Press of Ideas: Readings for Writers on Print Culture and the Information Age Book

Richard de Bury, cleric and bibliophile extraordinaire, wrote a love letter to books, which meanders dangerously from an infectious and exquisite fervour, to a genuine concern he's been dry humping the library shelves.

My God does this man love books, almost as much as he loves name dropping Aristotle, hyperbole or metaphors. A lot of his phrasing is down right lovely in its passion:
All things are corrupted and decay in time […] all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books'.
Richard de Bury divides this short text into shorter arguments (with titles of outrageous length) and he manages to cover a lot in this book:

-Books are the best teachers. They don't cane you, laugh at your ignorance and are always available to give you their wisdom when asked (although curiously, de Bury also insists students should be beaten till they understand and fully appreciate books).

-de Bury demands that books should be cared for, and laments how many have been left to rot and decay. He writes this from a book's perspective with long and nigh on harrowing detail: 'within we are devoured by the fierce gripings of our entrails, hungry worms cease not to gnaw'.

-He decries how authors are forgotten to time, that editors and interpreters butcher a work, or how the Roman's basically stole everything from the Greeks but get applauded for their plagerism: we are supposed to be from Athens, though we are now supposed to be from Rome'

-The worst thing about war is so many books are destroyed when cities burn (and, you know, people).

-He praises Arabia for preserving so much of the ancient texts, while contradictorily bitching that 'those evil Saracens have the light of the Western world in their unworthy libraries'.

-He argues fiction and fables are not low literature; they're wonderful and delightful ways of teaching moral lessons.

-'You touch the books with your filthy, unwashed hands and I will cut you'.

De Bury also shows himself to be a precursor to later literary criticism:

-He beats Alexander Pope's 'a little learning is a dangerous thing' line in An Essay on Criticism by several centuries: 'having slightly tasted of the mighty stream, they think that they have drunk it dry, though their throats are hardly moistened.'

-'So long as the book survives, its author remains immortal and cannot die' GNU Terry Pratchett.

-And he predates George Owell's Books Vs Cigarettes with: 'all who are smitten with the love of books think cheaply of the world and wealth'.
However, de Bury wrote that about a hundred years before Gutenberg invented the printing press, back when books were handwritten and prohibitively expensive. And it's at this point that I stumble upon what's wrong with de Bury's loving treatise (aside from the anti-semitism and Saracen bashing): This book wasn't meant for me.

The Philobiblon is an argument why the clergy should have a greater appreciation for books, how they bring you closer to God and why the church coffers should be used to buy more books. This is not a universal fawning over literature (though it's possible to read it that way), but an ecumenical matter, and de Bury voices his views on mere plebians like myself touching the tomes with this line: 'the laity, who look at a book turned upside down just as if it were open in the right way, are utterly unworthy of any communion with books'.
Well, fuck you too, mate. I have the last laugh of course, because I live in the internet age, and have access to more books than I can read in a life time. I have this very text on my e-reader and there's nothing the author can do about it. And my e-reader corrects itself automatically when my philistine hands hold it upside down anyway, so nyeh, de Bury.

On the note of e-books, you're far better reading this in paper text form (and you should read it despite the author's snobbishness). The Philobiblon isn't really suited for one straight read, but much better to flip and dip into, so you may enjoy the author's genuinely ecstatic and mostly pleasing words on certain topics. I would love to get a hardback version that's been fully illuminated in the Middle Season style with all the usual old manuscript images, like knights fighting giant snails, blokes with flutes up their arses and, my personal favourite, the penis tree (click here for all this and more).

The Philobiblon is a genuine joy to read. There's fiery devotion to books, there's beautiful phrasing and an excited energy that can almost become exhausting, but de Bury's love for the written word is palpable and (religion aside) many of his arguments are still relevant and important to this day.