posted on 18 Mar 2018

Packing My Library by Alberto Manguel

A new book on books by Alberto Manguel is always a big occasion as far as I’m concerned. No-one writes with more thoughtfulness or insight about the importance of books, libraries and the joys and frustrations of amassing a collection. Manguel, born in Argentina and a protégé of the legendary Jorge Luis Borges, would probably call himself a citizen of the world and the fact that his life has led him to move from one country to another has also meant he’s also had to deal with his extraordinary book collection of some 35,000 volumes.

This new meditation is described by Manguel as ‘an elegy and ten digressions’ and is based on his decision in 2015 to leave, for reasons that remain largely unexplained, his idyllic French provincial home with its custom-designed library and pack his books for storage in Canada. This process gives him the chance to think about his own books and his collection but, in the sections he calls ‘digressions’ he is able to speculate in a more universal fashion on the importance, history and role of books in society.

Reviewing the book last month M.A. Orthofer notes that:

Packing My Library is also, specifically, a library book, as he considers his relationship not only with his own collection(s), but the role of (public) libraries in his life, and in society in general.

One of the things I like about Manguel is that he doesn’t feel the need to try and be  populist – there are few concessions in his assumptions about his readers or their knowledge and understanding of books and their history. That’s not to say he’s obscure or unapproachable – quite the opposite I would argue – but his books do require you to think and to take your time and his work repays rereading.

Borges is always the ghost at the feast when you read a Manguel book about books and reading  this volume is no exception. In what is, I think, quite an unexpected twist towards the end of the book we discover that after going through the process of packing up his books, he gets the surprise offer of a new job. The National Library of Argentina – the institution that was home to Borges – offers him the chance of becoming its new director and so succeeding his great hero in that post. This is not only an opportunity to actually become a librarian rather than being just an advocate but the chance to return again to Buenos Aries and to walk the streets he left so long ago.

 There is indeed a sense of ending here – something elegiac that makes me wonder whether Manguel himself feels that he is coming to some kind of personal conclusion:

 Which sections of my dismantled library will survive and which will become obsolete? …Will I, their customary reader, wander again through the library’s stacks pleased at recalling a title here and surprised of finding another there? Or will it be my ghost who will haunt the libraries next incarnation?...”In my end is my beginning,” Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have embroidered on her cloth while in prison. This seems to me a fitting motto for my library.

If you don’t know Manguel’s work, I urge you to seek out one of his very best, The Library At Night, which describes his joy at setting up his French provincial library. It might be beneficial to read that before picking up Packing My Library  because the new book will have a bigger impact if you have experienced that one first. And if you are coming to Manguel for the first time – I envy you the pleasure.

Terry Potter

March 2018