I don’t like to get sentimental
about books. I mean – I don’t like to think of myself as someone who gets
sentimental about books as physical objects*. It’s so whimsical, so twee to romanticise
the block of printed paper held between cardboard covers. That thing in itself
is just a transmission method. Plenty of us enjoy cinema but we’re unlikely to
obsess about the reels of Polaroid (or whatever it’s made of. It’s not worth looking
up). What excites us, rightly, is the stories, characters and ideas that the
medium delivers to us.
It’s the same with e-readers. ‘They
don’t smell like a book’, ‘You can’t crack the spine’, ‘It’s not like the real
thing’. These phrases come from people that don’t like books as much as what
they’re printed on. Should we not celebrate the things that make Virginia Woolf
different to Lee Child, rather than the thing that makes her the same?
I could make this argument all
day but Alan Bennett sums it up beautifully in the Headmaster’s trite eulogy to
Hector in The History Boys:
‘He loved language; he loved words. For each
and every one of you, his pupils, he opened a deposit account in the bank of
literature and made you all shareholders in that wonderful world of words.’
With his absurd metaphor, the headmaster exposes his lack of
understanding about the value of literature. Just as books are a medium, so are
words.
I’ve yet to mention London Library but I thought I’d try to
give some perspective with a framing-device (a technique of literature and not of
book-binding, I should note).
--
London Library is on the corner
of St James Square, just North of Pall Mall and South of Piccadilly. With the
East India Club on one side and Chatham House on the other, it completes a trinity
of august institutions around the North and West sides of the square. Inside, it
is an architectural hotchpotch: dark-varnished wood in places, institutional
white-washed walls in others due the gradual evolution of the building. It has
been repeatedly extended (both side-ways and upwards), with the interruption of
World War II bombs, resulting in a delightfully confusing maze. As the
collection has grown, and space become scarcer, the librarians have been forced
to expand outwards and upwards. Three
further floors are currently being added to one section and a tiny courtyard
has been covered in glass to create a delightful reading room.
For all its change, London
Library is all about permanence. ‘Nothing
is thrown away’ was our guide’s oft-repeated mantra. In this place, history is
palpable, not pulpable**. The ‘book-stacks’ – a phrase that rings with ageless
strength to my mind – are Victorian. The best technology available at the time
to maintain even humidity and heat (vital to preserve the books) was to replace
solid floors with wide grills, allowing the air to circulate vertically. The result
is that the browser, whilst tightly enclosed by the shelves either side of him,
can see through several floors above and beneath: a strange twisting of
perspective.
The library precedes the
wide-spread use of the Dewey-Decimal system. As a result, books are organised
by category and then alphabetically resulting in odd juxtaposition of titles,
particularly in the wonderfully wide-scoped ‘Science and Miscellaneous‘ section.
Apparently it is haven of serendipity for blocked writers.
Our guide referred to the ‘old
and special’ books being locked away in a separate space. I couldn’t help but
imagine the magical tomes in Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University library,
chained up for the protection of browsers due to their violent inclinations. She
went on to say that these books could not be taken out. My suspicions were
confirmed.
We were told that, due to the
structure of the bookshelves built into the walls, and sheer weight of the
amassed books, if all the books were taken away the walls would cave in and the
building would collapse. It’s so wonderfully magical that I was more than
willing to suspend disbelief and live with that possibility. With its purpose
removed, the living structure would capitulate to gravity and give up – like an
elderly couple whose lives are so centred around one-another that one passing
shortly precedes another.
The books and the building have a
symbiotic relationship. Just as the building provides shelter and a stable
environment for the books, the books lend their strength to the building,
holding it upright.
--
It would be lazy to leave my
frame disassembled. For all my cynicism, London Library is gorgeously romantic.
If Anthony Powell was right and Books do
Furnish a Room***, the library is finely appointed, a triumph of interior
design.
Tours are available on Monday evenings and are free. Call 020
7766 4704 to book.
*Mutatis mutandis
x 2
**I’m so sorry about this.
*** I actually
have no idea what he meant by this. If you’ve made it through ten volumes
of A Dance to the Music of Time, do
let me know.
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