I’m an incorrigible bibliophile. Although it’s an awful-sounding disease, its worst symptom is a compulsive desire to attend used book sales and a subsequent need for more shelves. As with allergy sufferers, autumn can be a difficult time of year. The challenge is a gauntlet of book sales sponsored by colleges of the University of Toronto. First in the season was the Victoria College book sale at the end of September where I nabbed fifty or so titles including a few short novels like War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Next up was the University College book sale last week. I exercised more control and only took home twenty titles, including Christopher Hitchens’ latest for only $2 which is all it’s worth.
The University book sales play to a subculture that seethes just below the surface of polite society. If you were to walk down an average city street, you’d have no idea whether a typical pedestrian is or isn’t a bibliophile. So few of us are “out.” But come early on the first day of a university book sale and you may find that your whole world view gets wrenched from its moorings.
The first thing that might strike you is the fanaticism. On the first day, you have to pay to get in, and many people show up an hour or two beforehand. The enticement is the obvious fact that all the best titles get snapped up in the first fifteen minutes. So you show up, buy your ticket, check your bags, and then you stand in line for a couple hours studying a map to plan your book-buying strategy.
Standing in line, another thing which might strike you is the gravity of the people around you. The hardcore bibliophile is a serious creature, hovering somewhere between geek and nerd. The hardcore bibliophile cares about things like the quality of binding and paper, and whether the book is a signed first edition or a reissued paperback. The hardcore bibliophile will do anything for a coveted treasure, but always with a careful politeness. Or so I believed – until I attended the University College book sale last Thursday.
I had arrived at 10:45 for a noon opening. Already there were people milling in the lobby, many sitting on the floor nursing their Starbucks. Most were of the scraggly-bearded-grad-student or professorial variety. I bought my ticket and moved to the end of the line which was beginning to extend into the east hall. I stood in line reading a magazine and planning my attack, while others shuffled past me to take their place in line. Soon the line had filled the east hall, and around the corner to the north and, for all I knew, had stretched all around the back of the building by noon. Then the line began to move.
The entrance was on the second floor at the top of a flight of stairs. The ticket table was on the landing. As I headed up the stairs, a man was buying his ticket. Once he’d taken back his change, he joined the line. The man beside him stopped and glared.
“Buddy, you need to get to the end of the line.”
The butter was tall and lanky, with sort of a Donald Sutherland build, unshaven and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. “Whaddya mean “get to the end of the line”? I paid. Now I’m going into the book sale.”
“But we’ve been waiting here for an hour and a half to get in.”
“Whaddya want? A medal?”
A disgusted frown. “Come on. There’s a line going halfway around the building – people who’ve come early to get in. You need to get to the back.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Another man entered the fray. “It’s just a matter of common courtesy. The people who line up early get in first.”
“You’re just a bunch of booksellers, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“That’s what it is. You’re booksellers. You just think I’m gonna cut in on your business.”
“No. We’re regular people who just like a good book.”
“Gimme a break.”
Then a fourth joined the party. The guy immediately in front of me tapped the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re being rude.”
“Get lost.”
This fourth even tried to reason with the man, but it was obvious to everyone else that reason wasn’t part of the man’s repertoire. I was astonished. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered somebody who, while not a sociopath, nevertheless has no concern for the regard with which other people hold them. To put it bluntly: the man was an asshole, he was deliberate in being an asshole, he knew he was an asshole, he knew he was perceived as an asshole, but he didn’t care.
As I watched this little drama play itself out, I found myself reflecting on self-esteem. I have great admiration for somebody who behaves badly but owns it; moreso than for somebody who behaves well but is motivated solely by a sense of propriety. But this? My response was ambivalent. On the one hand, the man’s behaviour appalled me and left me wondering what sort of damage the man must once have suffered to demonstrate so little self-regard. On the other hand, I was impressed by the purity of the man’s self-interest – in the same way that I might be impressed, for example, by the purity of a shark – single-purposed – unflinching – austere.
But the man wasn’t impervious. We got to the top of the stairs. The person taking the tickets was a tiny elderly woman with white hair and a sweet smile. The first man pointed to the butter and said: “Don’t let him in; he didn’t bother to line up like the rest of us.”
“Oh dear.”
“I paid.”
“Yes, but sweetie” — the man was in his fifties — “it really isn’t fair. Now you go and line up.” She beamed at him. He paused. “Go on.” He relented and backed down the stairs.
Men –- posturing, blustering, reasoning men –- were powerless to influence another whose behaviour was no different than that of a schoolyard bully. And yet a vulnerable diminutive old lady could force him to behave civilly. It makes you wonder about the nature of power. It makes you wonder, too, about the power of vulnerability. And when I apply this lesson to a larger stage, the theatre of world affairs, it makes me wonder if we aren’t looking in all the wrong places for peaceful resolution to our conflicts. Isn’t that what Gandhi’s example demonstrated? Why do we keep forgetting? Why do we need elderly bibliophiles to keep shaming us back to our moral centre?