
The naked and the read - samclemens
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/norman-mailer-library/
======
ableal
> His disrespect for books as objects provides a clue to the nature of his
> library

The fictional detective Pepe Carvalho goes one better - he rips off and tosses
in the fireplace the pages he has read. (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_Carvalho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_Carvalho)
)

I was properly horrified the first time I came across that, but I've come to
appreciate the Homeric, pre-literate load implied - you either remember it or
not, there's no artificial aid.

~~~
posterboy
There's a lot of artificial help, in the sense that souvenirs, confidants,
talisman, etc. supply. Not to mention that those people could probably read
who were exposed to a multitude of knowledge, more than the average field
workers, anyway.

What I find really curious is the question how many people could actually
speak a powerful language at all, instead of mumbling, calling names, pointing
and gesturing.

------
cafard
Amusing. A couple of years ago, a review of a volume of Mailer's letters said
that he had a "big guilt mountain" of friends' books still unread, and a
"little guilt mountain" of letters unread or at least unanswered.

