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because of closeness and ultimately love. The norms of giving books in a close rela-
tionship could thus be described as: (1) it is an act of love to give; (2) it is an act of
love to receive gifts; (3) it is an act of love to reciprocate gifts. This is not to say the
personal gift is entirely free of obligation.
As opposed to the personal gift of a book, our informants talked about ‘imper-
sonal’, ‘general’ and ‘universal’ gifts, such as books about gardening, cooking, land-
scapes and buildings, suitable for giving to acquaintances and distant relatives. Such
books reveal little about the giver or the receiver, but much about their relationship,
since it symbolizes their formal and impersonal relationship. As we have said, the
giving of books in a close relationship, on the other hand, says a lot about the donor,
the recipient and their relationship. In the distant relationship the giving of books
emphasizes differences: ‘I don’t know you and you don’t know me.’ This is not a
mutual exchange of keys to one’s identity, but an obligatory exchange of gifts in order
to maintain, but not necessarily to develop a relationship. One could thus say that
Mauss’s gift norms – emphasizing obligation – apply to the giving of books in distant
relationships.
In the distant relationship, substance becomes significant in the gift process: it is
more important to fulfill ideal notions of generous giving to people one does not
know well. This is so because an acquaintance cannot estimate the gift from a
mutual, intimate knowledge of the other, but is obliged to resort to evaluating it from
general cultural norms about ideal giving. For example, one of the informant book
lovers said that she buys ‘new’ books for people she is less familiar with, ‘which also
means that they will be more expensive’. The male electrical engineer (see above)
emphasized that quality is important in ‘dutiful gifts’ to distant relatives so that they
‘will not think that I am stingy’.
The discussion among our book lovers works as a commentary on Mauss’s gift
theory. It shows that gifts are not always a question of duty but about love as well.
It also shows that the gift process transforms commodities to something that
certainly has points in common with everyday objects but at the same time is still
clearly different from them. According to Miller the processes of everyday shopping
can be analysed to contain three stages, which can also be applied to the giving of
books. 22 The first stage – the utopian vision of plenty and pleasure – is also found
in the idea of the generous gift. There are shades to this generosity, however,
depending on the distance between the donor and the recipient: either one is
generous with one’s money, or one is generous with oneself. The second stage,
frugality, however, is not as applicable to the gift process. Stage three – the return to
social relationships, strengthening of social bonds – is central to the giving of books,
not to say the most important aspect, in both close and distant relationships. The
latter determination of two kinds of relationships is important for understanding
the gift of a book. Love is central in close relationships whereas duty is more crucial
in more distant relationships. But love is not limited to the close family that stands
at the centre of Miller’s analysis of everyday shopping, because the gift of a book
transcends the limits of this particular social constellation and shows that loving