Well, here I am, on day two of my love affair with the British Library, day two as holder of a reading pass, a genuine card-carrying intellectual! (Only not really, because I'm sitting here in the café, drinking a latte and taking a break before I look at Havel in the original Czech, and while that's all very valid, I suspect that if I were a real intellectual, I would not have checked facebook, but would instead be reading the New Yorker blogs. But hey…it's only day two. I'm still a bit starstruck.)
I can't believe it's taken me this long to get here. Actually, The British Library was one of the first places I came in London. In the summer of 2006, when I was travelling solo around Europe before heading home, London was my last stop. I was running somewhat low on funds and staying in Pimlico, so I told myself I was allowed one transport day pass with which to see something not in walking distance of my hostel. I chose Bloomsbury, maneouvered around the building site that was St. Pancras at the time, and spent a very lovely late morning perusing the exhibitions at the British Library.
I hadn't been back since, and I've no idea what I was thinking in waiting so long, because coming here has felt like coming home. O academia! O the obscure monographs on arcane subjects, o the furrowed brows, o the rows of desks and bearded professors kissing their lovely young students on the cheek in slightly lascivious greeting! O the book holders, complete with weighted beads so that one doesn't have to hold a book open in order to transcribe passages onto one's laptop (one in a sea of many)! O the certainty with which the woman who authorized my reading pass told me to come back once I've started my doctorate and get an extended pass! O the individual desks with their individual laptop plug-ins and reading lamps with little brass switches! O the wild-haired academic boys and quirkily dressed academic girls! O my people!
I shall stop rhapsodizing now. I realize I'm being a bit absurd. But really, this place is for me what a Star Trek convention must be for Trekkies – a little piece of world where the external rules and values mesh harmoniously with one's internal system. It doesn't matter that I'm in a city I don't like in a country that has rejected all my overtures at friendship. I am in The Library, which transcends nationality and even its own geographic location. It is so wonderful that, had I rediscovered it sooner, it might have saved my London experience. Perhaps I would have written that novel my Uncle Arnie has been telling me to write since I was eleven. Perhaps not.
I'm visiting the States in a couple weeks and I'm starting to regret it…after all, my current pass expires in May. Do I really want to lose an entire month of this bliss? Speaking of which, I really should be getting back to my (individually numbered and appointed) desk now.
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