I have used small libraries and even built some myself, but I'm never happy in a public one. The books I seek are always on the bottom shelf, and bending brings on palpitations. When I go to look at my own books, just to comfort myself with the reminder that I, in my own small way, have become a part of the fearsome galaxy and that this, in consequence, cannot be so fearsome after all, I always find scrawled insults in the margins. On the title page of one of my novels somebody had inked neatly 'BLOODY RUBBISH.' The book that I want is never there, and when the librarian repeats the title it always sounds suspect. When a book of mine comes out, I usually present a copy, signed, to my local library –– a weak joint act of assertion and propitiation. The librarian accepts it warily and invariably opens it at a page with a dirty word on it or a scene of loveless passion. Trying to insinuate pornography in, eh? –– gratuitously seeking to corrupt those decent ratepayers with string bags and copies of Barbara Cartland.
Nothing ever goes right. The other week I entered the local library with a small cigar in my mouth: it had gone out, so I wasn't really smoking. A sort of rough caretaker told me loudly that I was ignorant. There have been other humiliations. Some time ago a paperback was being made of one of my novels and there was the question of making some corrections in the original hard-cover edition. I didn't have a copy of my own, so I had to borrow one from the library. Taking it from the shelf, I was told by an old man it was a waste of time reading it: he'd tried it himself and had been thoroughly bored. I said I proposed borrowing it nevertheless, and he said: everybody to his taste, such as it is. Having borrowed it and used it, I forgot to return it and the library forgot to remind me it was overdue. When I took it back I was fined three shillings and sixpence. My own book, mark you. And this was during one of those periodical flare-ups in the long campaign to rectify the injustice done by the free borrowing system to living, and hence needy, authors.
'Why All This Fuss About Libraries?' (1968)
Use the link below to visit THE INTERNATIONAL ANTHONY BURGESS FOUNDATION, an English-based non-profit organisation which 'encourages and supports public and scholarly interest in all aspects of the life and work of Anthony Burgess' in addition to operating a museum/performance space in his birthplace of Manchester:
http://www.anthonyburgess.org/
You might also enjoy:
Some Books About… ANTHONY BURGESS
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