In the Library of Richard Macksey: Take I

The following is a recorded walk through the Richard Macksey library in an effort to see the books sitting on shelves, chairs, tables, stands. The manner of walking, the logic of focusing on this or that title or tableau rather than the other, has to a great extent to be arbitrary, but the invitation and the seduction to which this walking takes itself as an answer is very much necessary and real. I have tried different takes. Some books have been looked at, others simply ignored or left alone. The cinematic depiction of books is still in its infancy. The camera simply doesn't know what to do in a place like library. Finding a language or a logic to do justice to individual titles rather than presenting them as bricks in a glorified edifice proves to be demanding. Perhaps there isn't any.

When asked what guided his book collecting, Macksey said seduction. Books, or certain books, seduce and you are drawn to them. To the common question of whether he had read all of these books, he would tend to give two answers. First, he knew all of them, their places, their histories and associations. Second, some books are to be devoured, some tasted, some consumed, some taken like medicine, and others used as garnish. They were all like people to him. Except for letting through light and providing seats, he wouldn’t spare any place for his people.

A third answer could resort to an ancient metaphor. Just as you don’t go around in a garden smelling all the flowers each by each, a personal library is populated by books that ought to be left sitting in rest and summoned only when necessity spontaneously calls. His little cosmos remains disorganized in appearance, but it has its own structure through and through. Plus, if you want to have a library of your own, by necessity it has to grow ever larger and larger, because one book leads to another, and why should you stop following the lead?