Rereading Lolita

 Ian Frazier, "Rereading Lolita" New Yorker, December 14, 2020 pp. 30-35.

As an unformed kid, I envied his self-assurance and Olympian disdain. I tried to imitate the style, dropping into conversations half-cribbed Nabokov-like phrases (“I scorn the philistine postcoital cigarette”). Once I happened upon a slim volume of his in the New York Public Library which no one I’ve met has heard of. It contained a line that I treasured like a rare archeological find. Published in 1947, the book is a short anthology of verse by three Russian poets—Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tyutchev—with Nabokov’s translations, accompanied by introductions in which he explains each poet to an American audience. In the introduction to Pushkin, he describes the poet’s end, when he received a fatal wound in a duel with the French ballroom roué Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès, the alleged lover of his wife. About the later career of this pomaded zero who killed Russia’s greatest poet, Nabokov adds that d’Anthès went back to France, got elected to some office or other, “and lived to the incredible and unnecessary age of 90."

COMMENT

     It seems that Ian Frazier learned to write by imitating Nabokov.   While searching the library for all things Nabokov he finds a neglected volume of translated poems and actually reads the introduction (something not everyone does).  There he finds a perfect putdown for a historical nobody -- Hidden Treasure luring in plain sight. 

South Africa wildfire burns University of Cape Town, library of African antiquities

Lesley Wroughton "South Africa wildfire burns University of Cape Town, library of African antiquities", Washington Post, April 19, 2021 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/18/south-africa-fire-university-cape-town/

Officials from the University of Cape Town, known as UCT, said the Jagger Library, which houses priceless African studies collections, was among the buildings that burned.

“At this stage, we can confirm the Reading Room is completely gutted and thankfully the fire detection system in place triggered the fire shutters, thereby preventing the spread of the fire to other parts of the library,” Ujala Satgoor, executive director of UCT Libraries, said in a statement.“Some of our valuable collections have been lost,” she said. “However a full assessment can only be done once the building has been declared safe and we can enter.”

The library houses printed and audiovisual materials on African studies as well as 1,300 sub-collections of unique manuscripts and personal papers, and more than 85,000 books and pamphlets on African studies including up-to-date materials and works on Africa and South Africa printed before 1925, according to the UCT website. It also contains one of the most extensive African film collections in the world, the website added.

The university’s vice chancellor, Mamokgethi Phakeng, confirmed that some parts of the African Studies Collection were destroyed.

“The library is of course our greatest loss,” she told CapeTalk radio. “Some of these cannot be replaced by insurance, and that is a sad day for us.”

COMMENT 

As with the 2018 fire at the National Museum in Brazil, the loss of library archives is a severe cultural loss.  Other buildings can be rebuilt, but once one-of-a-kind endangered information is lost, it is lost for good.  Since the African studies collection contained documentation of non-literate cultures, the loss of archives makes it that much harder for African scholars to research cultural identity. 

Shelf Lives

 Min Jin Lee, "Shelf Lives", New York Times Book Review,  April 18, 2021 p. 1, 20-21.

     On a day off, Uncle John went to the New York Public Library to check the classifieds.  He noticed that computer programmers had high starting salaries, so he borrowed books on programming.  the former history graduate student read library books on computer science.  Not long after, he got a job at an insurance company, then, later, I.B.M. hired him as a programmer, where he worked for most of his life.

     In 1975, Uncle John, now an I.B.M. company man sponsored his younger sister's family to immigrate from South Korea.  A year later, we came to Elmhurst, Queens, where Uncle John, his wife and their two American-born daughters lived.  I was 7.

     In our first year in America, Uncle John took my tow sisters and me to the library in Elmhurst and got us cards.   We could borrow as many books as we liked, he said.  We loaded up our metal grocery cart with its tilted black wheels and white plastic hubs.  It creaked all the way home.  

COMMENT

    This single narrative tells a complete immigrant story.  The public library is the pathway to a better job, which enables Uncle John to sponsor other family members to come to America.  In the article Min Jin Lee, reminisces about the library books she read as a child and what they taught her about "the ethos of American rugged individualism and the Korean quest for knowledge.  Based on what she learned from years of reading, she is writing a series of novels about Korean Americans, so just as it did for Uncle John, the library also provided a vocation for the author.

Mary Ellen Moylan, Acclaimed Balanchine Dancer, Is Dead at 94

 Roslyn Sulcas "Mary Ellen Moylan, Acclaimed  Balanchine Dancer, Is Dead at 94" New York Times April 14, 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/arts/dance/mary-ellen-moylan-dead.html?auth=login-google 

Ms. Moylan had become “the first great Balanchine dancer." And yet her death, almost a year ago, went largely unnoticed in the dance world. Even a collection devoted to her in the archives of the University of Oklahoma School of Dance makes no mention of her death; neither do various biographical sketches of her online. Word of her death, however, began to trickle out through social media, and her daughter-in-law, Carol Bailes, recently confirmed it: Ms. Moyland died on April 28, 2020, in Redmond, Wash. She was 94. The family said she had had dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

COMMENT

An obituary of an influential dancer is also a commentary on the importance of journalism.  When Moyland died nobody reported it.  The library archive, dependent on published sources, had no record of her death.  In an age when journalism is in danger, so is the historical record held by libraries. 

Elizabeth Acevedo

 "Elizabeth Acevedo" [By the Book], New York Times Book Review, April 1, 2021, p 6. 

Most people describe their childhood reading habits as voracious, no? And in my case it still applies. Mami would take me to library every Saturday and as I grew older she attempted to shoo me outside more since I could lie in bed and read the day away.  I wound up taking the books with me and reading on the stoop instead.  

I loved all thing.  The "Baby-Sitters Club" books, "Because of Winn Dixie," "Miracle's Boys," Jacqueline Woodson.  "The House on Mango Street" was a game changer, as was Julia Alvarez's "Before We Were Free."

COMMENT 

Acevedo is an author of young adult novels with a typical Coming of Age story of weekly trips to the library.  She describes the books she found there as "game changers."   

We Have All Hit the Wall

 Sarah Lyall, "We Have All Hit the Wall", New York Times, 4 April 2021, p. BU 1, 7.

Nearly 700 people responded to The Times's questions and the picture the painted was of a work force at its collective wits' end.  We heard from a clergyperson, a pastry chef, an I.C.U. nurse, a probation officer, a fast-food worker. Budget analysts, librarians, principals, college students holed up in childhood bedrooms, project managers, interns, real estate agents -- their mood was strikingly similar, though their circumstances were different.  As one respondent said, no matter how many lists she makes, "I find myself falling back into deep pajamaville".  [p. BU 7]

COMMENT

Librarians are listed among the professions that are experiencing malaise, burnout, depression and stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The article reports that "workers across the board felt makedly worse than they did last April."  

At Long Last, He Really Could Kiss the Bride

 Tammy La Gorce, "At Long Last, He Really Could Kiss the Bride," [Vows] New York Times, April 1, 2021 p. ST13.

He was so comfortable in her company that, as the night wore on and she started falling asleep across the table from him -- McDonald's was the local destination for studying after the school library closed at midnight -- his playful side emerged.  "I started drawing on her chin with  a marker," he said. "That's not something I would have done with anybody but her.  It was like we were already best friends."

COMMENT

When the library as Place of Refuge at Stephen F. Austin State University shuts down at midnight, a couple who are interested in each other more to a late-night fast food restaurant.  At the restaurant, studying begins to transform into something more physical.  Librarians know that people make out at the library, but here there is a clear implication that the McDonalds seem  less safe than a place where study space is the explicit agenda.