Difficult, reading this test, do not think of the eminent Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian writer, key figure in the literature of the twentieth century. It is Alberto MANGUEL in his youth had the privilege of being appointed BORGES player reaches of blindness in middle of his life. The two men share an identical passion for literature, and analyzes their thoughts remain as pledges of originality and sharpness.
The library at night. The title of the work we already directs the nature of its content: it has this mysterious character, nebulously poetic charm that immediately abandons the somewhat stiff definition of "Library" to open it on a more personal territory, more subjective and therefore more attractive. This is what we confirmed the writer in his foreword: his approach is more sensitive, intuitive, far from an academic conformism. It will address the concept of "library" by widening the field of reflection. His main concern: to try to understand why men, despite the chaos that governs their world, stubbornly continue their work of classification and safeguard their writings.
To do this, the test is divided into fifteen chapters where the library, like a prism, reveals its many facets. The library is a mythology object: in "A myth" Alberto MANGUEL returns to the origins of archiving knowledge by citing the Tower of Babel and the Library of Alexandria, essential historical reference points. The library is also a place of prestige prestige of its formal organization (in "Space": the paradox of a library is to be contained in a finite space infinite expansion of collections), prestigious architecture (in "One form": the splendid work of Michel ANGE in the sixteenth century for the construction of the Laurentian Library in Florence). This allows even, by some twisted reasoning detours to consider the library as an object of fiction in the "Imagination", he pays tribute to his spiritual father, Borges, discovering us these examples of libraries imaginary corpus, fruit of a pure invention of the minds of some malicious authors or eccentric collectors. The library also reveals a reflection of context (environment and time) in which it is rooted, as evidenced by the chapters "A shadow", "Survival", "Oblivion", which remind us that over the centuries, libraries have content against their dark pages of the great history. The library is finally and especially the space of intelligence in its ranking methods (chapter "An order") as in its conceptualization (chapter "An intelligence"), it returns intrinsically experience human, and thus its objective reality. In this, the concept of manguelienne "library" far beyond the boundaries of its original etymology to embrace a broader meaning: it embodies the sum of human thoughts and induces a form of collective consciousness of the species. It expresses a worsening magma genuine truths hypothetical seasoned players in the eons to come may manage to decipher in order to unlock the secrets of their condition.
Poetic, Alberto MANGUEL?
All chapters are not equal. But overall, the library, the night remains an intellectually stimulating essay, written with fervor by a serious collector that doubles as a writer to the unwavering scholarship. The references are not lacking; a welcome index we proposed end of the book; many black and white photos throughout the text; the originality of the approach of Alberto MANGUEL allows us to address reflections affecting many areas peripheral to the book ... In short, a book of interest to put in the hands of any self-respecting bibliophile .
