay, I make a quick plan of some of the ideas I would like to explore. After half an hour of thinking time, I can get quite pleased with myself, startled by my originality and obliqueness of approach. This enthusiasm is very quickly tempered when I realise that someone has already stolen my ideas, researched into an area and published several works on it. It feels terrible to know that my great ideas are already hackneyed before I have even begun! This surely must be the most profound of all disappointments; the realisation that one can only think in cliché. The very same clichés I hope to avoid like the plague when I am writing. To have an original idea is an intrinsically good thing. If something threatens your originality, it must be destroyed. If there were no books, then there would be fewer mechanisms for expression of thoughts. If this were the case, then have a higher chance of feeling original. Books steal my ideas. Ergo: books should be banned.

2) Books make me feel bad about myself and my knowledge base
If they haven’t stolen my original ideas, they are full of stuff about which I know nothing. Books should be banned because they make people feel stupid. There are just too many words in books. And far too many pages. When I look at the magnitude of the Fisher stacks, all those books with millions of words, I can never imagine reading them all let alone understanding all of them. People are fragile enough these days, too many books just makes you feel worse. Ban them to improve self esteem.

3) Books are elusive
Someone is stealing the books! Is it you? If you are one of those people who find the books and then sit reading them for a few hours WITHOUT actually borrowing them (making them appear available when searched on the catalogue) then you are a bad person. On a trip to Fisher, the worst case scenario is that you will spend fifteen minutes diligently copying down all the required books to only find them missing on the shelves, including the sorting shelves. It is heartbreaking and rage invoking all at once and, clearly, I do not have the capacity for emotion as complex as this. The inanity of the Dewey Decimal System only makes the chase more difficult. If we can never find them, why should we have them? We should just ban books to stop wasting people’s time and effort in searching for them in vain.

4) Books are heavy
So, I have to start somewhere even if most of the books have stolen my great ideas. I try to round up all the pertinent books that bolster my argument, not threaten it, and cart them down to the Fisher Loans Desks. These desks are frequently staffed and have a lovely retro brass bag shelf on which one can place his or her back pack/ satchel. The designers of Fisher Library’s interiors really have thought about it all. But this is the extent of their courtesy. Where are the book carrying helper monkeys? Knowledge is, as it turns out, quite heavy. I borrowed eight books the other day and carrying them hurt my soft little girl hands. My shoulder ached with my bag slung over my shoulder. I was bent at an odd angle as I ambled out of Fisher with a swollen bag of books. This is ridiculous and it has to stop. So many young people today suffer from poor posture. The heaviness of books only contributes to this malformation of spine, slumpiness of shoulders and hand pain. The weight of books and their effect on people’s comfort and health seriously impedes the possibility of raising a strong and healthy generation. Ban them and give us infra red saunas and gym passes instead.

5) Books are too analogue for this digital world
The fact that books are so heavy is because they are physical. So, perhaps I am really more intent on banning physical books. When are we going to realise that the internet is the way of the future? The delicious tactility of one of those ‘hand held’ books is nothing in comparison to the speediness with which one can bring up an e-book. No waiting in line to borrow it, no scribbles over it from some annoying undergraduate who thinks its his or hers to write notes in its margins, no broken spine. E-books are clean, simple and readily available. The internet is a democratising force, as more people have access to the internet than they do the narrow isles of Fisher Library. In this politicised light, it is clear that books are really repressive agents of the Bourgeois state; access to them is limited and stratified according to an individual’s personal strength to carry them. Bring on the digital revolution and we can do away with books and this silly visiting-the-Fisher-Library-business.