One of the most interesting--and in a way, serendipitous--passages in the book was the one in which the author took a crash-course in the Archiving of Literary Manuscripts. I smiled a little as I read the description of how she learned how to identify, and arrange, and describe the materials, as well as decide what to keep and what to throw it. It was like I was back in Phillip Bantin's Archives and Records Management Class, circa 2004--fat lot of good that stuff ever did for me, intrepid little public librarian that I am. The closest I've come to archiving any materials or special collections is when I threw out the special collections at the Baby Sunnydale Library, back when I first became a librarian. (And if that's not a perfect metaphor for the transition from my Library Student Life to my Adult Librarian Life, I don't know what is.)
But then, the narrative turned a little more interesting, a little more personal. The author mentioned that the teacher of the class was using, for examples and training materials and to practice on, the works and correspondence of her own husband, an unpublished writer. Was this narcissism, or arrogance, or exploitation on the part of the trainer? Hell no. As Johnson points out, "it had been a deliberate strategy to show us that the tools of archiving were not only for Nobel and Pulitzer winners and MacArthur fellows. They were for anybody any of us thought worth saving."
She didn't add, but I thought, Including ourselves.
Which brings me to this:
For years, I've been hauling around an ever-growing stack of notebooks, binders, journals, and folders, all filled with all sorts of nonsense, from lists to useless, barely-begun poetry, to drunken ramblings, to observations made in the depths of my lowest depression, to half-finished research, to rough drafts of letters, to lists of shopping, and chores, and god knows that else. And this autumn, I've started going through the laborious process of sifting through this stuff and trying to winnow down this ridiculous stack of papers.
Stop-for just a moment. What if I were a famous author or thinker or whatever-er, and were saying this? Or what if we realized that this was a previously undiscovered cache of personal Bronte papers, or Dickens, or Lincoln, or whoever? Hell, no, we wouldn't be winnowing that shit down.
Johnson continues: And who is worth saving? Ah, that's the question. Certainly we are worth saving ourselves, whoever we are, if only for our family's sake. If we are helping build or create something [...]we might want to document it somehow and save the evidence. We are all living history, and it's hard to say now what will be important in the future. One thing's certain, though: if we throw it away, it's gone.
I never thought of my own personal papers in terms of archives. And honestly, I still don't. But I do happen to appreciate a couple of facts: First, my life and my story are not yet done. I don't have grand ambitions to run a city library or gain national notice through a socio-economic agenda, or hell, even publish a book or become famous. As far as I know, as far as I can plan and hope, my life will be a quiet one, humble, lived in both the shadow of the mountain and others. But I don't know what's coming around the turn next, or where I will end up. To decide what I find valuable to save for myself is one thing--but without knowing how my story ends, is it the wisest move to throw out the supporting documentation that make up the chapters of my story?
Is it a wise move for any of us to do that?
The other thing I know is this: I don't know how and where I fit in the context of history, because, as Johnson points out, I am living history. We all are. I don't have a sufficient overview or perspective to know or anticipate what will matter to scholars and historians and...well, anyone, 50, or 100, or even 500 years down the road. None of us do. And with that in mind, should I then be throwing out any of these things in my pile?
Of course, this might just be the excuse that hoarders were asking for.
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