On the Calculation of Volume, Book II

by Solvej Balle

thought of all the book auctions and my rounds of the shelves in antiquarian bookshops and the coins in Philip’s chronologically arranged glass cases and I realized that it had never been their history that had attracted me. It was the objects themselves. It was the feel of the paper and the indentations on the pages, it was the type on the title pages, the balance between red and black. It was an irregularity in the lettering, the uneven impress of type worn down by the years. It was the saturation of the colors, the intensity of the print. It was the lines of the illustrations, a detail in the engraving, the contrast between a color field and the bare paper. It was the smell and the sounds. It was the differences: the slow flick-flick when you leaf through thick pages, the whisper of thin paper, a gilt edge and the split second’s resistance as the gilding leaves the fingertip, the little turn of the hand as the thumb runs down over the corner of the block. It was the feel of the binding, a frayed corner, a sharp edge.