Walter Benjamin, 1 essay

[fiefoe]

'Unpacking My Library', from "Illuminations".

    There is a slightly melancholy air in this essay, recalling the scent of light, dry dust that accumulates in any library.

• the mild boredom of order
• This or any other procedure is merely a dam against the spring tide of memories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his possessions. Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector 's passion borders on the chaos of memories.
  
• This is the childlike element which in a collector mingles with the element of old age. For children can accomplish the renewal of existence in a hundred unfailing ways. Among children, collecting is only one process of renewal; other processes are... the whole range of childlike modes of acquisition, from touching things to giving them names.
• ...the smallest antique shop can be a fortress, the most remote stationery store a key position. How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
  
• To a book collector, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves.
  
• Nothing highlights the fascination of unpacking more clearly than the difficulty of stopping this activity.
  
• I do know that time is running out for the type that I am discussing here and have been representing before you a bit ex officio. But, as Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehended.