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Library nostalgia and Nicholson Baker

Emily’s pillar on library nostalgy brings to spirit Nicholson Baker’s Coupled Fold, a volume I had to read when I was in library institute. I remember very powerfully disliking this volume (a sentiment with which my cat manifestly agreed, if you’ll minute the tattered volume cover and the satisfied, unapologetic cat next to it). But in symmetry to recall more specifically my undoubtedly piercing insights on this work, I pulled out my 500 GB rigid drive to recruit the paper I wrote for my intro to intelligence studies rank.

As I reread my document for the first time in not remotely three years, I was immensely amused by the glow with which I registered my dislike with Baker’s chain of reasoning–let’s equitable say “very powerfully disliking” is a magnanimous characterization. In this document–on which I earned an A, I might add–I describe Baker as “petulantly stomping his lower extremity,” “ill-tempered and pessimistic,” “woefully naïve and absurdly unrealistic,” “too hard at work insulting librarians and congratulating himself on his magnanimous and heroic action,” “resentfully grousing,” “risibly illiterate,” “blithely ignoring or distorting the actuality of the expenses of library storage,” and, lastly, “Baker’s solutions are either nonexistent or null.”

Wow. I wish I could go back in duration to my first-semester-of-library-gymnasium self and ask, “Gee, count me, Maria. How do you in reality feel about Nicholson Baker?”

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