Monday I went into one of the most suspicious places in the world. In fact, I find the place so contemptibly suspicious, I go there practically every day.
What makes the place suspect is its openness. The place freely offers all the available information of humanity to the general public. There has to be a catch too, and I am determined to uncover this conspiratorial enterprise.
Walking into the Mid-Manhattan Library on Monday I found the place more suspicious than usual. Amidst the general crowd, a number of people were walking around whispering and winking at one another. Immediately, I began to reconnoiter they were whispering about me.
Quickly recovering my sensibility, I dismissed this notion. I would not allow paranoid delusions to cloud my polished perspicacity. Still, were they not whispering? Were they not surreptitiously tiptoeing around in the sneakiest fashion? I was determined to disrobe and expose this cloak and dagger game. Perhaps it did not personally concern me, but I was suspecting nothing but mischievous wickedness.
I hurried across the floor hoping to reach the corner room without an incident. I concocted a plan that I was innocently and naively visiting to check my email. When I approached the entrance to the corner room on the first floor, I was startled to find a lady sitting behind an imposing podium and staring at me sternly. Behind her, I could see a crowd of people mingling, but she had this threatening disposition as a pitiless gatekeeper who was dead-set on turning me away.
Again, I composed myself, cleared my throat in a dignified manner. Then bracing for the worst I cordially, although most certainly not obsequiously – I never, ever grovel – asked if there was a private function.
The lady cocked one eyebrow. She then seemed to hold the odd arch of her brow for an unusually long time. It became a bit nerve racking as I waited to see exactly what that arch of her brow was reaching for. She seemed to be trying to wrap her mind around some impossibility that I had the audacity to speak to her. I even began to lean to the side, swooping over some imaginary bridge in my own thoughts that seemed to be leading into a thickening mist of mystery. My own eyebrow even began to twitch as if trying to stretch some nimble toe to reach a hopeful conclusion for her and then I began to wonder what strange and mysterious powers she may be trying to exert over me.
Then after an excruciating eternity, she took a long, cringing hiss of a breath and said, “What do you mean private function? Do you not feel you should be admitted?”
“What I mean is, can I get in? I need to check my email.”
“Oh sure, you can get in. But will you be able to get out?”
Here there was another uncomfortable pause. I thought for certain that at any moment she would suddenly break out in a diabolically cackling laugh.
Before she could though, I countered, “I am sure I can, Miss…, Miss…?” and here I felt a bit of a loss. I had no name to address her formally and she seemed unwilling to offer one. She most certainly did not have a name tag and I became extremely doubtful of the legitimacy of her position. In fact, I felt convinced that she was a wayward rogue disposed to commit some diabolical naughtiness in a location that was devoted to pristine public service.
I became irked with frustration. I could see people casually and freely mingling just beyond her, but my means to pass were deprived of me. This lovely lady could have easily been Cerberus itself with three growling scruffy heads of bristling fur snapping jaws of glistening canines to bar my entrance. This was absurd though. I simply wanted to check my email.
She continued, “I question whether you will be able to get out because this room has been filled with books that have been blamed for corrupting minds and leading people astray. These books have offered new ideas and revealed the human condition in direct and honest ways. In fact, some people would say they have revealed the human condition a little too honestly.” Here was another long pause as if she was giving me an opportunity to digest the severity of the matter.
Just as I was raising a finger, doubtlessly to make an extremely important point although I must admit what this point was seems to have momentarily escaped me, she abruptly continued, “Many of these books have been pulled from the shelves of stores and libraries. The authors have been reprimanded, incarcerated and persecuted. General society has ostracized those who have even inquired about them. Only those who are able to think for themselves should dare to enter here.”
She then dramatically waved a single sheet of paper and handed it to me. I took this as my ticket to enter, and without asking any more questions that might give her a chance to question my entrance, I lunged inside.
Once inside, I looked at the sheet. It was titled “Application for membership to the Secret Society of Forbidden Books.” This was particularly shocking since I thought I had walked into the library, not the dark, gloomy, cavernous passages in the nether regions of some ghastly underworld. The questions were easy though, and I found a table and began filling out the form. I noticed that the titles of books that I have read through the years were displayed on the walls, Fahrenheit 451, Leaves of Grass, There Eyes Were Watching God, Brave New World. An eerie thought came to mind and I asked myself, “Was I already a member of the society of forbidden books and hadn’t realized it?”
I was determined to find an answer to this question and I noticed numerous people who appeared to be functionaries sitting at a table and processing people’s applications. While I waited to get to the bottom of this issue, I was approached by a lady carrying a dictionary. She asked me if I was aware that there were some words in the publication that were considered offensive to some. She then turned to a page and lifted a magic marker. Her hand was poised above the statements ready to obliterate the definition of a word from existence and I pleaded for her to stop. I told her that if that definition is lost, we may never know the meaning of that word and with the loss of that meaning, we will lose some of our ability to understand. Shall we simply continue blotting out everything that we don’t immediately accept? Those differences, those encounters that may cause us to shudder initially and even recoil, are not offensive, they are simply the unknown. And by ignoring the unknown, we are denying ourselves the opportunity to grow. Instead of censuring that passage, we should highlight it. We cannot simply bury our head in the sand in hopes that something will pass, because in doing so, we only stick our derriere up in the air.
Suddenly, I gasped at the thought that even this little anatomical illustration may be considered offensive. My thoughts suddenly filled with amassing mobs touting torches and pitchforks while chanting demands for a censor. The lady waved the marker in front of me in a menacing way as if the marker itself was gesturing its disapproval. Or perhaps she was trying to draw a curly mustache on my face, I’m not completely sure. Now that I think about it though, perhaps she did. I may want to check the mirror quickly.
Soon, I was able to scramble to the table. There were so many people at the event, they were processing two at a time. I found myself sitting next to a complete stranger and was a little wary to inquire if I had already been a member of what gave me the impression of being a subversive group.
The gentleman from across the table looked at the other gentleman and me with a dire expression. Then with an urgent, yet hushed, tone, he began to explain the reality of books being banned and even burned. He explained that some people had taken offense to the expressions in books and believed those books attacked their precious, parochial notions of life in society.
The prospects of losing books seemed particularly poignant in the setting. The Mid-Manhattan Library, which opened in 1970 and has the largest number of volumes of any circulation facility in the entire New York Public Library system, was on the verge of being closed. City officials have been attempting to sell the branch to real estate developers. Could it be true that this mysterious institution that offers free information to the general public could be closed without the public knowing?
Soon, I found myself willingly and enthusiastically taking the oath of the society to preserve literature. I recall the oath ending with a statement declaring that the only way to rid ourselves of bad ideas is to create better ideas.
With the completion of the oath, another official approached us and escorted the other gentleman and me to an obscure corner in the library. This official began reading the opening passages of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate book either. I have not read the story for over 20 years, but I remember the protagonist being denied the ability to develop himself along his own interests and being condemned by the tyrannical demands of convention, and then tragically waking one morning after a night of disturbing dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic and grotesque bug.
After reading the passages, the official slipped the book back into her briefcase and briskly walked back to the corner room. The other gentleman and I could only smile. An innocent visit to the library had somehow gained us admission into The Secret Society of Forbidden Books. I was thrilled by the prospects that some of the greatest insights of life and some of the most glorious achievements and astonishing possibilities are all open to those who simply take the time to read books. And such unexpected discoveries are exactly what we seek as we climb the inspirational lines of literature that open our eyes into new vistas of understanding.
Banned! was created by Gabriel Barcia-Colombo and Benita de Wit was performed at the MId-Manhattan Library on April 14 at 6 PM. The exhibit for The Secret Society of Forbidden Literature may be viewed at The Corner Room at the branch through May 22.
Garrett Buhl Robinson is a poet and novelist living in New York City. www.garrettrobinson.us
