by James Wallace Harris, 6/27/26
Susan and I just finished watching The Spoils of Poynton, a 1970 BBC production shown on Masterpiece Theater in 1971. It’s based on a 1897 novel by Henry James. Mrs. Adele Gereth has collected art objects, furniture, knick-knacks, lamps, glassware, and pottery for her entire life. Now that her son Owen is of age and will inherit the house and everything in it, she is distraught to learn that his fiancée, Mona Brigstock, lacks the taste and refinement to appreciate her treasure. So Adele connives to get Owen to marry someone else.
This is how things used to be. Families clung to generations of cherished things. Before my mother died, she wanted to know who wanted what of her things. She assumed that Becky, my sister, and I, as well as some of my cousins, would fight over her favorite things. After she died, I took the photo albums, my sister took some homemade quilts, and we gave away everything else.
I’m currently listening to Whistler, the new novel by Ann Patchett. At one point, Jonathan, the husband of the main character, Daphne Fuller, leaves her for several days to return home after his mother’s death to sort through her possessions with his siblings. Daphne begs Jonathan to hire an estate cleanout instead of putting himself through weeks of agony.
When Susan’s parents died, we bought their house because Susan and her brothers were too sentimental to let it go. So we lived with Robert and Mary’s stuff for a very long time. It was actually better than our stuff. And when my friend Janis moved to Mexico, we took in a bunch of her stuff. I think of these people by the things they owned.
All of this makes me think about the things I love to buy and own. Isn’t it weird how we love physical objects so intently? Susan and I are terrible at home decor. Our favorite kind of furniture is the La-Z-Boy. We have six single chairs and one double. We also love large screen TVs. My den has a 65″ TV, and her living room has a 75″ TV. We have hundreds of DVDs. And I have hundreds of CDs. I also have hundreds of books.
I don’t lust after cars, guns, or sports memorabilia like normal guys. I’m a bookworm, and books are what I get all sappy about. Susan says when I die, she’ll call Goodwill and Salvation Army and ask them to haul off everything I loved. Sometimes I think I should help her out by giving most of my books away before I die.
I especially love old science fiction magazines. I’d rather have them than diamonds. I would trade them for 19th-century artwork, but I’m realistic enough to know I’m no art collector. Besides, impressionist artworks really don’t go with La-Z-Boys.
The other day, I watched a YouTube video of the actor Paul Giamatti being interviewed about his book collecting. I felt a great affinity with these two guys. These are my people. I cherish crappy old paperbacks, too.
I always marvel when I visit friends and see how they’ve made their houses into museums of the things they admire. It makes me feel bad that I don’t love beautiful home furnishings. Our decor is functional for watching TV, listening to music, and reading.
After I’ve died, and someone is throwing out my science fiction magazine, I doubt they will see the beauty I saw. They won’t know that every issue of F&SF, Galaxy, or Astounding triggers memories. Most people remember the people they knew and the stories about them. I remember writers and the stories they wrote.
I wish I had a manor house and a lifetime of collected treasures like Adele Gereth, including my library of books and magazines. I love my house, even though it’s junky and cluttered. I do regret not having more refined tastes. But I never cared about dishes or doodads. My grandmother collected figurines of dogs. She had hundreds. That was cool. I wish I had gotten one to remember her by – a collie dog.
In Whistler, Jonathan’s first wife collected paintings of rabbits. I wish I had thought of something like that when I was young. Some kind of modest art that people throwing my stuff away could have identified me with. I’ve always admired 19th-century drawings by naturalists and scientists.
I visit the Friends of the Library bookstore once a week. People donate the kind of things I treasure. In fact, a lot of my treasure came from that bookstore. I think I’ll arrange to give my stuff to them when I die. I’ve already given them thousands of books, records, and CDs over the decades. It makes me sad when I see things I once loved left on the shelves for weeks. Hopefully, they will all find a new home with someone to love them. I guess I’m no different than Adele Gereth.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
That’s exactly true. I love my books, but nobody else will. If I lived in America, or even in the UK, I could probably find someone to take them when I’m gone, but here? Not a chance. Nobody even knows what a science fiction anthology is. You never see them. Well, very nearly never. And I have hundreds of them. I’ve been wrestling with a decision whether or not to buy The Ascent of Wonder, one of the foundational anthologies of the past. It turned up at a local online bookseller, and the price is really cheap. But I looked at the table of contents, and of about 70 stories, there are only 20 or so that I don’t have in another book. Is it worthwhile? I already have so many books, and so much to read. Oh, and I visited a proper bookstore in the past week, and they actually had Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits. I already have the ebook. Didn’t buy it, but maybe if I get a tax refund next month. Sigh.
And it’s not just books. My teddy bears are still on a shelf above my workstation. Two of them are very special to me. And my rust-colored sweater, that my mother knitted for me around 1972 – 1974. I still have it, and there’s nothing wrong with it. My school books and book prizes (in those days you received a book prize if you attended for six months without breaking a window). My coffee mug. The George Enslin watercolor from 1957 that he painted, just for a lark, while my mother and I were visiting him in his flat. And more, and more …