Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Collecting

by Walter Benjamin, Jason Kavett (Translator)

In this essay, written in 1931, Walter Benjamin narrates the process of unpacking his library. All in boxes, he takes the reader through elements of his book collection: the memories attached to them, the importance he placed on the act of 'collecting' and the process of accumulation, and how objects like books inhabit a space.

Walter Benjamin in brief:
Born in Germany in 1892, Benjamin was known as a 'man of letters'. Having been educated in Switzerland he had a short career in the lead up to the Second World War, which saw him carve a niche as a literary critic. In the 1930s he turned to Marxism, partly due to the influence of Bertolt Brecht and partly due to the rise of extreme right-wing politics in Europe. He spent much of his professional life in Paris, where he wrote this essay. Benjamin died in 1940 having committed suicide at the French–Spanish border while attempting to escape the Nazis.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, German Literature, Books About Books, Writing, Classics

23 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1931

About the author

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

Reviews

[Çağdaş T]

Kargocu kitaplarımı getirdikten sonra elime aldım ve bırakamadım.

Anatole France'tan birkaç alıntı:
"Var olan tek kesin bilgi, kitabın basım tarihi ve sayfa düzenidir."

"...bu kitapların hepsini okudunuz mu yani Mösyö France? " sorusunu yönelten bir hödüğe verdiği cevabı aktarmam yetecektir: 'Onda birini bile okumamışımdır. Siz Fransız porselenlerinizi her gün kullanıyor musunuz?"

Bu da kitaptan öğrendiğim Carl Spitzweg'in Kitapkurdu tablosu:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...

[Carolien · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a book lover and have a collection of books of some sorts, then this is a story for you. About the joys of unpacking your books, re-arranging them and the memories of how you acquired them, where you acquired them and acquaintances discovered.

http://www.ruthieosterman.com/wp-cont...

[Kaplumbağa Felsefecisi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeni evime kitaplığımı yerleştirirken yeniden okumak istedim.. Kitap koleksiyonculuğuna dair çok tatlı bir kitap. Açıkçası, toplasan 1 a4 zor eder ama 46 sayfalık bir kitap haline getirmiş Sub press. Genelde makale falan çevirip kitap olarak yayınlıyorlar zaten. Neyse.

"Şimdi ise son kutunun
yarısındayım ve saat
gece yarısını çoktan
geçti. Bahsettiğimden
başka düşünceler kafamı
dolduruyor; düşünceler
değil de, imgeler,
hatıralar. Birçok şey
bulduğum şehirlerden
hatıralar: Riga,
Napoli, Münih, Danzig,
Moskova, Floransa,
Basel, Paris. Münih'te
Rosenthal'in gösterişli
odalarının, merhum Hans
Rhaue'nin ikamet ettiği
Danzig Stockturm' un,
Kuzey Berlin'deki
Süssengut'un küf kokulu
kitap deposunun, bu
kitapların geldiği
evlerdeki odaların
hatıraları; Münih'teki
öğrenci dairemin,
Bern'deki odamın,
Brienz Gölü kıyısındaki
Iseltwald' in ısszlığının ve nihayet
etrafımda yükselen
binlerce kitabın ancak
dört veya beş tanesinin
geldiği çocukluk odamın
hatıraları. Ne mutlu
koleksiyon yapan adama
ne mutlu sefa süren
adama! Haysiyetsiz
varlığını Spitzweg' in
"Kitap Kurdu" maskesi
altında sürdürebilen
kişi kadar kendisinden
hiçbir şey beklenmeyen,
kendini daha iyi
hisseden insan yoktur.
Çünkü içinde
koleksiyoncu için -ve
gerçek bir koleksiyoncu
diyorum, yani olması
gerektiği hâliyle- bir
nesneyle kurulabilecek
en samimi ilişkinin
sahiplik olduğunu bilen
ruhlar veya en azından küçük bir cin vardır.
Onlar koleksiyoncunun
içinde hayat bulmazlar;
esas koleksiyoncu
onların içinde yaşar.
Ben de böylece
huzurlarınızda
kitaplardan onun
yuvalarından birini
inşa ettim ve şimdi de
içeriye girip sizlerden
ayrılacak; tıpkı olması
gerektiği gibi."

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

no viene mal de vez en cuando sentir un poco de magia filológica y subirse un poco a las nubes del genio literario

es un ensayo sobre el coleccionismo de libros

está en mi línea. compro libros de segunda mano (si están anotados por otros, mejor), escribo lugar y fecha en ellos, los subrayo, los tacho, los ensucio, siempre quiero un libro de cada ciudad a la que viajo (y si viajo con alguien, pido que me los firme), una vez al mes hago recorrido de mis estanterías y, como W. Benjamin aquí, me pego hasta las tantas de la madrugada recordando, etc.

hace unos tres años empecé con este modo de ver los libros y mi necesidad de crear una biblioteca personal de recuerdos, además de textos. estoy realmente loca con las segundas, terceras, cuartas manos.

ojo, el ensayo no habla de "acquirer of luxury editions" sino de "collector of older books". no se refiere a gastarnos 5 millones de euros en la primera edición de algo :)

"a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value--that is, their usefulness--but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate"

"Dates, place names, formats, previous owners, bindings, and the like: all these details must tell
him something-not as dry, isolated facts, but as a harmonious whole"

"One of the finest memories of a collector is the moment when he rescued a book to which he might never have given a thought, much less a wishful look, because he found it lonely and abandoned in the marketplace and bought it to give It Its freedom. To a bookcollector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves"

[Mehmet]

Kitap koleksiyonculuğu, kitap kurdu olmanın şartı olmasa da devamı niteliğindedir. Bu kitap koleksiyonculuğun ruhuna değinmiş, oldukça sıcak; samimi bir kitap. Minicik bir kitap olsa da çok şey anlatmış.

[Dihia · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘’ Chaque livre possède deux poids différents: d’une part, un poids physique et, d’autre part, un poids subjectif qui se rapporte au contenu du livre, voire à son importance. Combien de fois nous retrouvons-nous, en quittant un lieu, devant ces décisions difficiles: quels livres aimerions-nous ou pourrions-nous emporter?’’

Je déballe ma bibliothèque, un article publié en 1931 par Walter Benjamin, traducteur, philosophe et historien de l'art allemand. Il a réussi à traduire des oeuvres très importants de Balzac, Proust et Baudelaire.

Dans cet article, l'intérêt de Benjamin a été porté vers les collectionneurs de livre, plus précisément, les émotions éprouvées par les collectionneurs lors de l'achat des éditions et des collections d'oeuvres.
Il raconte ses expériences lors de l'obtention des livres, le plaisir de s'offrir des oeuvres en visitant telle ou telle ville et l'ambiance créée par ces achats. . ’ Les collectionneurs sont des individus pourvus d’instinct tactique; d’après leur expérience, lorsqu’ils conquièrent une ville étrangère, le magasin de livres anciens le plus minuscule peut signifier un fort, la papeterie la plus éloignée une position clé. Combien de villes ne se sont)elles pas ouvertes devant moi au cours des marches avec lesquelles je partais à la conquête de livres.’’

[suvenka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro tremendamente pequeño- es que es diminuto- pero una maravilla para la biblioteca

[Bahadır Eren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitaplara ve koleksiyonculuğa dair keyifli bir sohbetti...

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Benjamin siempre es una figura que me ha intimidado intelectualmente, pero estos ensayos me mostraron un lado más... ¿cercano? del filósofo alemán. Quizás porque también soy coleccionista de libros, además de los ensayos sobre los juguetes rusos y el árbol de Navidad.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sempre és interessant —i un repte— llegir a Benjamin, tot i que aquí ens mostra la seva cara més amable en uns escrits distesos, súmmament personals, en què ens parla amb amor reverencial del llibre, de la infantesa, de la joguina. Benjamin és un dels filòsofs més especials del segle XX i ho demostra en cadascun dels seus escrits, lleugerament tintats de romanticisme i nostàlgia eminentment modernes.

[Luca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I testi di Benjamin sono in realtà tre.
Il primo parla del rapporto materiale con i libri, della smania del collezionismo che rischia di diventare una rincorsa all'acquisto, dove a lettura è un aspetto non contemplato.
Il secondo parla del rapporto del lettore con i romanzi, al cui interno Benjamin opera una netta distinzione tra romanzieri e narratori.
Il terzo esamina i meandri dei successi editoriali, commentando la resistibile ascesa di un saggio svizzero sulle proprietà officinali delle erbe e facendone un paradigma di confronto tra letteratura colta e gusto popolare.
Benjamin tratta i temi in modo apparentemente leggero, mescolando notazioni personali e ironia, ma riesce ad arrivare al cuore delle domande: perché compriamo i libri? cosa cerchiamo leggendoli? cosa determina il successo?
(L'introduzione di Paolo Mauri, che tocca il tema della riproducibilità delle opere, è pure meglio dei tre testi di Benjamin).

[lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t usually read essays just for fun, but i’ve been super engrossed by the debate of collector vs consumerist recently so this was an interesting read, particularly to hear from the perspective of someone who was a collector at a time when collecting was far more prominent than today - it reminded me that often we don’t collect things purely for monetary value, more for sentiment - and that in a way there is something similar about collecting books to painting pictures - we are just trying to hold on to a particular moment/feeling. anyway idek why i wrote an essay as a review but like idk just have many thoughts lollll

[Burak Uzun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap 39 sayfa, metin kocaman puntolarla yazılmış. Yani sıradan bir punto ile basılmış olsa 10 sayfa -belki- olur. Metin ayaküstü bir konuşma; Benjamin'in karışmış, adeta kaos oluşturmuş kitaplığını düzenlemeye başlamasıyla başlayıp, düzenlemesiyle bitiyor. Arada kitap koleksiyonculuğuna dair iki üç afili söz var. Açıkçası kitabın adını okuduğunda insan daha doyurucu bir şeyler bekliyor.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but beautiful tribute to the book collector and their library.

[Rola · Rating 4 out of 5]

"بحسب قدرات القارىء تتشكل مصائر الكتب"
أثناء حيرته في ترتيب مكتبته وقيامه بتفريغ صناديق الكتب
يتحدث الفيلسوف الألماني والتر بنيامين عن
الذكريات التي تثيرها في نفسه مثل هذه الأنشطة
وهو هنا لا يصف نفسه فقط بل كل محبي الكتب
الذين أسماهم "مقتني الكتب"
فيمضي بالحديث عن كيفية حصوله على كل كتاب وكيف يجد في نفسه أحيانًا متعة امتلاك نسخة من الكتاب أكثر حتى من قراءته
وكيف كانت المكتبات دائمًا جزء مما حوله وهو الذي كبر وهي تحيط به منذ الطفولة
-أحزنني أثناء قراءة سيرته أن أعرف كيف كانت وفاته
أثناء عمليه هروب من النازيين وفكرت أنه كان عليه في النهاية التخلي عن كتبه وشغفه بها
"المقتنون هم أناس ذوو غريزة تكتيكية تعلمهم خبرتهم أنهم عندما يغزون مدينة غريبة فأصغر محل أنتيكات يمكن أن يكون قلعة وأبعد مكتبة موقعًا محوريًا، عديدة هي المدن التي كشفت نفسها لي من خلال المسيرات التي قمت بها لمطاردة الكتب"

[Kostiantyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruth Ozeki by her “The Book of Form and Emptiness” made it impossible to skip this essay. I tried but gave up after several chapters. Not surprisingly as it is short and wildly available. It turned out to be a good experience and nice reading. And also fun: “Of the customary modes of acquisition, the one most appropriate to a collector would be the borrowing of a book with its attendant non-returning. The book borrower of real stature whom we envisage here proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures and by the deaf ear which he turns to all reminders from the everyday world of legality as by his failure to read these books. If my experience may serve as evidence, a man is more likely to return a borrowed book upon occasion than to read it.”

[heyyonicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un recueil de texte assez agréable sur la collection en général, plus que sur les bibliothèques de livres comme je l'imaginais. Etonnamment, je ne me souviens déjà plus vraiment du contenu de ce livre... Dans les premiers textes, Benjamin parle de sa pratique de collectionneur de livres et il m'a paru difficile de vraiment saisir la portée de certains paragraphes du fait de ne pas connaître les auteurs allemands qu'il citait. A l'inverse, les essais m'ont paru toujours assez actuels bien qu'écrits il y a maintenant plus d'un siècle. Les nombreuses images qui parsèment les derniers essais sont assez sympathiques et donnent une consistance plus concrète aux sujets des textes. La préface de Jennifer Allen m'a assez plu.

[Zeynep · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kısacık ama kitapların içinde yaşayan, kendini kitap koleksiyoncusu olarak tanımlayan kişilere dokunan şahane bir metin.
“Ne mutlu koleksiyon yapan adama, ne mutlu sefa süren adama!”

[Adolfo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breves relatos acompañados de poco nítidas fotografías que hacen de este texto una pequeña satisfacción.

[Chhavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful if outdated :)

[Vel Veeter]

And so the actual essay itself that Manguel discusses in the previous book: Walter Benjamin in the throes of a divorce settlement (not present in the actual text) is thinking through the project of unpacking his large collector’s library after two years in storage. If you’ve moved, and especially if you’ve moved a lot, you might be in the same kind of situation where putting up shelves and unpacking boxes, and settling into a new place and to take a new place and make it yours. Recently we bought a house, and unpacking my books (which I get made fun of a lot, by the way, even by my girlfriend who has an English degree, reads a lot, and has written two manuscripts) and I remember someone visiting and saying “It’s neat seeing all your stuff in a new house.” And so Benjamin is sort of talking about this, but he is also talking about the kinds of mentalities that go into collecting, those who thrive off of renewing life into old artifacts, who have a penchant for possession and ownership as much as if not more so than knowledge, and those who revel in the physical objects of books. This is not just the professional and serious collectors but also those who attach deep personal feelings to specific books and specific book editions, whether from personal biography with that copy of with a sense of the fragility of those. He also talks about how private and intimate this relationship is and how there’s an edge of sadness and knowledge that most books that become part of a collection were once part of a now defunct previous collection, and how all the books in his collection (re: himself) will someday also be redistributed to new collections.

[Annabelle]

Poétique de l'acte de collectionner pour ne pas dire politique de la collection, tant l'auteur marque sa révulsion à l'égard de l'économie de marché qui fait du livre aimé, voire désiré, un objet de consommation qui en tue la valeur symbolique.
Mais aussi Acte politique de collectionner (et de se remémorer le plaisir donné par ses livres) pour un auteur juif en exil, finalement obligé de disperser sa bibliothèque aux quatre coins de l'Europe, à la mesure de l'avancée des Allemands.
Enfin, le livre s'achève par une liste non exhaustive de ses lectures, classées par date et lieu de la lecture qui me donne un miroir parfait de ma propre tendance à vouloir me remémorer les lieux et les gens à travers mes livres. Et qui m'évoque immanquablement EndNote et cette modeste rubrique Facebook, qui peut susciter chez ses utilisateurs une certaine satisfaction en tournant les références du bout du curseur...(ou pas) Mais autant faut-il faire comme Benjamin et ne noter que les livres achevés!!!
Passages un peu longs sur les livres d'enfants, la marotte de l'auteur, abondamment illustrés comme c'est le cas pour les jouets russes et les livres de névropathes, qu'il classe parfois en "philosophie religieuse"!!!
Un très bon livre, trouvé dans la très bonne librairie du Jeu de Paume et acheté au Divan, donc à ne pas mettre en toutes les mains.
(Surtout celles qui cassent les tranches, sacrilège de collectionneurs....)

[Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benjamin nos relata cuestiones acerca de lo que "es" el coleccionista y la cualidad de la biblioteca, libros que debería de tener todos aquellos que se hacen llamar coleccionistas de libros.

[Aneesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Among children, collecting is only one process of renewal; other processes are the painting of objects, the cutting out of figures, the application of decals--the whole range of childlike modes of acquisition, from touching things to giving them names."

"Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. At this point many of you will remember with pleasure the large library which Jean Paul's poor little schoolmaster Wutz gradually acquired by writing, himself, all the works whose titles interested him in book-fair catalogues; after all, he could not afford to buy them. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like."

"Nothing highlights the fascination of unpacking more clearly than the difficulty of stopping this activity."

[Alfonso de Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta pequeña maravilla contiene los siguientes textos:
Desembalo mi biblioteca. El arte de coleccionar.
Desembalo mi biblioteca. Discurso sobre el arte de coleccionar.
Para coleccionistas pobres.
Libros de enfermos mentales que se encuentran en mi colección.
Novelas de criadas del siglo pasado.
Las cosas con las que nuestros abuelos se rompían la cabeza.
Panorámica sobre el libro infantil.
Abecedarios de hace 100 años.
La pirámide de luces, antecesora del árbol de Navidad.
Juguetes rusos.

[Ángel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los ensayos, en su mayoría, nos permiten incursionar a la mente de Benjamin y a su pasión por explorar el libro como objeto de conocimiento, pero también como un artículo fetichizable.
Aunque se trata de una serie de textos muy interesantes, puede que el ánimo del lector decaiga cuando el autor decide abordar temas tan difusos como el del 'libro infantil'.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Ma se il romanzo è una costruzione, lo è molto meno nel senso dell’architetto che della domestica, che accatasta la legna nel camino. Non deve essere resistente, ma infiammabile".

Interessante introduzione di Paolo Mauri.
Il discorso sul collezionismo di Benjamin è meraviglioso. Lo è ancora di più, se hai acquistato il libriccino con un click.

[Pierre A Renaud]

To be found in "Illuminations"

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy breve. Con datos interesantes pero no fue lo que esperaba.

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Unpacking my Library' has been a very pleasurable read to me as it would be to anyone who loves books and loves collecting them.
I have found an attitude and some thoughts there that resonate with me strongly.

'I am unpacking my library.(...) The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.'
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'Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collec­tor's passion borders on the chaos of memories. More than that: the chance, the fate, that suffuse the past before my eyes are conspicuously present in the accustomed confusion of these books.'
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'For what else is this collection but a disorder to which habit has accommodated itself to such an extent that it can appear as order?'
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'...the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth.'
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'To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves.'
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'Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.'
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Once you have approached the mountains of cases in order to mine ~he books from them .and bring them to the light of day -or, rather, of night-what memories crowd in upon you! Nothing highlights the fascination of unpacking more clearly than the difficulty of stopping this activity.'
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'(...) also, to a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value-that is, their usefulness-but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate. The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them.'
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'The phenomenon of collecting loses its meaning as it loses its personal owner.'