Professional Reading: Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night

The starting point is a question. Outside theology and fantastic literature, few can doubt that the main features of our universe are its dearth of meaning and lack of discernible purpose. And yet, with bewildering optimism, we continue to assemble whatever scraps of information we can gather in scrolls and books and computer chips, on shelf after library shelf, whether material, virtual or otherwise, pathetically intent on lending the world a semblance of sense and order, while knowing perfectly well that, however much we’d like to believe the contrary, our pursuits are sadly doomed to failure. Why then do we do it? Though I knew from the start that the question would most likely remain unanswered, the quest seemed worthwhile for its own sake. This book is the story of that quest. Why then do we do it? Though I knew from the start that the question would most likely remain unanswered, the quest seemed worthwhile for its own sake. This book is the story of that quest. -- from The Library at Night

In the wake of Jorge Luis Borges, perhaps, Alberto Manguel celebrates the power of the library over the creative imagination. For some it is a place of order, where the co-ordinates of scholarship are drawn up and displayed. For others the library attests to the incipient chaos of all recorded expression. The reader may go from book to book, like a butterfly, and extract a phrase before dipping into another and another volume. -- Peter Ackroyd's Review of Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night, The Times (March 8, 2008).

Remember the serendipity of discovery experienced so long time ago by browsing the stacks? Manguel's The Library at Night is best approached in a similar fashion. Buy the book and place it near your favorite chair. Then pick it up to read its fifteen essays in no particular order when you have quiet moments this summer to pause for a question (see sidebar). The essays posit the library “as myth,” “as shape,” “as island,” etc., and my favorite, the library "as chance." [JH]

The Library at Night
Alberto Manguel

Yale UP, Mar 17, 2008
384 p., 5 1/2 x 9
ISBN: 9780300139143
ISBN-10: 0300139144
Cloth: $27.50 

Description. Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the “complete” libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, the library of books never written—Manguel illuminates the mysteries of libraries as no other writer could. With scores of wonderful images throughout, The Library at Night is a fascinating voyage through Manguel’s mind, memory, and vast knowledge of books and civilizations.

About the Author. Alberto Manguel is an internationally acclaimed anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor, and the author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places and A History of Reading.