In praise of public libraries

The previous article mentions the great debt owed by writers such as Terry Pratchett to the public libraries that they used as children. 

They are not alone; public libraries helped to make me what I am today. I briefly mentioned the key role that they played in my early life here; the recently-quoted endorsements have inspired me to cover the subject in more detail.

Libraries in my early life
Going to the library was a major part of life when I was growing up - just as going to school and going to the sweet shop were! 

I did have some books of my own and I also used the school libraries, but this was not nearly enough for me: I always wanted more and better reading material.

I lived 'by chance' close to some very big public libraries as a child. I know that small buildings appear large to small children, but I revisited some of them and found them just as imposing now as they were then.

They gave me a never-ending supply of high quality books. 

I saw libraries as treasure troves; the books on the shelves offered me escape, distraction, education and entertainment. They helped to fill some gaps in my life and gave me things I couldn’t get in the real world. They gave me far more information than I was getting at school or from the people in my life.

I joined the huge local library when my family moved to London. Even though it was very well stocked and I also found many good books in the school library, this still wasn’t enough to feed my insatiable appetite for food for my mind and fuel for my imagination.

The great and positive influence of public libraries

This post was inspired by a quotation from Terry Pratchett that I found recently. He said this in his introduction to Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Stories:

“... I taught myself how to write by reading as many books as I could carry home from the library.“

Many people do indeed learn to write by extensive reading, although obviously not all voracious readers go on to become published writers. Who knows what wonderful works might never have existed if their authors had not had access to large numbers of good-quality library books as children! 

Isaac Asimov is another writer to acknowledge his debt:

"I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library."

From his memoir I, Asimov

I like to see people giving credit where it is due! 

These quotations have given me the idea of creating a series of articles about public libraries, covering both my personal experiences and those of some of the writers mentioned on here. There will also be some background and general material. 

This exercise will help to pay off the huge debt that I owe to the library books that educated, inspired and entertained me as a child – and still do.

I hope that this dragon doesn't drop his book in the bath!

A last look at Joyce Collin-Smith’s Call No Man Master

This is the final article in the series inspired by Joyce Collin-Smith’s autobiographical work Call No Man Master (1988).  

In this book she describes her 50-year search for a genuine guru, a real spiritual master. She didn’t find one, but she encountered many unusual people of various religions and disciplines and learned a lot along the way.

This article highlights some remaining material of particular interest. There is a little more to say about cults and the damage that they do to their members, about the Maharishi Yogi and about the feeling of being alien to this world.

As I have described in one of the basic cult articles, anyone who gets involved with one is in danger of being left stranded. They may also have been encouraged to burn their bridges behind them, which gets them into double trouble.

There are some examples of this in Call No Man Master. 

The summaries of what Joyce Collin-Smith tells us speak for themselves.

Joyce Collin-Smith: imagination, alienation, and an imaginary friend

Novelist and journalist Joyce Collin-Smith’s autobiographical work Call No Man Master has inspired many articles to date, and there is still a little more miscellaneous material of particular interest to come. 

This article covers some of the attributes that Joyce Collin-Smith had in common with other writers mentioned on here.

The article about Stella Benson’s imagination and the one about her imaginary friends spell out what life is like for someone who is very good with words, has a very vivid imagination and feels alienated from the real world.

Joyce Collin-Smith is another example of such people.

Joyce Collin-Smith’s childhood
There are some very familiar elements here.

Joyce Collin-Smith tells us that she was a thin, ailing, solitary, excessively shy and nervous child. Fearing rebuffs or incomprehension if she voiced her thoughts, she busied herself with private activities, including writing or imagining stories.

L. M. Montgomery on Rudyard Kipling and writing to order

It came as no great surprise to learn recently that L. M. Montgomery was familiar with the works of Rudyard Kipling: as mentioned in previous articles, she was a great reader. 

What was unexpected was that she singled out Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads for special praise - perhaps this was because she was given the poems as a Christmas present. 

Her actual words about the poems surprised me too:

“They are capital — full of virile strength and life. They thrill and pulsate and burn, they carry you along in their rush and swing, till you forget your own petty interests and cares, and burst out into a broader soul-world and gain a much clearer realization of all the myriad forms of life that are beating around your own little one. And this is good for a person even if one does slip back afterwards into the narrow bounds of one’s own life. We can never be quite so narrow again.”

From The Complete Journals of L. M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1900-1911

I certainly know what it is like to be thrilled and taken out of myself and swept into another, wider, world by certain poems, Rudyard Kipling’s in particular, but the Barrack Room Ballads are not among them. They have on the whole a negative effect.

This enthusiasm was so surprising that I went to Project Gutenberg to refresh my memory of the Ballads in the hope of understanding why L. M. Montgomery felt this way about them.

Napoleon Bonaparte and the crumbs of hope

Napoleon Bonaparte must be one of the most written-about people on the planet. However, although he got a brief mention in an article about Benjamin Disraeli, who was a great admirer of his, I would not have expected that he would ever be the subject of an article on here.

I was reading about Napoleon recently, and I unexpectedly came across some material of interest. 

I was surprised to learn that after his final defeat, Napoleon had wanted to come and live in the UK. In exile, he even learned some ‘Englich’ in preparation for the life that he still hoped to have. 

He pinned his hopes on various members of the royal family in turn, only to be disappointed. He may even have lost the will to live when he realised that he would never return to Europe.

I never thought that I would have anything at all in common with Napoleon, but there are some familiar elements in a few of his letters. I know what it is like to live for some years on crumbs of hope, clutching at straws and desperately casting around for possibilities in the form of anything or anyone that might help to provide a way out of an unacceptable situation. 

Wishful thinking predominates, and ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ become major preoccupations. 

Living in such suspense is very painful; it is even worse when the last crumb of hope disappears.

Hope, the loss of hope and the absence of hope are major unseen influences in some people’s lives.

Violet Needham, Pandora, and Mr Papadopoulis

Violet Needham wrote some high-quality books for children. They were published between the years 1939 and 1957. 

Apart from a brief mention in the article about Anthony Hope, whose fictional country Ruritania may well have inspired her fictional Empire and surrounding countries, Violet Needham has not previously been featured on here.

Some of her books, the Stormy Petrel stories in particular, are full of exciting and romantic adventures in glamorous settings and some even have supernatural elements, but most of them are not relevant to this blog. 

While working on articles about John Buchan's books, I was reminded of some characters and scenes from one of Violet Needham’s books. I decided to take another look at Pandora of Parrham Royal (1951), which I last read many years ago. 

I bought a copy online and renewed my acquaintance with the material that I vaguely remembered. In the light of what I have since learned about unseen influences, parts of the book seem much more significant now than they did when I first read it. 

Pandora of Parrham Royal may not be one of Violet Needham’s best books when it comes to the characters and storyline - I much prefer the Stormy Petrel series - but it has inspired an article because it has some elements in common with John Buchan's books and it provides yet another example of someone who uses occult powers to get what they want.

Much of the plot and most of the characters in Pandora of Parrham Royal are not relevant to this article. 

The main character of interest is called Themistocles Papadopoulis. 

He has attributes in common with some really horrible black magicians who have been featured on here, although, unlike Stella Gibbons’s occultist Esmé Scarron and Robin Jarvis’s appalling warlock Nathaniel Crozier, he is not really evil nor is he involved with black magic as such.

About Mr Papadopoulis
Mr Papadopoulis has a touch of the typical Luciferian hero/villain about him. He is a man of mystery. He has dark hair and melancholy black eyes that sometimes smoulder with passion; he sometimes gives an impression of great power and arrogance; he is magnetic and charming; he smiles ironically and has a compelling gaze; he also hypnotises people. He makes people like him whether they want to or not.