Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University Open Scholarship Washington University Open Scholarship

Neureuther Book Collection Essay Competition Student Contests & Competitions

2022

Confessions of an Amateur Librarian Confessions of an Amateur Librarian

Violet Cooper

Washington University in St. Louis

Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/nbcec

Recommended Citation Recommended Citation

Confessions of an Amateur Librarian

Before I could read I was reading. As a child when I woke crying, scared by the dark corners of my

room and the monsters under my bed, my parents would hold me up to gaze at a painting we had in our

apartment. It was merely an abstract visual landscape, “Untitled” by Paul Bloodgood from 1996. Yet

according to my parents, when I looked at the painting it seemed to calm my cries and soothe my fears

almost immediately. When I looked at the broad green strokes on the canvas I was reading into them, just as

one does with the black and white text of a book. For what is a painting but visual literature? Reading was an

escape from my fears, even as a newborn. But as I would soon discover, fear takes many forms.

George “Sticky” Washington to hold my hand and calm my breath. I was confined to a hospital bed, but by

reading I could gallivant across seas and secret corridors with my newfound companions.

Middle school and the fraught teenage years brought new fears. I struggled to adapt to the shifting

terrain of adolescence, to grasp the friendships that seemed to perpetually slip through my fingers. It turned

out that fear was no longer just the monster under the bed or the nurses with their needles. That is when I

discovered Kazuo Ishiguro. It was a substantial departure from the Mysterious Benedict Society, perhaps too

mature for my adolescent mind. Regardless, I devoured Never Let Me Go. I carried it with me everywhere: on

the bus, to class, and even to friends’ houses. I could not help gravitating toward Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth.

In my own little way I understood the vulnerability and discomfort the three of them faced, the confusion

and awkwardness of adolescent growing pains.Never Let Me Go was the first book I cried to. For I had been

a witness to the characters’ whole lives in a span of a week, and yet I was left behind in the dust, still thirteen

and vulnerable. Reading brought companionship, but could rip it away just as fast.

What I thought had been temporary growing pains deepened into a numbing, gnawing loneliness as

I entered high school. My classes and my friends kept me shallowly occupied, but I sought more beyond the

dreary walls of my high school. I was reaching blindly into the abyss, grasping the air for something that I

was not sure even existed. It was then that I encountered Edith Wharton. I devoured The Age of Innocenceand

then The House of Mirth. The minutiae of high schoolmade me feel small, confined by the very environment

that I lived, breathed, and learned in; but I could escape it by delving into the Gilded Age drama of Lily Bart

“a very special book.” So I started reading it. And the loneliness that had accumulated throughout middle

and swelled in high school began to thaw. When I went on my solemn afternoon walks I was no longer

alone. I could wish farewell to my present reality, and immerse myself into Owen Meany’s world. Owen

Meany’s world was hide-and-go-seek in the trap door, the stuffed armadillo on the bedside table, winter

vacations at Gravesend Academy, and summers at the quarry. It was a world unbeknownst to everyone but

me, a place where I could confide in my secret ambitions without fear of them slipping out from under my

nose. I could hide out in the trap door where my fears would not find me. It took me almost three weeks to

finish A Prayer For Owen Meany, not because it bored me, but because I dreaded ending it. I longed to remain

in Owen Meany’s universe forever, because he was my friend, perhaps the closest friend I had ever known.

The day eventually came when I had to finish it. I sat outside in the shining mid-April sun reading the last

few words of A Prayer for Owen Meany, my eyes and hands glued to the pages. It was only mid-day when I

turned the last page, but I spent the rest of the afternoon crying, refusing to leave my bedroom. For days, I

could not bear to sleep without the physical book by my side; I would not abandon Owen Meany. After a

while, I decided that I would dedicate an entire day to Owen Meany. It is July 8th, and every year I read a

few pages in remembrance and appreciation of my good friend. Reading gave me a friendship that, though

fleeting, taught me what it meant to not feel so alone.

When I packed away my books for college, I packed my fears with them. I insisted on shipping my

books all the way to St. Louis; I refused to leave them behind. On that afternoon in August I gingerly

Count Alexander Rostov there to comfort me and assuage my worries. He was sitting there right beside me

after all, recalling memories of his revolutionary days and savoring a scoop (only one) of chocolate ice

cream. Reading granted me the wisdom of a stranger’s past, helping me to grow comfortable with the

unknowns of my own future.

Fears, even the most childish ones, do not disappear when you turn eighteen. On the contrary, in the

face of college and my burgeoning adult life, I was scared of everything. Perhaps most of all, I was scared I

would not have time to read here; that the safety blanket that had buoyed me for much of my life would be

ripped from underneath me. But fortunately, I have found that the opposite is true. And something even

more miraculous has occurred: my reading at college is no longer a desperate distraction as it had always

been. Instead of allowing me to escape my reality, it now only enriches it. I seem to be embarking on almost

weekly trips to Subterranean Books, so much so that I think I have made myself a regular. While buying

books does drain a significant amount of my meager summer savings, I insist on purchasing new copies of

my books so I can cultivate my own personal library. I am an amateur librarian, frequently loaning books out

to my friends in a revolving door fashion. I tailor my recommendations to my friends’ tastes, trading The

Secret History for Sweet Days of Discipline, and supplying my most recently acquired obsession, Haruki

Murakami, to my friend who does not own his books. My book collection is neither decor nor trophies. It is

a growing, living organism: a literary garden that I tend to and water carefully. For they are my old

companions after all, and I intend on treating them kindly.

my books on the floor as I will have no more room for them. But I will carry on in this way, befriending and

collecting literary companions, for I know that in my mind they are with me all the time. I’ve invited George

“Sticky” Washington, Kathy, Lily Bart, Owen Meany, and Count Rostov to accompany me, and we are all

sitting together round a little table, conversing over warm cups of tea. They may be fictional, nothing but

pages bound together, but they brought companionship in the most isolated of moments, and thawed my

seemingly perpetual loneliness. My books did not always quell my fears, but they gave me the strength to

face them. I carry this strange, eclectic traveling circus of a library with me everywhere I go, because I am

indebted to them. They have cared for me, and I care for them now in return by making a home for them in

my budding personal library. We look after one another, and we always will.

Works Cited

Irving, John. A Prayer for Owen Meany. William Morrow and Company, 1989.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Unconsoled. Faber and Faber, 1995.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. Faber and Faber, 2005.

Jaeggy, Fleur. Sweet Days of Discipline. Adelphi Edizioni, 1989.

Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Little, Browns and Company, 2007.

Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. New York City, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

Towles, Amor. A Gentleman in Moscow. New York City, Viking, 2016.