Bingo Row 5 – work
The Library Book by Susan Orlean is “about” the 1986 fire at the LA central library. The actual fire wasn’t the point of the book so much as the excuse for it. It was really about the Los Angeles library, libraries in general, and mostly about librarians doing their job.
The book covered librarians ranging from superheroes to self-centered jerks, with a range of gender and competency, but all of them care about libraries and they all care about their work. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I can’t imagine them.
LA had women librarians before it was expected and when it was a man’s job. Then the city sold out to sexism and hired some minor celebrity man who went fishing during the work day, although he had good intentions and mostly continued the progress of the women before him.
The daily life of the public librarian was the most interesting part of the book. Libraries are one of the few reliable third places, they’re a major resource for people who are struggling with anything – including shelter, language, homework, and finding music. And all of those are available because of the library staff.
The book also covers the author’s relationship with libraries and the main suspect of the presumed arson, Harry Peak. Those parts could respectively be summarized as fondness turned admiration and pathetic man is blonde.
Peak was probably at the library when the fire started, he was identified by witnesses, and told people he did it. But in his defense… something. The author found something in his pathetic blondness that made his innocence plausible, but I didn’t understand it.
Whatever the fire’s impetus, the wilful destruction of libraries is terrorism and an attack on community. On that topic, there are plenty of qualified people saying a lot.