Читать книгу The Dark Library - Cyrille Martinez - Страница 7

Before going to the Great Library, I couldn’t help myself from gathering some information. I had, in the course of my online research, found an open-access text that traced the history of the Great Library. I wasn’t sure whether this text fell under history or fiction. But it inspired confidence. I wanted to take it at its word. Maybe it was fiction, but so what? A good book of fiction, they say, contains more truth than a bad book of history.

I learned that within the realm of reading, it isn’t called the Great Library but, rather, the Library. Others, in the Ministry, at the most senior level, dub it the Jewel, the Marvel, the National Treasure. The word Trésor must be taken literally. We are talking about a genuine treasure, the treasure of the national language, the wealth of written heritage, all of the printed matter published in the kingdom and republic which, save for the exceptional loan, are not allowed to leave the premises.

I know that today there are two ways to speak of Treasure. With respect and admiration, or with emphasis and irony.

The first comes from the institution’s guarantors, its learned users, those who have good reason to believe that it is indeed a treasure. All you have to do is visit the regular exhibitions of its rare and precious documents to see that. How can you not find them wonderful, these well-looked-after editions, these books with remarkable bindings, these ephemeral publications, these handwritten letters, these children’s books, these artists’ editions? How can you not admire these bits of the Treasure?

The second is used by smaller libraries, those relegated to the rank of subordinates, associated institutions at best. It can also be found in self-published books, all those without publishers who, despite their incessant attempts to gain legitimacy, are denied entry into the catalogue and are bitter and disappointed at being considered works without quality.

Those who mock its prestige and attack its presumed power, those who challenge its capacity to consecrate certain books and dismiss others, should know that the Library has not always been rich and powerful. The Treasure started small. At first, it was not a treasure nor even a library. From having read it, I can say that the history of the creation of the Library is a story both ancient and strange. Almost as ancient and strange as public readership, which it practically invented.

Before the invention of public libraries, readers had to procure books by their own means. Reading was for those and only those who possessed their own private libraries. You had to be rich to have reading. You had to be rich to be a reader. Not everyone had the means to buy themselves books in illuminated vellum, and the custom was to not lend manuscripts except to close relatives (in any case, only the rich were lent to).

Once he’d acquired a taste for reading, once he’d understood all the benefits he could reap from this activity, the social and cultural distinction, but above all once he’d realized he was suffering from this incurable addiction called reading, the rich reader did everything in his power to get hold of books. His quest was to feed his collection with new material in order to have weeks and months of reading ahead of him. Tall reader, short reader, good reader, bad reader, a reader’s importance was measured by the size of his library – or, as the modern expression goes, his personal library.

One day in the Middle Ages, when the sky was grey and a storm was brewing, a monk deposited the 917 manuscripts of his collection in a room accessible, under certain conditions, to other readers. The Library was born and, with it, the idea that reading could be accessible to a greater number of people. The books were no longer solely private property. It was possible to imagine reading manuscripts other than one’s own, texts other than those one had chosen to acquire.

‘Interesting’, said the King. ‘I am the King and I have decided that in my kingdom we are going to make a royal library, a fabulous treasure, a treasure made of books. It will be protected, preserved, and maintained to be shared with the public and passed on to following generations. I decide that the books will be acquired for a fee, by tapping into the kingdom’s funds. Books will also be received as donations. We will get our hands on the heritages of bibliophiles and erudites, as well as those of nobles and scholars. We will bribe the writers and beneficiaries to obtain their archives, their manuscripts, their drafts, their correspondences. If necessary, we will proceed to confiscations. We will seize the property of the clergy, the libraries of immigrants, not forgetting the princes’ collections. Additions to the collection of the Royal Library will be made by pillaging, to which eyes will be closed in the name of the greater good. All kinds of strategies will be implemented. We could, for example, issue a decree requiring publishers to drop off one copy of each book printed in the kingdom. This will be called the legal deposit and will be quite useful for expanding the collections without spending a dime. To purchase valuable documents, we will organize fund-raising dinners. An idea is coming to me for its staging: we arrange the patrons at well-set tables, serve them meals prepared by a great chef, keep the good wine flowing, and when dessert comes we sing the praises of patronage, and no one escapes without leaving us something. All these means will be good for expanding the Treasure! This expansion will require some time and money, but that’s not a problem. Time we have, as we have an eternity in front of us, and money we will find. Contrary to what they say, there is always money hidden in the kingdom, you just have to know where to look and from whom to squeeze it.’

After the King, the Treasure was handed to the State, who said: ‘The state is henceforth responsible for the Library. Therefore, we are going to nationalize the Treasure. The Royal Library is dead, long live the National Library. We are going to collect all publications, from the most common to the most rare. Our mission: to establish a heritage and preserve it. We will acquire what comes out in bookstores and buy used to fill in the gaps.’

Because the National Library absolutely needs additional space, the state pushes out the walls, re-evaluates the architecture, finds storage solutions, equips it with mobile shelving, and puts systems into place allowing individual shelves to be moved closer together on a system of railings. Despite all these tricks, the stacks remain congested, the situation becomes unbearable, on the verge of explosion, and, frankly, no one knows how things might have turned out without the intervention of the lettered President.

When he is informed of the problem, he thinks, raises an eyebrow, and says, ‘As of today, the National Library is in my hands, and I’ve decided to build a new kind of library. I can see a very grand library, which can take into account every element of knowledge, in every discipline, and pass it on to the greatest possible number of people. The library will welcome scholars, students, researchers, workers, the unemployed. All must be able to access a modernized, computerized device, and immediately be able to find the information they need. This Grand Library is a gift I’m making to the Nation.’