Читать книгу The Dark Library - Cyrille Martinez - Страница 8

All the President had to do was speak and the project is launched, the site chosen, the architecture competition opened: the candidates introduce themselves, the President examines their projects, points his index finger at the name of one architect and declares, ‘That’s him.’ The jury yields. The architect wins the competition.

From there, the move begins: the National Library is forced to leave its historic site in the old town, which no longer allows for collections to grow and no longer meets new safety standards or the labour code, to move into a new building: four vast glass towers, both classic and minimalist, laid out on an esplanade constructed out of exotic wood and surrounding a recessed garden.

The documents make their way over, and, with heavy hearts, the staff find themselves obliged to follow. They liked it over in the historic centre, which was a little cramped, sure, the offices unanimously judged to be too small, the work spaces hardly ergonomic, but this location in the heart of the capital has many advantages: very well-connected (bus, metro, commuter rail) and located in a pleasant area (restaurants, stores, parks, gardens). The staff make known their fear of ending up in a neighbourhood that is distant, industrial, dead. They have absolutely no desire to work there, where it is so isolated. Not to mention we could lose readers, have you thought about that? What if they can’t find the way to the Library? Or they give up on the new site because they find it too out of the way, too difficult to access? Imagine. No more readers? A deserted reading room? It would be catastrophic. We’ll ask you one question: a library without readers, what is that? What’s that called? Well, okay, it’s still called a library, according to Management, peremptory as usual.

Despite the protests, the fighting, despite the increasing number of actions and general meetings, despite the threats of strikes, the leaflets, the petitions, despite the virulent exchanges and savage words, the Board does not yield, it reinforces its position: the move will most definitely take place. It must be said that the protestors were contesting a powerful argument: by moving, the National Library will change scope, it will become the Great Library. Narrow minds, what do you have to say about that?

In their place, I wouldn’t have known how to respond. Neither did they, I understand, because construction began in a silence that read as approval. The President, old and sick, is knocking at death’s door and, so that he can see the Great Library completed, so that he can inaugurate it, everything possible is done to make sure the building is delivered in time.

The building is hastily constructed, and design flaws will long hinder its proper functioning, but here we go, here’s the President, he inaugurates the establishment, a plaque is laid, the Great Library is open.

The Great Library is established in a slightly decentralized neighbourhood of the capital, at the edge of the opaque river. As an effect of its arrival, a former freight yard is transformed into an innovative, bright, and attractive hub. What banging adjectives! Personally, I never would have associated them with public readership (though at the same time, I’m not in the business). In any case, they had been put to use on asset management and investment banks, as well as financial services; they produced results with leaders of employee savings plans, who were equally targeted. All of them felt so in tune with these adjectives that they did not hesitate to leave their headquarters and set up buildings made of glass and steel, signs of their power and their willingness to stay at the forefront of research and innovation. Right or wrong, they believed they were gaining a competitive edge. The moral: never underestimate the power and conviction of these adjectives, innovative, bright, and attractive.

Let’s continue on this note. Without fear. Speak little, speak well. Speak university-business partnership. Let’s say that universities had been invited to come together to form a campus, and even better, a campus of excellence, both hybrid and virtuous. A campus of excellence, which will act as a true interface between the university community and the most flourishing professional sectors. For the recreation of employees and students, they built parks with artificial turf they named after the titles of poems, books, philosophical, ethnological, sociological, and historical essays. The Ministry of Sports settled in the neighbourhood, bringing with it some affiliated organizations. The ground floors of the buildings were rented to ready-to-wear chain stores. A large beauty-product chain set up a boutique. Fast-food franchises took advantage of attractive rents to open new outlets. Next came architecture offices, an arts centre, a bookstore, a boutique specializing in winter sports, a piano dealer, plus a multiplex with sixteen screens.

In cafés and small restaurants, rows of books popped up just for appearance’s sake: small decorative yet depressing collections, poor publications that no one consults, no one flips through, no one touches, that prematurely wither and age beneath the indifferent eye of clients who prefer reading the menu. Is it an optical illusion? Could it be books on wallpaper? No, these are indeed physical books. Dead books.

The general consensus was that this new hub was a great success. The architects and public authorities were pleased to have created a place that was radiant, spacious, open. They didn’t want to hear any more about the grey towers, the warehouses, the industrial harbour, the ill-conceived streets, the landscape of sheet metal and zinc, except comparatively, to say how significantly better everything was now that it had been rebuilt.

Some years earlier, poets had sung the praises of these paths that led to nowhere. Those roads where poets took pleasure in losing themselves had been transformed into clear lanes, pedestrian paths, paths busy enough for today’s businesses to love. This was done so we’d forget the sheet metal, the zinc, the poets strolling about in streets lined with shelters. They said that by loitering along these paths that led to nowhere, the poets had ended up disappearing for good, which is a convenient way of eliminating them from history. As for me, I would say that this landscape of sheet metal and zinc traversed by workers and poets did not completely disappear. To find it again, one can always lose oneself in books. I know what I’m talking about, I spend my life inside them.