Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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I've often wondered at the effort that is expended in compiling book indexes. Often, the first thing I do when I pick up a new title is to glance through the introduction and then turn to the index. It is only then that I make the decision to continue reading or not.

A great many readers, I imagine, take the index for granted. And perhaps my own interest was quickened by a review that I read of Under Egypt's Spell, a book I published in London and which was criticised by one reviewer for having an index that was inadequate, a criticism that, I must confess, rankled somewhat. The reviewer had obviously looked for a name and had been unable to find it.

Recently I was happy to discover that I am not the only person to have such an obsession. In a charming article that appeared in The Independent Review Philip Hensher, described as a "novelist and index addict", explains his own fascination. He mentions the example of a well-known personality who picked up the autobiography of her ex- lover and, in the words of Hensher, "was distressed to discover that she wasn't even mentioned in the index". Indeed, there are a number of contemporary writers of autobiographies and memoirs who flatly refuse to have an index appended to their books, their argument being that "a lot of people would pick up the book, see they are not mentioned in the index, and put the book aside."

The index, in Hensher's opinion, presents not just a neutral summary but offers an opportunity for the exercise of ruthless wit, surreal juxtaposition and sheer, brutal revenge. And when the index goes beyond a mere mention of names "it often becomes a weird, loaded narrative of its own, with vicious agendas and grotesque jokes."

It is true that the index can comprise a miniature narrative of its own, one that on occasion can make the reading of the book to which it is appended superfluous. In this respect Hensher cites the Yale editions of James Boswell's journals which "are so fully indexed they provide a breathlessly exciting story on its own".

If a biography reduces a life's story and experiences to a single volume, then the index is a further reduction, indicating the general characteristics, the recurrent themes and, sometimes, the bare truth the book cloaks in prose.

I always wonder, as I flick through an index, about the person responsible for compiling it. This is, as you can imagine, a colossal task, one of those many bits of quite extraordinary legwork that tends to be completed totally anonymously. The index has become an indispensable part of any serious book yet we never get the name of the person or persons responsible for this colossal task.

Hensher describes indexers as "admirable, scrupulous people who undertake a task demanding great skill and intelligence. To provide an index for a long and complex work of non- fiction requires them to come to terms with the subject, to understand an unfamiliar argument which may not have been put forward at all competently by the author and to master the more important points of the debate."

Apparently Philip Hensher is not alone in his interest in indexing. He mentions Kevin Jackson, who has written very amusingly about some of the quirks and eccentricities of indexers.

But indexing has its negative side. There are scholars who approach their own work not by reading other people's books, but by rummaging through their indexes, never troubling to read a whole argument, just picking out the relevant passages. According to Hensher this was already a problem in the 18th century when Alexander Pope came down hard on such scholars in The Dunciad, lamenting "how index- learning turns no student pale, yet holds the eel of science by the tail".