[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: July 27, 2009]
As long ago as October 2007, I gushed about the Mercantile Library on 47th Street opening its stacks to readers for the first time in its 187 year history. I spoke too soon.
For one thing, it was an unfinished project. Due to an unlikely historical quirk, the books in the closed stacks had been arranged in alphabetical order by title, and the bold decision had been taken, before opening the stacks, to re-arrange them more conventionally by author. Anyone who has spent time sorting even a modest private book collection knows what an undertaking that can be. In fact, the big occasion almost two years ago was the opening of only the first half of the alphabet, A through J.
And then a spanner was thrown into the works. The Merc, a not-for-profit charity, occupies a beautiful 1932 mansion on prime real estate just off Fifth Avenue. A plan emerged whereby the sale of this impressive asset would finance the move to a new building with buckets of cash left over for other projects. Just after the half-opening of the stacks, then, the building closed in anticipation of re-location.
It was just about then that everyone ran out of money. The Merc remained defiantly closed as the months went by, but eventually made the wise decision to re-open and re-strategise. As for good news - yes, the time was spent re-organizing the rest of the stacks, and a few weeks ago I had the dusty pleasure ascending the gothic elevator and thumbing through K-Z books untouched for decades.
We have reached - earlier than usual - the time of year for bumbling through old books. The doldrums and dog-days of August have been preceded by a episodic July monsoon, and the humidity has had me burrowing into my bottom shelves and pulling out old Margery Allingham thrillers, not to mention paperback collections of horror stories - of which more next week. From the Merc, I borrowed one of Julian Maclaren-Ross's late novels, The Doomsday Book. This turned out to be truly awful, a potboiler novelisation of a radio play he'd written, bearing unmistakable signs of his alcohol and speed-fuelled decline. Much more satisfying, the last novel of Henry de Montherlant - a polished writer, if a somewhat obnoxious man. Montherlant had glorified the virility of combat following the first World War (in which he served), emerged from the second World War with his reputation damaged by his accommodations with the Vichy regime, was the author of a savagely misognynistic novel series, Les Jeunes Filles, and ultimately turned out to have led a life of rigorously closeted homosexuality.
An awkward character, then. But I'd read his first novel earlier this year - The Bachelors - and found it, for the most part, hilarious. The last novel mixes his love of Spain and bull-fighting with his profound cynicism about politics and a strong dose of nihilism. It's amusing, nevertheless; the main character, Don Celestino, is a powerful creation - a former revolutionary activist growing old and boring in French exile, he is forced to make a last trip to Spain to settle a will. The novel makes a deliberate and chilling statement about the human condition, and ultimately it's about as reassuring as the cosmic negations of Yukio Mishima. It doesn't deserve to be forgotten.
Anyway, I found it at the Merc, where the annual membership fee has crept up - $125 - but can be billed at a rate of $11 a month. If you feel the urge to browse first edition novels, and especially mystery fiction, aquired over the decades - or just need a quiet oasis to escape the hell of midtown - it's not a bad investment.
Disclosure: Yes, I am a member, and no they don't ask or pay me to promote them. I do it out of fondness.