by Geoff Sawers
This place had once been organised, when it was first established, with the ambition of a bygone era that one building could house all the world’s knowledge, with alcoves dedicated to particular countries, or disciplines, religious cults. Each held approximately the same number of volumes but accessions soon destabilised this neat scheme. A traveler returned from a distant land with a magnificent collection of illustrated codices and yet there was no room for them; the shelves were already buckling. The ornately painted headboards alphabetised everything but since the Emperor had annexed three new provinces the alphabet had grown too, to include all this extra literary material.
The new librarian found a solution. The Empress’s magnificent rose garden was carefully uprooted and built over, all the bushes transplanted to a spacious roof terrace. But the old librarian refused to use the new buildings. She is an archivist of the past, she fears an invasion of termites, unsatisfactory modern plumbing, new ideas. For the new librarian the collection is a tool, a machine, an engine: constantly making connections, she introduces the scholar who is researching the printing of books to the one analysing the history of forestry, sure that a new book, a new perspective will emerge. Her library will be an octopus putting out tentacles throughout the city, throughout the world. She devotes a whole room to the catalogues of other libraries and supports all wars of conquest: one day everything will be hers.
Geoff Sawers’s newest book is ‘Widdershins Walk’ (with Peter Driver, Peculiarity Press 2025). He lives in Reading, UK.
