A Day At The Library
Having a hunger for knowledge or at least a change of scene, I drove to the library to spend a few hours hunkered down with a few thousand books filled with reason. At least that was what I expected. What I found out was that there are some things published that don’t deserve the shelf-space, and some things in the non-fiction section should be relegated to the bin of political science, being made up of lies. Let me start with entrance to the holy ground of intellectuals everywhere.
I went to the discard rack where I usually find a few gems selling for a pittance of what they’re worth, and found some strange titles on the carts. A little “book” of 2 by 2 inches entitled, “Baby’s First Meal.” I could only stare at it and wonder why anyone would want this in their home. What seriously demented member of the babyhead brigade would buy this ? No, I didn’t look inside, why would I waste my time with it. Another title was, “Will the Vikings EVER win the superbowl ?” The book looked to be in mint condition, and it would be; who in their right mind really gives a hoot ?
I decided to browse the main library and headed for the psychology section only to have the sound of loud children and their stupid parents assault my ears. The moronic mother for some reason refused to tell the kids to be quiet. It seems as if in this day parents have the mistaken notion that children should be seen and heard, and heard, and heard. That no place should be free of their shrill demanding voices and everpresent incubating virus. I find myself thinking that these are the type of parents that would insist on bringing a screaming baby to a lecture hall and wonder why the entire audience is plotting on killing them in the parking lot afterward.
There is something about walking down the silent aisles of a massive building filled with the knowledge and dreams hundreds if not thousands of years old. It makes the burning of the great library at Alexandria even more tragic than the holocaust. Tragic in that we as a race lost over 100,000 scrolls containing the learning of the entire known world. Like some temponaut travelling back in time, you feel a bit of that knowledge as you pass your hand over the spines of multicolored books. In each bound and sewn package of paper the contents speak of the dreams and visions of so many souls; souls both old and new.
There’s the wisdom of Plato; the theories of Jung and Freud; the nightmares of H.P Lovecraft; and the hope and fear in Anne Franks diary. There are treatises on death and dying; on living; on finding God; and so much more. And then there are the crimes. These are the books and authors that should be here, but are missing. The plays of Sophocles of which there were more than 100, but only 4 survive. Shouldn’t every book by Ray Bradbury be here ? He and Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Philip K. Dick, and countless others should have their own section.
I admit that I am a junkie for libraries and bookstores. They’re as addicting as heroin to me, but provide more nourishment for my mind and soul then any church could. If you must send your children away for the summer, forget about boring bible camp; send them to the library to be whisked away by Captain Nemo on an undersea voyage, or with Alan Quartermain searching for the lost city of gold. Let them taste of eternal youth by visiting Shangra-La in Tibet where nobody grows old. Feel the heat of the plains of Africa and it’s jungles courtesy of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes. You’re Jim Nightshade and Will Holloway, who see posters for Darks Travelling Pandemonium Carnival, and wonder why the parade is so creepy as it plods down the street like a funereal procession in Bradburys, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” And before you know it, you’ll be in danger every day of your life. To start a love affair with books is to know something the average person does not: That to travel you don’t need to be rich, only to own a library card. But be warned that the next step of the addiction is to haunt used book stores the rest of your life collecting pieces of other peoples lives. For that’s what writers do; make you a collector of their tales and lives and in doing so, help you find and define what you want your own life to be.
There is a slumbering calm to be found in a library. It’s so peaceful and quiet with contemplating souls, that you wonder if by mistake you’ve wandered into a Tibetan monastery. Instead of yellow-robed monks, you encounter the yellowed pages of tomes. I don’t know about you, but to heft a book is oddly centering as if I’ve found a pool of serenity. Running my fingers over the pages, settles my nerves and lets me see what is really worth dying for. Knowledge is something we all hunger for and yet too few of us find the time to go to this Shangra-La of the heart. You may say that you “don’t have the time” to read. To those of you that use this feeble excuse let me ask you something. Do you have the time to go to church ? This is not too far an analogy, for libraries are churches of the mind, soul, and heart.
As often as I sit down with a book, I also find that watching other people as they read is a study in humanities. One man reads a newspaper with a regalness, as if he’s king of his own domain. A woman in her 20’s researching a paper for college, perhaps, brushes an errant wisp of hair out of her eyes and cranes her neck deeper towards what she reads, looking much like Madame Curie. In the childrens area the faces are upturned with rapture as someone reads “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and for the briefest of moments I can almost see a giant squid attacking the Nautilus. For a transient instant I become Ned Land and attack the beast, evading it’s tentacles.
So I sit in an overstuffed chair and immerse myself in the sanctity of my own church of the mind, confident that somewhere in these volumes I will find what I seek.
What do I seek, you wonder ? Everything and more; the mysteries of the deep ocean, what Mars may have been in the past, the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle, lamentations of lives squandered and laid waste in pursuit of a dream, and so much more. To enter a library is to be in holy communion with all the minds of our time, a sort of shared conciousness. When you read a particular passage your mind shouts,”Yes, I know exactly how you feel.” And it occurs to you that you are not alone in your travels and travails, for all humans feel the same way about certain things, and it is this commonality that will always bind us together and seek out libraries.
In this time of e-books and the internet (which are tools of evil) I find myself making a weekly pilgrimage to this place or the small temples known as bookstores to refresh and renew myself as a phoenix when the fire of Real Life has burned me to cinders. I read and am renewed and reborn into a better form. Try it for yourself and see if setting foot in that hallowed place doesn’t make you feel smarter, better, and more alive than you’ve felt in years. I assure you that once you open your mind to the world of books and reading, you will never want for ideas. For that matter, you will always have a place to get away from the things that bother you, and that will improve your quality of life.
Now, if you don’t mind, I am away to climb the mountains of Nepal and find my own valley of Shangra-La with my trusted Sherpa guide.
