At first, the smoke in the Fiction stacks was as pale as onionskin. Then it deepened to dove gray. Then it turned black. It wound around Fiction A through L, curling in lazy ringlets. It gathered into soft puffs that bobbed and banked against the shelves like bumper cars. Suddenly, sharp fingers of flame shot through the smoke and jabbed upward. More flames erupted. The heat built. The temperature reached 451 degrees and the books began smoldering. Their covers burst like popcorn.
The Library Book is actually a book about a library, and by extension, a book about all libraries and their continuing place of importance in our increasingly digitized world. To be more specific: This is a book about the devastating fire suffered by L.A.'s Central Branch in April of 1986 – in which over a million books were destroyed or damaged – and in the same kind of deeply-researched multi-thread format that author Susan Orlean employed in The Orchid Thief, she eventually unspools the entire (surprisingly dramatic) history of this particular building and its employees, the history and status of libraries worldwide, and bringing it down to the personal level, her own experiences as a library user and lover. To give all of this research narrative drive, Orlean also slowly intersperses the story of the only person ever accused of this apparent arson – a wanna-be actor, a compulsively-lying but universally-loved scalawag named Harry Peak. Orlean would eventually spend four years researching and writing this book, and while every page is bursting with fascinating trivia, the arsonist thread (while admittedly twisting and turning) probably didn't turn out to be as explosive as an investigative journalist might have hoped at the beginning of such a journey. Even so, I enjoyed this tale and all it taught me; obviously, I love libraries, too.
They formed a human chain, passing the books hand over hand from one person to the next, through the smoky building and out the door. It was as if, in this urgent moment, the people of Los Angeles formed a living library. They created, for that short time, a system to protect and pass along shared knowledge, to save what we know for each other, which is what libraries do every day.It turns out that Orlean had never heard of this disaster before moving to L.A. – despite it having been the most devastating library fire in the history of the United States – and when she went back in the archives of The New York Times to see how she could have missed the story, she discovered that it occurred on the same day as Chernobyl's nuclear meltdown; it so happens that globally, only the Soviet newspapers made a bigger news story out of the American library fire than the little problem in their own back yard. Quirky facts like this abound in The Library Book, as do larger-than-life characters, and an interesting overview of the role of libraries throughout history (including the grim fact that the greatest book burners in history – those out to purposefully destroy the culture and identity of others – were the Nazis and the Catholic Church). I found it interesting that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was instrumental in bringing the internet to every American library – and while that may have been a bit self-serving, I can't imagine libraries today without the free wi-fi and banks of computer terminals; it's exactly this embracing of emerging technologies and evolving services that make libraries continue to be the vital community hubs that they are.
A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you're all alone. The library is a whispering post. You don't need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. It was that affirmation that always amazed me. Even the oddest, most particular book was written with that kind of courage – the writer's belief that someone would find his or her book important to read. I was struck by how precious and foolish and brave that belief is, and how necessary, and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that these stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past and to what is still to come.As her mother succumbed to dementia and could no longer recall the trips they used to take to the library together, Orlean began to consider the role that libraries play in the outsourcing of our memories – the individual's and the culture's. That someone purposefully set a fire at L.A.'s Central Branch feels to her like an act of terrorism, “People think of libraries as the safest most open places in society. Setting them on fire is like announcing that nothing, and nowhere, is safe. The deepest effect of burning books is emotional.” In addition to all of that interesting research, The Library Book has an emotional core that is relatable to book and library lovers; it may not be an exciting story, but I enjoyed my time with it (and then hurriedly returned my copy to the library because it has an incredibly long waiting list).
All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.
