For Whom the Writer Writes Book

Book dedications come in all forms: serious, poetic, humorous, romantic, and in the odd case, like Neil Gaiman’s, flippantly charming

‘Ania, I love you; will you marry me?’ That’s how George Mason University professor Peter Leeson proposed last year to his girlfriend Ania Bulska—on the dedication page of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, his book on the economics of piracy. (Ania accepted.)

This dedication has Bubka’d (after Sergei Bubka, the record-breaking pole vaulter) the standard for romantic proposals, and broken new ground for book dedications.

The romance so far had been like people washing their clean linen in public, and even the leg-pulling was affectionate—‘To Joanna, my brilliant and beautiful wife without whom I would be nothing. She always comforts and consoles, never complains or interferes, asks nothing and endures all, and writes my dedications.’ The only startling thing is that it appears in Electronic Principles, a textbook written by electrical engineer and writer Albert Paul Malvino—hardly where one might expect humour or romance.

Revered computer scientist Donald J Knuth’s dedication in Seminumeral Algorithms reads ‘Any accuracies or inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it was prepared with the help of a computer, but not blindly.’

Vikram Seth’s dedication of The Golden Gate to the poet Timothy Steele—in the Onegin stanza (rhyming tetrameter sonnet), in the style of the verse novel—reads ‘If anything in this engages/By verse, veracity, or vim/You know whom I must credit, Tim.’

One may suppose rare humility here—the wisdom of not taking oneself seriously, merely the discipline and labour of writing—and the engaging characteristic of having fun doing what one does.

And English literature’s performing flea PG Wodehouse merits mention for two priceless gems. Heart of a Goof is dedicated ‘to my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.’ 

And The Clicking of Cuthbert is dedicated ‘To the immortal memory of John Henrie and Pat Rogie, who at Edinburgh in the year 1593 AD were imprisoned for ‘playing of the gowff on the links of Leith every Sabbath the time of the sermonses’, also of Robert Robertson who got it in the neck in 1604 AD for the same reason.’

Acknowledgement of one’s muse is often the point of a dedication. Evident since Roman times, and even bought and sold, its history is ancient and venerable. That symbolic act is urgent still, though the concerns range widely, from acknowledging one’s benefactor or loved one, to expressing one’s personal and social predilections.

Bill Bryson’s dedication of his A Short History of Nearly Everything reads ‘To Meghan and Chris. Welcome’—an invitation to explore the mysteries of our lonely planet’s history, possibly the only way to express gratitude.

The Vintage Book of International Lesbian Fiction is dedicated ‘to all those who struggle for human rights’. If they are wise, secretive and subtle enough, perhaps we shall forgive their alleged subversion—without calling in the doctor, the commissar or the priest.

In Under The Frog, an unremitting account of the horrors of Soviet-era Hungary, yet also achingly funny, titled after a Hungarian proverb that compares living in hard times to being ‘under the frog’s arse at the bottom of the coal pit’, Tibor Fischer’s dedication is to ‘For all those who fought. (Not just in ’56. Not just in Hungary.)’ While empathy summons humour to face up to history’s grimmest moments, anguish lies just under the skin, ever so quietly.

Such unremitting darkness often echoes in writers’ rationales of why they write—witness Booker-shortlisted Colm Toibin: ‘After a while [writing is] not really difficult, but it’s never fun or anything… there has been a real problem in not having a sort of breakdown as I worked on a particular passage… there is a passage in each of those books which I found almost impossible to write and then harder and harder to re-write. I hope never to have to look at those passages again.’

One can imagine why from William Styron’s dedication of Sophie’s Choice: ‘Who’ll show a child just as it is? Who’ll place it within its constellation, with the measure of distance in its hand? Who’ll make its death from grey bread, that grows hard, or leave it there, within the round mouth, like the choking core of a sweet apple?… Minds of murderers are easily divined. But this, though: death, the whole death, even before life’s begun, to hold it all so gently, and be good: this is beyond description! … I seek that essential region of the soul where absolute evil confronts brotherhood.’

Children, that essential region of the soul where absolute goodness confronts brotherhood, figure widely in dedications too. Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is dedicated to ‘Haris and Farah, both the noor of my eyes, and to the children of Afghanistan.’

And personal concern, to end, may also be whimsy. Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is dedicated to ‘You know how it is. You pick up a book, flip to the dedication, and find that, once again, the author has dedicated a book to someone else and not to you. Not this time. Because we haven’t yet met/have a glancing acquaintance/are just crazy about each other/haven’t seen each other in much too long/are in some way related/will never meet, but will, I trust, despite that, always think fondly of each other …. This one’s for you. With you know what, and you probably know why.’

About The Author

Surit Das