Literary Newspaper · Read at night at the moment
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Recently, Alberto Manguel, an Argentine-Canadian writer and former director of the National Library of Argentina, wrote a "love letter" to the library, "Library in the Night", which was published by the Commercial Press.
Born in Buenos Aires, Manguel spent his childhood in Tel Aviv, returned to Argentina as a teenager and worked as a reading boy for the blind Borges, then moved to Europe, where he lived and worked in France, England, Italy, and more, before moving to Toronto in the 1980s and becoming a naturalized Canadian citizen. He is the author of "The History of Reading", "The Library in the Dead of Night", "Curiosity", "Charming Monsters", "With Borges" and other books.
In this book, Manguel explores the history of libraries and the nature of reading, especially the social value and cultural significance of libraries as the "home of books" in the history of human civilization. In his view, the library is a repository of social memory, bringing the auspicious rays of the past to the present, giving readers the opportunity to glimpse the minds of others and understand their own experiences.
"Books have their own destiny" is Benjamin's aphorism to describe his collection, and it seems to be equally true when used in the library. Why can people hear the sound of needles dropping in most libraries? Why can't physical libraries be replaced by virtual libraries on the Internet? Why libraries are always considered refuge for reason and civilization, and a place of knowledge for reading and contemplation?
Alberto Manguel / Author
/ Translated by Wong Fong Tin
The Commercial Press, April 2024 edition
"It's easy to imagine a book out of thin air, but it's hard to put it on paper. —Balzac, Antique Showroom
There are two big locust trees in my garden, just outside the study window. In the summer, when friends visited, we sat under the locust tree and chatted, sometimes during the day, but usually at night. For example, in the study, my books can distract from conversation, and as a result, we tend to be silent. But outdoors, in the starlight, the conversation is more uninhibited, much wider, and strangely more provocative. Sitting outdoors in the dark, there seems to be something that will lead one toward uninhibited conversation. The darkness speaks, the light silences – or, as Fielding explains in Amelia: "Tace, ma'am, in Latin means a candle." ”
Legend tells us that words originally came from the primordial darkness, not from the light. According to a myth in the Talmud, when God sat down to create the world, twenty-two letters fell from his majestic and formidable crown and asked Him to create through them. God agreed, allowing them to give birth to heaven and the earth in darkness, and then brought the first rays of light from the center of the earth to pass through the holy land and illuminate the entire universe. The light, as we think it is, according to Sir Brown, is but the shadow of God, and in his dazzling and dazzling light, words are no longer possible. The shadow of God's back was enough to dazzle Moses, and he had to wait until he returned to the darkness of Sinai before he could read God's Ten Commandments to his people. St. John's summed up the relationship between words, light, and darkness with a commendable simplicity: "In the beginning was the Word." ”（In the Begining was the word.）
Captain Nemo's Library, illustrated in the first edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. (Author's Collection)
St. John's sentence describes the reader's experience. Anyone who reads in a library knows that the words on the pages of a book call for light, and it needs light. Darkness, words, and light form a cycle, and words produce light and mourn its gradual passing. We read in the light and talk in the dark. To encourage his dying father, Dylan Thomas, wrote the now-famous verse: "Rebuke with rage, rebuke at the passing of light." And Othello, who, in great anguish, confused the light of the candle with the light of life, and treated them equally: "Put out the light," he said, "and then put out the light." "Words beckon light to read, but light seems to be against conversation. In the mid-eighteenth century, when Thomas Jefferson introduced the Ligan lamp to New England, it was observed that the conversation at the former candle-lit dinner table was no longer exciting, because those who were good at conversation went to their rooms to read. "My light is too bright. After the Buddha had finished speaking, he refused to say anything else.
In order to encourage his dying father, Dylan Thomas wrote the famous phrase: "Rebuke with rage, denounce the passing of light." ”
In another practical sense, words create light. When night falls, the Mesopotamians who wish to continue reading, the ancient Romans who intend to continue reading documents after dinner, the monks who return to their monastic chambers after vespers, the scholars who enter their studies, the courtiers who retreat to their dormitories, the noblewomen who return to their boudoirs, and the children who read under the blankets after the curfew has begun—these people have to light the lamps to do their thing. In the Archaeological Museum of Madrid, there is an oil lamp from Pompeii, which Pliny the Elder may have used to read his last book before the volcanic eruption in '79. Somewhere in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, there is a candlestick with only one candle in it, dating back to ...... During the time of Shakespeare, perhaps a candle with a short life was planted, and Macbeth saw it as a reflection of his own life. Dante's exile to Ravenna, Racine's years in seclusion in the Porte Royal district of Paris, Stendhal's time in Rome and Thomas de Quincey's time in London, the lamps that guided them to read time were all born because of the call of the Chinese characters of the book, all the lights that helped to give birth to the light.
In the light, we read the fictions of others, and in the darkness, we invent our own stories. There were many times when my friends and I sat under those two trees and described books that had never been written. We stuffed books into our collections that we never wanted to force ourselves to write down on paper. "Imagining the plot of a novel is a happy errand," Borges once said, "but to really write it down would be an exaggeration." He was happy to fill the space of his study with these stories, but he was too lazy to write them down, but he was willing to write a foreword, a summary, or a book review for them. Even at a young age, he says, the knowledge that he would go blind sooner or later encouraged him to develop a habit of constantly imagining intricate books that would never make it to life. Borges suffered from an eye disease inherited from his father, which caused him to lose his eyesight, so doctors forbade him to read in the dim light. But one day he took a train and read a mystery novel on the train, and he was so fascinated by the reading that he read page after page in the darkening sky. Just before reaching its destination, the train entered the tunnel. By the time the train exited the tunnel, Borges could see nothing, except for a layer of coloured haze, which Milton considered to be hell's "palpable darkness." Borges spent the rest of his life in the darkness, recalling or imagining stories, reconstructing the National Library of Buenos Aires in his mind, or revisiting his family's limited collection of books. In the light of the first half of his life, he wrote and read silently, and in the darkness of the second half of his life, he dictated, had people copy it down, and asked others to read it to him.
Dickens in his study at Ged Cottage. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
In 1955, shortly after the army overthrew General Peron's dictatorship, Borges was invited to take up the post of director of the National Library. The idea came from Ocampo, a prominent editor of Southern magazine and a longtime friend of Borges. Borges thought that assigning a blind man to be the director of the library was a "mess", but then he remembered, strange enough, that the two former directors were also blind: Malmo and Grushark. Later, when this was becoming possible, Borges's mother suggested that the two of them take a walk together to the library to see the building, but Borges, because of his superstitions, refused. "Let's wait until I actually get the job. He said. A few days later, he received an offer of employment. To celebrate this, he wrote a poem about "this wonderful irony of God" and gave him "books and nights" at the same time.
Borges worked at the National Library of Buenos Aires for 18 years, until his retirement, and enjoyed the position so much that his birthday was celebrated almost every year. In his wood-paneled office, with its high ceilings, painted irises and gold stars, he sat for hours at a small table with his back to the room's central ornament, the large, ring-shaped desk. It was modeled after the desk of the French Prime Minister Clemenceau, and Borges felt that it was too extravagant, so he sat at the small table and had his dictated poems and novels written by the secretaries who were happy to serve him, and let them read to him. Here he also met with friends, students and journalists, and held meetings with the Anglo-Saxon academic community. As for the obnoxious and bureaucratic administrative work of the library, it was left to the assistant curator, the scholar Cremont.
Borges's published stories and essays contain references to his fictional but too lazy books to write: many of them are novels of the Romance of Herbots Quinn (the subject of an essay-like novel), who has geometrically diversified a single plot to an innumerable number of plots, and the brilliant mystery novel The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim, written by Mir Bahadur, a Mumbai-based lawyer Ali), and in the case of a review by Philip Gudala and Cecil Robes, published by Golantz in London, which also has a real club, and a guide by Sayers, whose title has been changed to "The Conversation with the Man Called Al-Mutasim: A Game with Shifting." Mirrors), the eleventh volume of the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön, the book contained in a sealed registered package that Ash received from Brazil shortly before his death, and the play The Enemies), that is, Haradik did not finish it, but was given the gift of God to freeze the time before he was shot, so that he could have a long time in his mind to complete the script and the eight-page book with the words "Bible" and "Bombay" on the spine, and (Borges tells us) the book he held in his hands shortly before he retired as director of the National Library of Buenos Aires.
Borges sits at his desk in the National Library of Buenos Aires. (Courtesy Eduardo Comesana)
Collecting imaginary books is an ancient business. In 1532, a book appeared in France, signed by the scholar Nasir of unknown authenticity, entitled "The Horrible and Frightening Deeds and Accomplishments of the Much Renowned Pantagruel, King of the Dipsods, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua）。 In the seventh chapter of the second volume of the Giants, the young Bigggue, after studying "well" in Orleans, decides to visit the university of Paris. As a result, it was not the school that caught his attention, but the Monastery of St. Victor, where he found a "very majestic" library, full of wonderful books. Rabelais' five-page catalogue includes the following wonderful books:
《法律裤裆遮羞盖》（The Codpiece of the Law）
《恶习石榴》（The Pomegranate of Vice）
《悔罪芥末瓶》（The Mustard-pot of Penance）
《善念三脚铁架》（The Trevet of Good Thoughts）
《护甲攫取法》（The Snatchfare of the Curats）
《前往罗马的朝圣者大游行》（The Spectacles of Pilgrims bound for Rome）
《律师与法律代理人之镶毛皮的猫》（The Fured Cat of the Sollicitors and Atturneys）
《上述作者们针对指称教皇们的骡子只在定好的时间进食而做出的辩护》（The Said Authors Apologie against those who Alledge that the Popes Mule Doth Eat but at Set Times）
《寡妇们的光屁股或被剥光露出的屁股》（The Bald Arse or Peel’d Breech of the Widows）
《伪君子的大杂烩》（The Hotchpot of Hypocrites）
《药剂师的混七搞八》（The Bumsquibcracker of Apothecaries）
拉德内库·瓦登塞斯（Radnecu Waldenses）所著的《基础之镜》（The Mirrour of Basenesse）
《大学校长们的肥胖肚子》（The Fat Belly of the Presidents）
Rabelais' creation of the giant Gao Kangda. (Courtesy Lebrecht Music & Arts)
In a letter of advice from Utopia to his son, Da Kang Ai, he encouraged him to study well, "through which we may attain a kind of immortality in the mortal world where death is inevitable." "The whole world is full of knowledgeable people," he wrote, "as well as the most learned teachers, vast libraries." It seems to me that it is indeed a matter of antiquity, that is to say, in the past, whether in the time of Plato, or in the time of Cicero, or in the time of Papinean, there was no such convenience of learning as it is now, which is the kind of convenience that we see today...... I saw that the robbers, the hangists, the outlaws, the bartenders, the innkeepers, the scumbags of the innkeepers, were more learned than the wise men and priests of my old days. Rabelais' collection of books is probably the first "imaginary collection" in literature. The collection makes a mockery of both the academic and monastic worlds (in which Rabelais followed the revered style of Erasmus and Thomas Moore), but, more importantly, offers the reader the pleasure of scherzo, imagining the controversies and plots behind these hilarious titles. Another monastery that Rabelais visited at the University of Gocon, the Abbey of Tereme, inscribed the motto: "You can do what you want" (Fay ce que voudras). In the library of San Victor in the book, he probably wrote this sentence: You can read what you love (Lys ce que voudras). I wrote this on one of the doors of my study.
Rabelais was born in 1483 or 1484 near the town of Chinon, not far from my present residence. His former residence was called "Diviner's Residence", and its original name was "Wild Goose Colony", spelled out in the Tours dialect. Since geese used to rely on flocks to predict their future, the house was renamed to pay homage to the bird's magical talent. The house, as well as the surrounding landscape, the town and monuments, and even the 11th-century tower of Marmande, can be seen at the end of my garden, all of which serve as the backdrop for Rabelais' story of the Giants. The success of The Colossus (more than 4,000 copies sold in its first few months of publication) made Rabelais decide to continue writing his adventures about these giants. Two years later, he published The Very Horrific Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel, as well as several other volumes of the family story. In 1543, the Church banned Rabelais's books and issued an official edict publicly condemning his writings.
Rabelais's former home in Chinon, France. (Author's Collection)
Rabelais could read Latin, Greek, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic and several other French dialects, he also read theology, law, medicine, architecture, botany, archaeology and astronomy, and he added more than 800 words and a dozen idioms to the French language, enriching the French language, many of which are still spoken today in the French-speaking part of Arcadia, Canada. The books he imagines are the result of an overactive brain that can't stop and are the result of thoughts, and the epic stories he writes are a hodgepodge of interludes, allowing the reader to freely choose the order, meaning, tonality, and even the story itself. It was as if for Rabelais, the person who made up the story did not have to bring coherence, logic, or solution to the text, it was the reader's business, a sign of their freedom (as Diderot later made clear). While ancient scholarly collections took classical traditional commentary for granted, Rabelais, like his fellow humanities scholars, questioned the assumption that authority was equivalent to intelligence. "Without the knowledge of conscience," said Gao Kangda to his son, "is nothing but the ruins of the soul." ”
In a report on the religion of Rabelais's time, the historian Favre intended to describe the writer in sixteenth-century terms. "What is Rabelais like mentally? Is it a bit like a harlequin...... Indulge in a hearty drink and then write something unsightly in the evening?Or may he be a learned physician, a man of humanities, filling his astonishing memories with beautiful passages from ancient books...... or, rather, he is a great philosopher, praised by great men such as Bézza and Le Caron?" Fèvre asked rhetorically, and concluded: "Our ancestors were much more fortunate than we were in that they did not choose between two images, but accepted both: the one who was revered and the other. ”
Rabelais was able to retain both a spirit of skepticism and confidence in what he believed to be the established truth. He needs to thoroughly probe the fool's assertions, and then it is up to him to determine the weight of the accepted truth. As a scholar, he reads books full of the wisdom of the ancients, and must balance them in his mind with questions that have never been answered, and papers that have never been written. His own collection of parchment and paper was built up through an imaginary collection of forgotten or neglected subjects and reflections. We know what books he has in his "portable library", a box full of books that has accompanied him on his travels around Europe for twenty years. The list of books – which put him in constant danger of being judged by heresy – included Hippocrates' Aphorisms, works by Plato, Seneca, and Lucian, Erasmus's In Praise of Folly, and Thomas More's Utopia, and even a very dangerous Polish book written by a young and dangerous Pole, Copernicus's Theory of the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies. Rabelais' fictional collection of books for the vast Guai is ostensibly irreverent, but in fact a tacit commentary.
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