The other day I picked this book just after I’ve eaten my lunch. I was tempted to go back to my laptop to start working again but I had to force myself to have my usual one-hour break as if I was at work in the library.
I sat on the sofa with my feet on the footstool, and I opened the book. It’s a second hand book I bought I can’t remember where nor when. It was sitting on my shelves since ages. One page was loose and I couldn’t figure out where exactly it fell from, since it didn’t make any difference in the story I folded it and left it inside the little pocket on the front (yes, there is a little pocket on the front cover).
The strange library it’s the slightly sinister story of a boy who goes to his local public library after school to return some books and borrow something else about an unusual subject for his age: tax collection in the Ottoman empire. He finds himself locked in the basement of the library, imprisoned by a mad librarian who wants him to learn by heart the volumes he fetched about the tax collection in the Ottoman empire so that he can then eat his brains and get that knowledge. During his captivity the boy meets two other weird characters: a strange guardian dressed with the skin of a sheep who brings him delicious homemade doughnuts, and a mute girl who brings him hot meals several times a day.
I won’t spoil you the end of the story, I recommend it if you haven’t read it. This novella will flow really quickly and you’ll be charmed by the illustrations as well. Oh, I didn’t mention it’s illustrated, did I? yes, it’s an illustrated book. The Guardian dedicated a special to its beautiful illustrations, you can have a peek here : https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2014/sep/18/haruki-murakami-illustrated-the-strange-library-exclusive-preview .
I enjoyed reading it just before getting back to my work, it took me to a timeless world where nobody can say if it’s morning or night, sunny or rainy, bright or dark. Well, you’ll assume it’s always dark because most of the story happens in a basement, but there isn’t a conscious perception of the time. What the reader can almost touch with fingers is the boy’s anxiety for his mom waiting for him to come back from school. He’s worried that she might think he was attacked again by a dog as it happened in the past.
This story left me with some questions that I turn to you: is it a book about the pleasure of reading or is it more about going to the library and get metaphorically lost into the depth of knowledge you can get? Can the girl symbolize the passage of the boy from childhood to puberty? So maybe the whole “adventure” has a rather deep meaning whit all its strange characters with their unusual habits and peculiarities… (they get transformed, they appear, they disappear, are they real or just the boy’s fantasies to get through his imprisonment and find a way to escape?)
I also wonder if it could be considered a book for YA, I wouldn’t say it’s a children book because maybe it’s a little too dark (I know some traditional tales are waaaay darker than this though!). Somebody wrote about this book here (surely better than me): https://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/the-strange-library-haruki-murakami/
Also, it clicked something into my head (likely the doughnuts part, yummi) so when I finished my day of work, I wanted to make a cake or a pastry. My wish of baking came true last night.
I fancied something with apples, something nice to have for breakfast or as a snack in the afternoon.
I made this:
It’s a crumble apple pie. The dough is very similar to a short crust (flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, work everything with your fingers to make it crumble. Form the base in the tin and press it a little to make it compact, then add the chopped apples that you’ve cooked in a pan for about 5 minutes with some sugar and lemon juice, top up everything with the rest of the crumble and smash it in the oven for 30-35 minutes).
Nice breakfast this morning, happy me.
What about you?
Stay safe.
S.
Librarians in quarantine 