Labyrinthine Libraries

The Written Word

My beloved and I share a passion – and, indeed, a fascination and a veneration – for books. And for the buildings that house them. Libraries and book stores. The places that smell of mystery and learning and stories. In which, in the right ones at least, you can get lost and in doing so lose track of time. Slip effortlessly into the flow state. I was fortunate enough to have had a mother that encouraged the love of literature; my beloved stirred her own flame.

When we set up house together, she and I agonised over how to store our combined literary treasures. In what room, on what shelves, at what price? We think we finally got it more or less right, but the process was long and torturous. And of course the leeway for growth that we’d allowed in our calculations is now being steadily eroded.

Serpentine Shopping Centres

I wandered into a franchise of a now defunct book store chain some years ago. In the middle of a busy shopping centre. So, the worst possible place for a book store. The milling throngs doing the mindless commercial dance demanded of them by modern capitalist economies. Oblivious, but manacled nevertheless, to their sacred duty. Thrilling to the latest bargain discounts, consumed by the need to consume. I was there for a reason (a specific purchase need) and perhaps there were more like me than there appeared to be (the intellectual snob in me is rarely far from the surface). But with time on my hands I sought sanctuary and found myself wandering aimlessly through the store. Well, aimlessly but still somehow purposefully. Self-consciously trying to unleash serendipity. Which worked to a degree because I soon stumbled upon a collection of verse by the extraordinary Argentinian author and poet, Jorge Luis Borges. I felt more than vaguely ashamed that I’d never heard of him. That I make this confession now is done with the intent of most confessors. Expiation.

What errant labyrinth, what blinding flash

Of splendour and glory shall become my fate

When the end of this adventure presents me with

The curious experience of death?

I want to drink its crystal-pure oblivion,

To be forever; but never to have been.

… extract from The Enigmas, translated by John Updike

Now I’m not sure what appetites or habits readers of this blog might possess in the literary arena, but Borges became an instant favourite of mine. Verse of this lucidity and ambiguity (and yes, how often the great poets managed to combine these antithetical qualities) leaps from every page. I bought two copies, one for me and one for my Mum.

Wandering Wonders

Many years later … and my beloved and I are wandering the streets of Bath in the western county of Somerset. I think we were there for Jane Austen’s house (my beloved had long since convinced me of the value of that lady’s writing), where incidentally and unbelievably we did the stereotypical tourist thing and bedecked ourselves in period dress, convulsed with laughter. Although, as might be expected, I’d long maintained that I was a far better male representation of Mr Darcy than some effete English actor like Colin Firth or Matthew Macfadyen. Certainly in climbing out of a pond! If not as pretty. And now, needless to say, we have the photos to prove it!

Anyway for children of the antipodes where cities are aged in decades rather than millennia, Bath has a peculiar fascination. Not least amongst its attractions is the Pulteney Bridge which spans the Avon River. One of three of its kind, along with the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Rialto in Venice. We never knew until we wandered there. And, as if to prove that I am not so far above the philistine mob as I pretend to be, I noted that I had now ticked off all three. As if you could describe travel experiences on a list or a spreadsheet. Oh dear. But I am straying far from the central themes of this self-indulgent post (aren’t they all, I hear weary subscribers murmuring). It was after a peregrination of this sort, returning to our Airbnb that we belatedly realised that there was a nondescript book store almost immediately adjacent to our accommodation. We dived straight in.

It was deep into a northern winter, so tourists were somewhat thin on the ground; we had the store to ourselves. It was large and serpentine, row upon row of shelves groaning with volumes, tables festooned with books. Time paused as we wandered and read. I resisted the temptation to buy the shop.

Snaking Through the Southern Highlands

Years later, again, and my beloved and I are in the southern highlands. It’s a curious region. Still rural and rustic, but just a little too obviously oriented towards the monied Sydney set that value their bucolic getaways. Replete with vineyards, restaurants and vintage stores that patently target the wealthy, urban professional class. But, the area does still boast the famous Berkelouw Book Store in Berrima, although it is now surrounded by a vineyard and enveloped by a restaurant and wine shop. 

While the Berkelouw does have some interesting passageways and side rooms, it is laid out in a somewhat prosaic form. No labyrinth here. Without paying much attention I walked slowly down an aisle and was soon immersed. I scarcely moved ten metres the hour or so we were there. Among the purchases I made was the Umberto Eco classic, The Name of the Rose. A tale which, perhaps ironically, DOES involve a labyrinthine library. Literally.

The Labyrinth Within the Aedificium

The story of the story is intriguing. The narrative itself is based on the writings of a fourteenth century Benedectine novice who is accompanying a learned Franciscan on a trip to a wealthy Italian abbey to investigate suspicions of heresy. Now allegations of heresy at the time were employed by any number of shameless, powerful figures to enrich or aggrandise themselves and to rid themselves of enemies, not least among them being the execrable Pope John XXII. The pyre awaited those convicted of the awful, if entirely concocted, crime. Which might include, for instance, an expressed view that Christ was not a man of wealth and property (something that seems to be taken for granted by biblical scholars these days). But at the time, not deemed consistent with the Church’s desire to enrich itself by any means and so therefore conveniently labelled heretical. Eco stumbled upon the original fourteenth century manuscript, written in Latin by the Benedictine novice, proceeded to translate it and then “fictionalise” it. There are many allusions to real historical figures although Eco has been criticised for his “licence” in describing at least some of them. But I understand the Christian controversies and crises of the period are more or less accurately depicted. While the theological disputations are somewhat tedious and inherently inane (especially to a modern reader), the story is finally an engrossing murder mystery.

That mystery unravels (well at least partially) in the abbey library, which is located in a fortified tower known as the Aedificium. The structure of the library is complex and contains fifty six rooms across three floors. Access to the library is strictly controlled and its secrets jealously guarded. Eco’s inspiration for this library model comes from the great Borges himself (“The Library of Babel”), of whom he (like me) was a great admirer. A central character in the story is the blind librarian, Jorge of Burgos, an obvious allusion to the Argentinian genius who himself was blind in later life.

Labyrinthine Learnings

Eco’s work is layered with meaning and the denouement of the tale is nothing if not a philosophical statement. I laboured over the book, reading as much outside the story as I did in the story itself, so great was my need for personal research. My own knowledge of classical western traditions, European history and significant writers exposed as pitifully thin. Nevertheless, despite the invested time, the experience was a marvellous one, and certainly one I would recommend (conscious, as always, that the intellectual “discoveries” of which I become so enamoured, may be ancient history for many readers).

Among many ideas in the book that appealed to me arose from the nature of the “key” to locating books in the library. Each of the fifty six rooms of the labyrinth contained a scroll depicting a verse from the Book of Revelations. The first letter of the verse identified the room. The letters of adjoining rooms, read in sequence, provided the name of a region, and those rooms collectively contained books from that region. So all books were essentially arranged according to their country of origin. But apparently the original librarians applied their own logic to this classification system. In the words of Eco’s character, William of Baskerville, when reflecting on the discovery of a work by Virgil (the grammarian, not to be confused with the Roman poet) housed in the Hibernian section:

“The librarians told themselves Virgil the grammarian was born in Toulouse by mistake; he should have been born in the western islands. They corrected the errors of nature.”

Well that appeals to the Irish in me (a heritage doubted by some readers, apparently, but very much part of my cultural identity). But by this reckoning I wonder where any of us should have been born.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges