beer good
Well-Known Member
Alberto Manguel, The Library At Night (2007)
Alberto Manguel's examination of the whats, hows, whys and wheretos of libraries starts with his own private library, constructed from a mediaeval wall in France and filled with everything from ancient tomes to cheap paperbacks, and ends up... well, like a book version of a private library. He divides his book not by strict, Dewey-like categories, but rather by free association, tackling his subject from different angles. The shelves say the library as myth, the library as shadow, the library as memory, the library as home... Like any private book collector, he returns time and again to his favourites, to his favourite topics, to anecdotes he can't shake, to literary figures he relates to - ending up with the rather heartbreaking image of Frankenstein's monster, "disappearing forever in the Arctic ice on the frozen blank page that is Canada, the garbage dump of so many of the world's daydreams."
And yet, of course, he keeps finding new ways out of it, into it, through it, within it. Yes, he covers the basics - why do we have libraries, what is their function, what is their history - and gives us brief glimpses and stories of book collectors, writers, critics and readers through the ages. But the philosophical, poetic view he takes of his subject means that the reader ends up not perhaps with hard, sequential knowledge, but with a great deal of understanding of their meaning, both historically and to Manguel himself; a cosmopolitan, born in Israel, raised in Argentina, working in Canada, living in France, he's built a Borgesian paradise of his own in his library. As, perhaps, all of us do to some extent.
The Library At Night is a curious concoction, part history, part memoir, all love letter; like a well-ordered but chaotic library, you'll glimpse long dusty corridors full of knowledge you'll make mental notes to visit at some point, well-lit ones full of people you've already met. It leaves you pleasantly full and refreshed, just a tiny bit drunk, yet already planning tomorrow's meal. As he notes, the best libraries are round, so you can always imagine that the last page of one book leads directly into the first of the next one.
Alberto Manguel's examination of the whats, hows, whys and wheretos of libraries starts with his own private library, constructed from a mediaeval wall in France and filled with everything from ancient tomes to cheap paperbacks, and ends up... well, like a book version of a private library. He divides his book not by strict, Dewey-like categories, but rather by free association, tackling his subject from different angles. The shelves say the library as myth, the library as shadow, the library as memory, the library as home... Like any private book collector, he returns time and again to his favourites, to his favourite topics, to anecdotes he can't shake, to literary figures he relates to - ending up with the rather heartbreaking image of Frankenstein's monster, "disappearing forever in the Arctic ice on the frozen blank page that is Canada, the garbage dump of so many of the world's daydreams."
And yet, of course, he keeps finding new ways out of it, into it, through it, within it. Yes, he covers the basics - why do we have libraries, what is their function, what is their history - and gives us brief glimpses and stories of book collectors, writers, critics and readers through the ages. But the philosophical, poetic view he takes of his subject means that the reader ends up not perhaps with hard, sequential knowledge, but with a great deal of understanding of their meaning, both historically and to Manguel himself; a cosmopolitan, born in Israel, raised in Argentina, working in Canada, living in France, he's built a Borgesian paradise of his own in his library. As, perhaps, all of us do to some extent.
The Library At Night is a curious concoction, part history, part memoir, all love letter; like a well-ordered but chaotic library, you'll glimpse long dusty corridors full of knowledge you'll make mental notes to visit at some point, well-lit ones full of people you've already met. It leaves you pleasantly full and refreshed, just a tiny bit drunk, yet already planning tomorrow's meal. As he notes, the best libraries are round, so you can always imagine that the last page of one book leads directly into the first of the next one.