Library lust: The Library at Night

 

http://www.thestar.com

 

Library lust LITERARY AFFAIRS | Alberto Manguel's marvellous new book is utterly sensitive to the pleasures of reading, filled with odd combinations, unexpected transitions and wandering scraps of esoterica, all in service of homage to the library — as symbol, refuge

 

Nov. 12, 2006. 09:25 AM

JIM CHRISTY

 

The Library at Night

by Alberto Manguel

Knopf Canada,

373 pages, $35

 

Who better than Alberto Manguel, that globetrotting, multilingual citizen of the world — raised in Buenos Aires, for years a resident of Toronto, now living in France — to pay homage to the library as the centre of civilization?

 

Manguel divides this marvellous work into chapters that bear such serious headings as The Library as Myth, as Power, as Order, as Island, as Survival ... This is a mere ruse or merely something that has to be done, such as it is necessary in a library to designate a section .921 or, beyond Dewey-land, Biography.

 

Manguel's mind cannot be contained within these categories. What he says of Aby Warburg's famous library in Hamburg applies to himself and his book: "There must be room for his ideas to migrate and mutate and mate."

 

And so they do. The Library at Night is filled with odd combinations, unexpected transitions and wandering scraps of esoterica with aphorisms appearing as signposts along the way. The great library at Alexandria was "a multitude of libraries, each insistent on one aspect of the world's variety." King Ptolemy, the library's founder, confiscated all books that arrived in the port of Alexandria. They were to be copied for inclusion in the library; thus the books came to be known as "the ships' collection."

 

Ironically, the Library of Alexandria, first mentioned by Herodas in the third century B.C., is being "rebuilt" in Egypt, although no one ever described what it looked like.

 

Friar Juan de Zumarraga was the first archbishop of Mexico and head of the Inquisition there from 1536 to 1543. On the one hand, he had all Aztec literature destroyed; on the other he was responsible for bringing the first printing presses to the new world, presses to print the first books for natives. On one hand, he forbade Jews to immigrate to the New World and burned at the stake most of the ones who had; on the other hand, it was a Jew he brought to Mexico to operate the printing presses.

 

Manguel is not shy about expressing his low opinion of the enemies of libraries and books, and what they have wrought. Of Melvil Dewey's decimal system, the world's most widely used, he maintains that it gives the spines of books "the aspect of license plates on rows of parked cars."

 

Of views expressed by one proponent of microfilm in libraries instead of actual books, Manguel writes, "There speaks a dolt, someone utterly insensitive, in intellectual or other terms, to the experience of reading."

 

This book is utterly sensitive to the experience of reading. By a library, Manguel means any collection of books, whether private or public, whether a vast holding such as the Library at Alexandria or the eight books maintained despite intense surveillance in Block 31, built for children, at the extermination camp at Birkenau.

 

At Bergen-Belsen, a copy of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain was passed around. Inmates had it for an hour before it had to be passed along. "The book was my best friend," one inmate said. "It never betrayed me; it comforted me in my despair, it told me I was not alone."

 

Manguel has a wonderful discussion of imaginary libraries in literature, from Rabelais to Borges. Just as interesting are libraries one might think are imaginary but really do exist — the Father Christmas library, for instance, in northern Finland and the Dolous Library, which is housed in the world's oldest serving ocean liner and tours with half a million books

 

One's library is a self-portrait because, as Manguel writes, "readers are defined by the books they read." Patriots everywhere know this well, which is why Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act allows "federal agents to obtain records of books borrowed at any public library or bought at any private bookstore." These agents do not have to have evidence of any crime, "nor provide evidence to a court that their target is suspected of one." Furthermore, library staff would be breaking a law should they inform readers they are under investigation.

 

There is information in this book about Hitler's private library of 7,000 volumes. Although Manguel doesn't mention it, consider that if Adolph Hitler were living in the United States today, he'd be investigated for the radical books in his library.

 

The author's own library, south of the Loire in France, is constructed from the remains of a barn built in the 15th century. Sometimes at night, when he can't sleep, Manguel prowls around the shelves. When friends stop by at night, they sit outside the library under a couple of trees and discuss books they have read and wish to read.

 

Manguel, in this and his other books, comes off as quite the raconteur. I imagine he spins some yarns out there under the trees too.

 

Author and artist Jim Christy's most recent book is the novel The Redemption of Anna Dupreey (Ecstasis Editions).


Page Information

  • Changed 1 year ago [show history]
  • View page source
  • You're not logged in
  • No tags yet learn more

Wiki Information

Recent PBwiki Blog Posts