No, before you ask, this is not me doing my Martin Luther King impression. Not that I've ever done such an impersonation but, hey, there's a first time for everything...I digress. No, this is about an actual dream that I have and the great Dr King's word's just seemed appropriate.
Not that this is the sort of politically-charged ideological dream that he had. Don't get me wrong, I have my own Utopian fantasies where everyone gets along with everyone else and everyone is happy and there's no war/famine/pestilence/Simon Cowell, but it's not that kind of dream I'm blogging about. Nor is it the sort of dream where I'm slowly spit-roasting David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osbourne over an open fire whilst cackling like a hag, although maybe both of those are worth blog entries in their own right...nope, this dream is both a little more sensible, a little more modest and a little more fantastical.
I have a dream. My dream is to have a library.
Yeah, yeah, you can stop laughing now. It's true - I am absolutely desperate to have a library of my own. I feel dreadful for my poor books at the moment, scattered around in two bookcases, various boxes and several piles on the floor; it's inhumane to treat them like that. My books deserve to be on beautifully designed shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling; in an ideal world they'd be spiralling round and round in an endless labyrinth (like in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Carlos Ruiz Zafon's masterpiece 'The Shadow of the Wind' - if such a place really existed, I would move in at once), but if not then just shelves as far as the eye could see would do. I've been fascinated by libraries ever since I was a child and I was taken to get my very first library ticket; having become an ardent reader and lover of books by the age of 3, the idea that I could just go to this place and take out as many books as I wanted, before bringing them back and exchanging them for more, was a concept that seemed too good to be true. Second-hand and antique book shops have always cast a spell over me, but so have libraries, and every time I was taken to a Stately 'Ome or still-inhabited castle, I was always endlessly delighted by the different libraries I saw (and always slightly put out that I couldn't go up to the shelves to a) see what Lord and Lady Such-and-Such were reading and b) take a book down from the endless shelves and curl up for an hour or so to have a good read). I was fortunate to have been blessed with a godmother who is a librarian, so she was always able to provide me with hits of the good stuff, and so enamoured was I of libraries as a child that I was library prefect at both Primary and Secondary school (yes, yes, I was a girlie swot for a time). Books have been my saviours, my friends and my kindred spirits since my early childhood; their myriad voices speak to me across time, space and language and they have both moved and inspired me in ways I could not have imagined when I first started out on this journey as A Reader.
And now it seems I have discovered a new friend who feels the same way about books as I do and who has written books of his own, one of which has inspired me to give further thought to the idea - the dream - of My Library. Alberto Manguel's two most recent books, 'A Reader on Reading' and 'The Library at Night' are like elegiac love songs to both books and libraries; personal journeys, literary histories and sociological encyclopaedias, they are also brilliantly written and are fast becoming new and treasured friends of mine. Alberto (because I'm on intimate terms with him now, don't you know) has a 30,000-volume library of his own at his home in a 15th century presbytery in France, built in the grounds and adjoining the house, yet completely separate from it. Naturally, I'm incredibly jealous, not just of the library or the number of books in his guardianship (because after all, you never really 'own' a book; you befriend and take care of them for a while before eventually relinquishing custody) but because living in a 15th century presbytery in France sounds like heaven. I digress…again. Anyway, reading about his library and the libraries of others has made me yearn even more for a library of my own; somewhere the books in my keeping can live and breathe, where we can all find sanctuary and renew our friendships, as well as having plenty of room for new acquaintances to join us. The fact that I currently have neither the space to assemble such a library or my own home in which to attempt it (or the money such a project deserves, although I’m quite certain that any right-thinking judge that has to hear the case when my bank-robbing spree comes to an end would understand the reasons for it) is neither here nor there. Everyone has to have a dream, and this is mine.
Of course, taking all my beloved friends over to such a place would be quite an adventure. All my antique books would have to have special glass-fronted shelves to live in, to protect them from the atmosphere and the ravages of time, although they are still able to be read and are happy to be so employed. And in their company would be books on innumerable topics and themes; my crime psychology books would have to be close at hand (what is a library if it doesn’t have a forensic dissection of the mind of Ted Bundy, after all?), as would the books I loved as a child and have kept ever since (step forward Fancy Nancy, Ramona Quimby, Junk and Stargirl). Alice in Wonderland and her journey Through the Looking Glass will converse with Tim Burton’s Oyster Boy and Edward Gorey’s tragic Gashlycrumb Tinies. The fairy tales that I have loved all my life – Charles Perrault, Andrew Lang, Hans Christian Anderson and the grim Grimm brothers – are here, along with the poets whose words give voice to my own emotions. My ‘witchy’ books, both historical and less scholarly, must take their place, along with the art books that carry the images I only wish I was able to create. The comic and the serious will have their own space; Shakespeare will dally with the myths and legends of other countries and different times, and historical and sociological books on countless different subjects will be given homes. Then there are the novels of course, both ‘classic’ and ‘modern’; fantasy, chick-lit and anything and everything in between will line the shelves. Money being no object (this is a fantasy library, after all), there will be numerous editions of books from the Folio Society scattered throughout the room, and my antique book collection will no doubt continue to grow. There will be sacrifices, of course; to own a first edition of Shakespeare’s plays would be an absolute blessing in any library, but I’d be so terrified of damaging it that I’d never read it and what is the point of a book if you can’t make it live by reading? And, of course, there would be space for new friends to join the old, because when you’re a reader there are always new discoveries to make…
My Library may be a long way off its full realisation, but I cannot wallow in the valley of despair. I have a dream, a dream that is deeply rooted in the dream of all readers. I have a dream that one day my books will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed; that they will sit on the shelves of brotherhood and find their own oasis where they are judged not by the colour of their bindings but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day, one day, my books will be able to sing the words “free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Not that this is the sort of politically-charged ideological dream that he had. Don't get me wrong, I have my own Utopian fantasies where everyone gets along with everyone else and everyone is happy and there's no war/famine/pestilence/Simon Cowell, but it's not that kind of dream I'm blogging about. Nor is it the sort of dream where I'm slowly spit-roasting David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osbourne over an open fire whilst cackling like a hag, although maybe both of those are worth blog entries in their own right...nope, this dream is both a little more sensible, a little more modest and a little more fantastical.
I have a dream. My dream is to have a library.
Yeah, yeah, you can stop laughing now. It's true - I am absolutely desperate to have a library of my own. I feel dreadful for my poor books at the moment, scattered around in two bookcases, various boxes and several piles on the floor; it's inhumane to treat them like that. My books deserve to be on beautifully designed shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling; in an ideal world they'd be spiralling round and round in an endless labyrinth (like in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Carlos Ruiz Zafon's masterpiece 'The Shadow of the Wind' - if such a place really existed, I would move in at once), but if not then just shelves as far as the eye could see would do. I've been fascinated by libraries ever since I was a child and I was taken to get my very first library ticket; having become an ardent reader and lover of books by the age of 3, the idea that I could just go to this place and take out as many books as I wanted, before bringing them back and exchanging them for more, was a concept that seemed too good to be true. Second-hand and antique book shops have always cast a spell over me, but so have libraries, and every time I was taken to a Stately 'Ome or still-inhabited castle, I was always endlessly delighted by the different libraries I saw (and always slightly put out that I couldn't go up to the shelves to a) see what Lord and Lady Such-and-Such were reading and b) take a book down from the endless shelves and curl up for an hour or so to have a good read). I was fortunate to have been blessed with a godmother who is a librarian, so she was always able to provide me with hits of the good stuff, and so enamoured was I of libraries as a child that I was library prefect at both Primary and Secondary school (yes, yes, I was a girlie swot for a time). Books have been my saviours, my friends and my kindred spirits since my early childhood; their myriad voices speak to me across time, space and language and they have both moved and inspired me in ways I could not have imagined when I first started out on this journey as A Reader.
And now it seems I have discovered a new friend who feels the same way about books as I do and who has written books of his own, one of which has inspired me to give further thought to the idea - the dream - of My Library. Alberto Manguel's two most recent books, 'A Reader on Reading' and 'The Library at Night' are like elegiac love songs to both books and libraries; personal journeys, literary histories and sociological encyclopaedias, they are also brilliantly written and are fast becoming new and treasured friends of mine. Alberto (because I'm on intimate terms with him now, don't you know) has a 30,000-volume library of his own at his home in a 15th century presbytery in France, built in the grounds and adjoining the house, yet completely separate from it. Naturally, I'm incredibly jealous, not just of the library or the number of books in his guardianship (because after all, you never really 'own' a book; you befriend and take care of them for a while before eventually relinquishing custody) but because living in a 15th century presbytery in France sounds like heaven. I digress…again. Anyway, reading about his library and the libraries of others has made me yearn even more for a library of my own; somewhere the books in my keeping can live and breathe, where we can all find sanctuary and renew our friendships, as well as having plenty of room for new acquaintances to join us. The fact that I currently have neither the space to assemble such a library or my own home in which to attempt it (or the money such a project deserves, although I’m quite certain that any right-thinking judge that has to hear the case when my bank-robbing spree comes to an end would understand the reasons for it) is neither here nor there. Everyone has to have a dream, and this is mine.
Of course, taking all my beloved friends over to such a place would be quite an adventure. All my antique books would have to have special glass-fronted shelves to live in, to protect them from the atmosphere and the ravages of time, although they are still able to be read and are happy to be so employed. And in their company would be books on innumerable topics and themes; my crime psychology books would have to be close at hand (what is a library if it doesn’t have a forensic dissection of the mind of Ted Bundy, after all?), as would the books I loved as a child and have kept ever since (step forward Fancy Nancy, Ramona Quimby, Junk and Stargirl). Alice in Wonderland and her journey Through the Looking Glass will converse with Tim Burton’s Oyster Boy and Edward Gorey’s tragic Gashlycrumb Tinies. The fairy tales that I have loved all my life – Charles Perrault, Andrew Lang, Hans Christian Anderson and the grim Grimm brothers – are here, along with the poets whose words give voice to my own emotions. My ‘witchy’ books, both historical and less scholarly, must take their place, along with the art books that carry the images I only wish I was able to create. The comic and the serious will have their own space; Shakespeare will dally with the myths and legends of other countries and different times, and historical and sociological books on countless different subjects will be given homes. Then there are the novels of course, both ‘classic’ and ‘modern’; fantasy, chick-lit and anything and everything in between will line the shelves. Money being no object (this is a fantasy library, after all), there will be numerous editions of books from the Folio Society scattered throughout the room, and my antique book collection will no doubt continue to grow. There will be sacrifices, of course; to own a first edition of Shakespeare’s plays would be an absolute blessing in any library, but I’d be so terrified of damaging it that I’d never read it and what is the point of a book if you can’t make it live by reading? And, of course, there would be space for new friends to join the old, because when you’re a reader there are always new discoveries to make…
My Library may be a long way off its full realisation, but I cannot wallow in the valley of despair. I have a dream, a dream that is deeply rooted in the dream of all readers. I have a dream that one day my books will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed; that they will sit on the shelves of brotherhood and find their own oasis where they are judged not by the colour of their bindings but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day, one day, my books will be able to sing the words “free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Until then, I guess they'll have to stay where they are...
