Library as Portal

You might think that, being in L.A., I might have been doing some sightseeing on my down time, but the truth is, I don't consider this down time. Every minute that hasn't been spent getting organized and oriented has been spent on the job search, except for a few stolen moments here and there. Does time spent in libraries count as relaxing if you're a librarian who's job searching? I'm not sure, but if you're going to be sore over not getting a sightseeing report, I'll try to make up for it by telling you about a marvelous sight I did see in the course of my rambles.

My newcomer's handbook pointed out the library I'm going to tell you about as something worth visiting in its own right, so even though I went there with a purpose, I also went to see the building. While many things in life are over-hyped, this library was a case of something you have to see to believe. It brought to mind a restaurant called The Glitz in Kentucky that I've been to a couple of times: it's nearly impossible to exaggerate the decor and the impact it has, especially on a first-time visitor.

The library's metal-clad exterior was striking enough but could have held a conventional interior in the way of many other public libraries I've seen. It didn't. As soon as you walk in, you're faced with a huge tank of tropical fish taking up an entire wall; it reminded me of an exhibit I'd seen at the Long Beach Aquarium. It formed part of the wall for the Children's Department, which one enters through a portal composed of gigantic books. Inside, there's a T-Rex, a lighthouse, an art room, a spaceship, a painted ceiling, and countless other things along with the books to intrigue and delight.

Across from the Children's Department was a very comfortable-looking reading room, with Craftsman-style furnishings and fixtures that gave it the air of a private library in a home or a well-to-do college. A matching area stocked with newspapers, sofas, and clubby chairs anchored the other end of the first floor, past the gift shop and Circulation area. I've rarely seen more inviting spaces in a library of any kind, and this certainly made the point that as welcoming as the library is for kids, it is just as interested in its adult patrons.

The Internet computers upstairs were state-of-the-art, as were the meeting rooms along one side next to the escalator, each named for a famous writer of science fiction. The literature and fiction department, also on the second floor, featured Art Deco styling and art exhibits along with the book collection. Everywhere I looked, there was something to stimulate the eye or the mind. I walked around for the first half-hour with my jaw nearly dropped to the floor in the midst of all those curving lines and soaring spaces. I was told that much of the money for the building had been raised within the community, which strongly supports education and literacy, and I have to say that speaks well for this small city, which--while fairly affluent--is not one of the higher-end zip codes in L.A.

The library was busy (and a bit noisy), but the main thing that impressed me was how well it succeeded as a community center that combined ease of use, modern technology, old-fashioned charm and comfort, creative flair, and an atmosphere almost guaranteed to stimulate the mind. I've rarely seen a building that went so above and beyond in fulfilling its function. It was a true gateway to the imaginative realm, combining some of the best features of a museum, an art gallery, an athenaeum, a children's playground, a teen hangout, and a technology lab all enfolded into a library.

You may be saying, OK, OK, when are you going to tell us the name of this paragon of the library world, and my answer is, I'm not. Perhaps the community would welcome a huge influx of visitors traipsing through, and perhaps not, but if you're ever in L.A., ask around and someone can probably steer you in the right direction. The gods on Olympus could not enjoy a finer library, and in fact, if they have one, it might look quite a bit like this one. It's the library you've always wanted but didn't know you could ask for.

Innocence and Experience

You know, I think Heraclitus was right: we really don't step in the same river twice. I've certainly found this to be true of my relationship with authors and books. I know I've mentioned the way a book can seem different when you re-read it after many years, but I also find that a new work by an author I'm familiar with can elicit reactions I wouldn't have had the first time around. It's not always a matter of enjoying the work more or less (though sometimes it is); it's more a function of relating to it from a place of wider experience. It can mean you're more critical, or it can mean you're more deeply appreciative. It can also mean you miss being able to see things with "Beginner's Mind." (I'm not going to say that being more critical is always an improvement.)

It's a little like the experience of going back to a place you knew as a child--a school building, for instance--and finding that it looks so much smaller than you remembered it. In a certain sense, it is smaller, because you yourself have grown, but the apparent change is only the result of you getting taller. Objectively, the building's dimensions are unchanged.

Recently, I managed to get hold of the edition of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that I remembered from my childhood and had been searching for for years.  Trying to locate this book, in which I first encountered the story of the Holy Grail, had itself almost taken on the elusive quality of a Grail Quest. I remembered what the book looked like but not the author or publisher. For years I looked in bookstores, often finding illustrated versions of the King Arthur story, but never "The One." The edition of The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Alfred W. Pollard that I came across years ago and purchased came the closest in its solemnity of tone and language. I knew, though, that it wasn't the one I was remembering; the illustrations didn't match, and the telling didn't include a key episode I recalled at the beginning. Nice, but no cigar.

But years later, behold: the power of the Internet. One day it occurred to me to try just typing a description of the book into Google. There was a time this wouldn't have worked, but the sophistication of search tools these days along with the sheer volume of information that's out there now made me realize this method really wasn't all that quixotic. And it worked! After a couple of tries, the object of my search appeared on the screen in front of me, the same cover, the same title page. With a few keystrokes, my quest had ended. A short while later, I had the book, and although the edition arrived with a different color cover than the one we'd had as kids, it was undoubtedly the same book.

Or was it? It was definitely the right book, though a slightly different edition. The color was blue instead of the deep maroon I remembered, and it seemed smaller (and may actually be smaller, although that, too, may be an illusion). It would be exaggerating to say that the experience of opening the book again was on par with Keats' experience "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." I didn't gaze with "wild surmise" or fall silent, as if staring "from a peak in Darien," but I was pretty excited. The episode of the dragons was there, and the illustrations, so vaguely remembered, were the right ones. But as I looked through the pages, I found, to my great surprise and dismay, that the language, once so evocative, now seemed more obviously written for a child. The glowing, full-color illustrations had lost their high magic and seemed more ordinary than I remembered.

Alas, what is this? Is this what we call "growing up"? I recall how remote and mysterious the doings of Arthur's court seemed to me as a nine-year-old, part of the mystery deriving from the fact that the characters were all adults, with adult motivations and aspirations. Now that I am an adult, I guess the glamour has worn off that particular part of the rose. The characters, not only in the telling but in what they represent, seem much less compelling than they once did, even more cartoon-like. I have not re-read the book from start to finish; it may be that in doing that, I will rediscover some of the magic that was formerly there. One thing's for sure, though, and that is that it will not be the book it once was for me.

Last year, I had a similar experience in re-reading the book of a very accomplished travel writer--similar, but with a difference. I found that I enjoyed her descriptions of places and activities--the angle of light on a certain street corner, the taste of a particular dish--more than ever. I often felt that I was seeing things right along with her, and this must surely be because I'm more in touch with the world of the senses than I was when I was younger and tended to have my head in the clouds. I appreciate the simple justness of a description, the precision of a scene well rendered. On the other hand, I found myself getting angry with her over what I experienced as her uncritical religious faith, which she wrote of openly. I was constantly thinking things like, "How can you believe that!" and "Yes, but . . ." Of course, this merely reflects my own thinking; another reader may well find her expressions of faith beautiful and inspirational. The point is, I don't recall being bothered by that aspect of the book at all when I first read it.

More recently, I've been reading a book by an author in the depth tradition whose work I know. For me, it's a new book, and while I'm familiar with his thinking, I find that I'm arriving at it from a different place, that I'm much more likely to engage in mental arguments with him. Early on, he was one of the first modern thinkers I came across who was writing from a mythic and Jungian perspective, and I treasured my experience of his books. I still find what he has to say thought provoking and useful, but I sometimes find myself in profound disagreement with him. Instead of plunging in headlong, as I used to, I read now with a bit more resistance.

Of course, this merely means that I'm a more critical reader, which is not at all surprising, but I have to say that I am missing the lost magic of my King Arthur book. There's a time and a place for the critical mind and a time and a place to be open to wonder. I've known people who get the greatest satisfaction from figuring out the mystery or anticipating the end before it happens, but I'm not really one of them. I'd rather have joy than be right every time. Do we have to lose all innocence in the name of experience? I hope not . . . though some people will tell you otherwise.

Capturing a Book

Last week, I read two books recommended by readers of a magazine I subscribe to. This reminded me a little of my experiment two years ago, when I read lots of books from NPR's summer reading lists. I did something like that last summer, too, but blended recommendations from several sources. On the whole, I've decided that, despite coming across a few gems in these reading lists, I usually do better on my own when it comes to picking out books. I just know what I like.

I often find good titles when I'm looking for something else. I might be looking at books by an author I already know and notice something on the same shelf that calls out to me. Part of the fun of going to the library is the serendipity and the not really knowing what I'm going to walk out with. Sometimes, I'm in the mood for something in particular and walk out with a book within five minutes; other times, I know what I want but can't seem to find it.

When I went to the library the other day, I had a title in mind, but the library didn't have it, so I started browsing. I noticed several flyers on a display that someone in reader's advisory must have put together. They had titles like "If You Like Dan Brown . . ." or "If You Like Agatha Christie . . ." In my case, you almost have to be more specific: "If You Like Jane Smiley's Historical Novels But Not A Thousand Acres"; "If You Like Literary Adventures With Exotic Settings and Mythology"; or "If You Like Romances--With Humor--That Aren't Predictable," but to get something that close to the target, I'd have to write the list myself.

However, I flipped through several of the flyers and found some book descriptions that appealed. I started hunting and located a few of the books, including The Age of Desire, a novel about Edith Wharton, and Rules of Civility, a novel about upper-class New Yorkers in the 1930s. I almost picked the Wharton book, but something in the description made me think of Henry James's The Bostonians, and though this book may be nothing like that, I decided against it just in case it was. (This would be from my flyer, "If You Like Henry James and You Like Boston, but not The Bostonians.") Likewise, I might actually enjoy Rules of Civility, which is supposed to invoke a touch of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but my reverse snobbery kicked in just then and a novel about wealthy New Yorkers didn't appeal.

I perused three of the pamphlets and looked for at least 10 of the suggested titles before deciding that maybe the lists wouldn't work for me. I then tried the library's "New Books" shelf, but nothing grabbed me there either. This was turning into one of those contrary occasions when I didn't know exactly what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want, and I wasn't finding what I wanted, but I didn't want to leave the library without a book.

I took one last look at the list called "If You Like The Night Circus" and saw a book called The Stockholm Octavo that I had somehow overlooked before. The description summarized a tale of love, intrigue, and a Tarot-like deck of divination cards set in 18th-century Sweden. What? How did I not see that before? I found it on the fiction shelf and was drawn to it right away because of the beautiful cover, which depicts the deck of cards, and the satisfying size--over 400 pages. I also noticed a blurb from an author I like on the back of the book, and that seemed promising.

The real test of a book, though, is to read the first few sentences. Then and there, you get the flavor of what the author is up to; a book that sounds fascinating in synopsis and is highly recommended is sometimes simply not your thing once you start reading, but this one began well: "Stockholm is called the Venice of the North, and with good reason. Travelers claim that it is just as complex, just as grand, and just as mysterious as its sister to the south."

OK, that's more like it! Right away, I'm intrigued because I've never thought of Stockholm as being like Venice at all. Throw in words like "complex" and "mysterious," and you've got my attention. A novel set in a northern city with the allure of an Italian one is probably going to be worth your while for the setting alone. And there's a seer! And a deck of mystical cards!

Why I ended up with the last book I considered, I don't know, but I walked out of the library happy. I'm about a fourth of the way through it, and somehow it's just what I had in mind, even though I didn't know what I had in mind when I walked into the library. Sometimes, you just know what you want when you see it.

Reading With Others

This summer, I tried something new with reading. I usually pick out books by either browsing or selecting titles I've heard about that sound intriguing. This year, I came across NPR's "Book Lists," which provide recommendations in various categories like "Books for Introverts," "Travel Memoirs," and "Intelligent Romance." I figured my tastes were probably a lot like those of most NPR listeners, so I looked over their suggestions and decided to take some of them on. I was also assisted by a recommended reading list I saw in Real Simple (a short list of five, all of which I ended up reading eventually).

Call it a book lover's experiment. How does picking out books on my own, based on my own predelictions and idiosyncratic interests, stack up with relying on the suggestions of intelligent tastemakers? (OK, I am a librarian, but I don't think that's relevant -- I never worked in a public library or in reader's advisory.) I was curious to see how closely my tastes coincide with those of other "discriminating" fiction lovers (I stuck with novels) and whether this might give me a short cut to that most elusive and highly desirable thing, a joyous banquet of summer reading.

I was excited to encounter these lists because, to tell you the truth, finding the kind of books I enjoy isn't that easy. It's wonderful to come across serendipitous finds, but a truly momentous book doesn't come along every day (or even every month). I guess it's a lot like relationships, where the really big finds are few and far between and therefore precious. I figured taking suggestions from others would get me out of my rut and expose me to writing I wouldn't find on my own, sort of like a Match.com for bibliophiles. It was worth a try (which is what I said when I tried out the real Match.com).

In June I started checking the library for the Real Simple titles, which are what I started with, and I finally realized that when you're interested in the same books everyone else is reading, you have to reserve them if you want to get your hands on them before Christmas. Then it wasn't until the end of June that any of my reserved titles became available. The first was The Innocents, a contemporary version of The Age of Innocence set among a close-knit, well-to-do Jewish community in Hampstead, in the north of London.

The mythologist in me always likes seeing an old story appear in a new guise, so I enjoyed the way the author made the story her own and found it to be, in true postmodern fashion, more nuanced and ambiguous than its predecessor. Who was sympathetic and who wasn't? Hard to say. Next, I read Seating Arrangements, the story of a Cape Cod wedding, whose wealthy characters I deemed greatly annoying throughout most of the book. My main take-away was genuine surprise at the end when these characters, whom I had found unlikeable, suddenly became understandable, each in his or her own way, in the last pages.

Next, I dipped into The Spoiler, a sharply written send-up of publishing, newspapers, and the collision of entertainment and journalism. I liked it, despite the dark and ironic ending, and appreciated its evenhandedness and crisp style. The Uninvited Guests, which I had been especially anticipating, turned out to be an almost indescribable blend of an English comedy of manners, Dawn of the Dead, and a bit of Jean Paul Sartre. It had one of my favorite characters of the summer in Smudge, the family's enterprising youngest daughter (and the only child in the story). Next, I tried to read Overseas, an unabashed romance/time travel combo, but I somehow couldn't make headway with it, in spite of the fact that I kept picturing Hugh Jackman as the male lead. (This novel was highly popular and NPR recommended, but I guess I need my romance more subtle, not to mention that time travel is a tricky thing in my book.)

I also delved into a couple of NPR's picks from last summer, both of which had Shakespearean themes, which I seem to be slightly obsessed with lately. The Great Night, a re-write of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park (near Haight-Ashbury) seemed like a sure thing. Alas, it was full of broken characters and a downright scary troupe of fairies that left me sad, despite a very imaginative handling of the magical realm. The Tragedy of Arthur, which involved twins, their relationship with a scoundrel of a father, and the discovery of a purported new Shakespearean play, was like a bookend to Great Night, with its tale of betrayal, tragic flaws, and a curious amalgam of true and false. I couldn't bring myself to read the play, which appears at the end, all the way through.

By August, I had covered The Girl Giant (which starts out sad but gets better. Moral: don't put off those doctor visits) and The Red House. I had read Mark Haddon before, but to me The Red House is his most accomplished work, poetic, insightful, and engrossing. It reminded me of Seating Arrangements with its sly way of slowly revealing all its characters as multidimensional, upsetting any judgments you may have made along the way. It also had an unforgettable and truly disturbing ghost story intertwined with the family drama. I moved on to The Age of Miracles, which was accomplished and original but depressing. I wanted to say to the author, hey, couldn't you at least have left Julia and Seth alone to spin out their story? It's the end of the world, for crying out loud, do you have to kill off the romance, too?

To finish my experiment, I read Mission to Paris, the tale of an actor caught up in the moral quicksands of pre-World War II Europe, which I found fascinating. I liked the main character's intelligence and principles, but I found the sex scenes, which seemed heavy on adolescent male fantasy, jarring. The last book on my list was Gone Girl, an addicting, unpredictable mystery combining black humor, a Manhattan couple, the recession, and a bucolic Midwestern locale to unforgettable effect. The end was a bitter pill but hardly surprising considering the psychotic nature of the couple's relationship. (Note to self: Is this what marriage is really like? Must find out before doing it.)

So that was it, my tour of what other people are reading. What was the outcome of my experiment? I have to say, honestly, that while these books provided moments of amusement (and at times, incandescent writing), I'm not sure I did any better with this list than I would have on my own. A good book (like beauty) really is in the eye of the beholder. My taste, offbeat and unique as it sometimes is, is still, I think, my best compass when it comes to the wild and woolly terrain of reading. (I came to the same conclusion about Match.com, it may not surprise you to know. I guess I really do have to figure things out on my own.)

To celebrate the end of my experiment, I went back to an old favorite of mine, with almost the feeling of someone who's been eating all her vegetables only to break down and get what she really wants, a hot fudge sundae. It's been over a decade since I came across Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars, and I've read it two or three times since then. I never heard of anyone else who's read it. I don't know if it was ever on anyone's Top Picks or bestseller lists. I'm not sure if the library even has it . . . and that arcane quality is probably part of the appeal.

I finished it a couple of nights ago, with some sadness. It will be a while before I can re-read it (you have to pace these things). But I've already started another book, one which I found by browsing in a bookstore some months back, and so far I'm really enjoying it.

To each her own.

Bookstore Logic

Just today I noticed a bookmark that I've apparently been carrying around for more than two years. I remember the day I visited the bookstore in Louisville and the book I bought, a guide to Los Angeles. I've used the book many times but don't recall seeing the bookmark, which includes a quote from Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist: "To carry a book in your pocket or in your bag, particularly in times of sadness, is to be in possession of another world, a world that can bring you happiness."

I've always been a reader. When I was a little girl, I didn't read books so much as immerse myself in them. It was an effortless, unselfconscious way to enter other worlds that immediately became my own, as if I were just another character, looking over the shoulders of the other characters or sitting quietly in a corner. The books I read up until the age of 12 or 13 live for me in a way that few books have since then. At some point I became a more critical reader, which sounds like a good thing but in reality meant that stories lost some of their immediacy for me. It became harder to get lost in them as I became more aware of things like style, literary value, etc. The Nancy Drew books I loved at age 8 then became "formulaic," and I was no longer enchanted by the "silliness" of Dr. Seuss.

I had crossed an invisible border, leaving a magic world and stepping into a more pedestrian reality in which books still called to me, but more softly. My imagination still craved the luminous realm of fairy tales, of King Arthur and Robin Hood and the Little Golden Books, but I could no longer get there. I don't know if this happens to other people or not. Once in a while, a book would still sweep me into its world, a book like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Hobbit or some of the novels of Mary Stewart. On the whole, though, as reading became a more intellectual exercise, my capacity to feel its magic became less.

I actually remember telling a friend years ago that I was tired of reading about life and wanted to experience it directly instead of just in books. Be careful, oh, be careful, what you wish for! The god of libraries (Sesat? Thoth?) might have had a hand in what followed, possibly intending a corrective measure to curb my attempts to flee the library (which turns out to be bad form for a librarian). Let's just say I learned my lesson and am perfectly content now to spend the entire winter curled up with a good book, sipping hot chocolate and eating plates of cookies.

One thing that has somehow never waned is the irresistible lure of a bookstore. I remember sadly the days when all we had were chain stores at the mall, which carried bestsellers and paperback classics but not a lot else. Since then I've developed a pretty high bar for what a bookstore should be, and there are actually some stores that meet it. One criterion is that it should be possible to just walk in and feel yourself attracted to titles at every hand, without having to scour the shelves. (I know some people enjoy rummaging around to uncover gems, but I don't want bookfinding to be like work -- it should be like play).

This is a true story: I was in Northern California six years ago, touring the wine country of Sonoma County and environs. I found myself passing through a small town, no more than an eyeblink, which somehow appealed to me, even though I was on my way to somewhere else. I drove for another 45 minutes or so through an idyllic landscape but kept thinking about the little town I had seen. For some reason, I turned around and drove back, stopping to get chai at a little cafe, and then moving down the street to visit the town's little bookstore.

There was a table in the middle of the store loaded with books on a variety of topics, in no particular order. I picked up a book with an interesting title and opened it at random. The first word my eye fell on was the word "maze." Not surprising that I would notice this, since I'd been interested in mazes for a while. I picked up another book, on a different topic than the first one; again I opened it at random, and again, the first word I saw was "maze." A third book; again, at random, again, the word "maze."

I wasn't even thinking about myth studies at that point, but I knew enough about Jung to recognize synchronicity. I had always bemoaned the fact that that type of thing never happened to me, and now, shazam!, here it was. Of course, three is a magic number in fairy tales, and looking back, I see this incident as the opening by which I fell into the rabbit hole of a whole series of adventures, good and bad. At the time, I wasn't sure how to interpret this bookstore experience, but I kept wondering about it, until six months later, I was in graduate school, the last place I thought I'd be. I wrote about mazes and labyrinths several times, but resisted choosing it for my dissertation, not really accepting that the topic had already chosen me.

I now know a word I didn't know before, which is numinous, the quality of divinity or magic that shines through certain events, places, and things, revealing a pulsating significance where something very ordinary appeared only a moment ago. A good bookstore deals in the numinous, as does a good library. That's why it's important to be within reach of one or the other, and preferably both, if you are, say, thinking about relocating. I spent an afternoon and two frustrating evenings in Los Angeles looking for the one (there are several good used bookstores, but you also need one that deals in new books). I approached the last bookstore on my list feeling nervous, since I hadn't yet seen anything at all like what I had in mind. Would I end up having to move to Northern California (or Portland? or Seattle?) just to be near a good bookstore?

Fortunately, this bookshop turned out to be just the right size. Browsing yielded a good number of interesting titles. In one corner was a little boy surrounded by a pile of books, whose mother was threatening to leave without him (when last seen, he was still reading). There were thoughtful staff picks. I chose a book to buy, then changed my mind, picking up the one next to it, and thought to myself, this store could be the difference between my moving here or not moving here.

I didn't get to start the book until last night. I was finishing another book I had become engrossed in, a book about, of all things, a bookstore and a writer. (I had found it at Powell's, the Paradiso of bookstores, in Portland.) I picked up the new book last night, intending to read a little before going to bed. I liked the way it started, with a musing on the power of scent to hold memories; its setting in Provence; the romance combined with a touch of Gothic; the lyricism of the writing. Then, at the bottom of page 11, at the beginning of chapter 3, I came across the words: "Dom and I met in a maze." You're kidding me.

It was Bilbo who said, "the Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead, the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can . . ."