Death of Architecture Illustrated In Fiction

. . . To serve, like the rightful prince in retainer’s clothes, the usurper on our throne.

Late at night in our magical green jumpsuit we can go everywhere. We have security-card access, and more importantly our mop and bucket that evince our right to be wherever we happen to be in this literary warren. Up to the floors where the writers toil far into the night, each in a cubicle arranged nearly as possible like a garret. These cubicles are arrayed in a vast multi-storey ring, so the writers can look across at each other, and see who is pecking away, and who is staring into space while picking their noses. At the bottom of the well is a large pool, known as the Writers’ Pool. There is an island in the centre, to which tour groups are rowed, so they can gaze up at the authors and wonder at the Birth of Literature. From time to time writers leap to their deaths into this pool.

Where to next in this great factory of words? The Institute has a Publisher, and a Ballroom, and a Printer where the triple-expansion reciprocating engines of the presses pound the night away like pre-Adamite monsters. Elves package up the brand-new volumes, and then they travel by roller coaster down to an enchanted forest, which is the Bookshop. There is also an academic wing, where the learned debate the relative merits of the literary output of the Institute, and locate the works in their theories. Finally, all the books wind up in the great Library, where so many of them are forgotten and are heard from no more.

The Library is windowless. This is to protect its priceless collection. The Library is enormous. It is about the size of a hangar for a fleet of 747s. But there is nothing cavernous about the Library, for it is nearly solid paper, cloth, pasteboard, and ink. The stacks are vast, and their weight is prodigious. They hang from rails of carbon steel, and despite being counterweighed, the motors to move them are the size of megatheria. The stacks are compressed against each other so the Library is like one enormous book comprising all the volumes of Literature. The only space in the Library are vertical slots required for the folding catwalks and ladders the library clerks use to access the innumerable rows and columns to retrieve the books as they are called for. These clerks are young, nimble, and agile. They have to be, living the life of spider monkeys. And they have to be sharp. A few tragic accidents have occurred. Crossed messages, a momentary confusion, and an unfortunate clerk has been caught between two stacks as they have been activated, and flattened into a raspberry crêpe. The impatient scholar, tapping a foot, instead of receiving the volume that was demanded, ends up being dragged into an unhappy scene involving security staff, ambulance personnel, and hysteria. Then as well, to minimize the damaging effect of oxidation, which would destroy the precious leaves, the air in the library is maintained at somewhat stratospheric levels, so the clerks are encumbered in having to wear oxygen masks.

How the mind plays tricks late at night. The wide corridors are empty, but are those footsteps we hear? Before us or behind us? No, they must be only the echo of our own steps. At this hour there can be none here but us. We push our mop and bucket into the reading room. Moonlight pours in through the tall casements, pooling lustrously on the tables in their long aisles. More profound is this silence of night than the quiet of day when the scholars, all in pullovers fraying at the elbows, sit poring over their tomes, coughing occasionally, but not a word spoken among them from one hour to the next. But did we hear the distant shutting of a door? Again only our imagination, our trepidation. No time to spare! It must be done tonight, if indeed tonight is not too late, if Angus Hatter . . . but why torment ourselves with questions that will be answered in a matter of minutes?

With our access card we let ourselves into the glassed-in control booth, where the stack operators work during the day. Each operator, rather like an air-traffic controller, is in charge of five clerks. The clerks wear electronic devices at their waists, so the operators can track their movements on their screens. Oh, they are quite friendly, these operators. We’ve come to know them quite well. Amused at first at a lowly caretaker taking an interest in their tasks, they came to see it as a compliment, and were happy to show a little how the system works. A little here, a little there, and pretty soon you know the whole set-up.