Mon Carnet de Voyage

I always love being in the room with a rare illuminated manuscript. I would say this is one of the highlights of my job at home at the State Library of Victoria - being able to come face to face with such priceless books of world heritage on a daily basis. Books that will be safe in the dark depths of the library collection for all time, so that future generations can come and admire them. They tell us our oldest stories - our faiths.

In the middle ages, books were beautiful objects of beauty and tireless effort. Of course they still are (being a writer I know about tireless effort), but today one printed copy of a book that numbers in the thousands, that looks identical to every other copy, and only takes a day to produce, is a disposable token of our modern mammoth publishing world.

A 500 year old manuscript that took maybe 100 goats to be created, painstakingly handwritten and hand-painted by three monks or more (at least one for the script, one for the colour, one for the gold), is a divine thing. If you don’t think about the goats too much, your first meeting with an illuminated manuscript can be a religious moment. Turning the thick vellum or parchment pages, they make crisp crinkle sounds with their stiffness. You notice the language - French, Italian, Latin? The borders. Tiny birds, squirrels, flowers…nature revered on the page for all time.

Tuesday this week, I was privy to being in the rare manuscript collection at the BnF. A darkened room with long corridors, the metal staircases, and of course, the cold. It always needs to be cold in these collections. It reminds you that your time here is precious.

When I was taken in between the stacks, I was surrounded by rows and rows of hundreds of manuscripts, most of them likely to be illuminated, and needing a regular dusting.

The subject that took us to the books proper on this day, was the images and content of an upcoming exhibition for the end of 2009 – King Arthur and the Round Table. The BnF holds several manuscripts on this subject. There were lots to choose from, and from peeling open just a few of these, I’d like to think that I saw colours I had not seen before.

The amazing hand painted illustrations, each of which would have taken hours to create, were still as vibrant, I believe, as their first day. Better still, the gold lettering and decorations were stunning. I also saw for the first time, silver, which had been used to illustrate a knight’s armour.

Unable to take any photos to share with you, I can only show you the above web-based images of exactly what I saw.


L'Enfer

On Wednesday, I finally got a moment to step inside the L’Enfer exhibition at the BnF. With a deep breath, I cast aside my embarrassment meter, and gawked at the dirty pictures.
For a promotion of the L'Enfer exhibition, the BnF staged this rather impressive pink X on the side of the building. This is the hero image for the exhibition.

I am happy to say I didn’t take any photos to share with you – an exhibition on the longtime hidden pornographic contents of the Library, stashed away for eons, considered too inappropriate to view (though deposited for laws of legal deposit), is not something I could put on my blog! Whilst there are a few photos on the web, on what the exhibition contains (you yourself can go google L’Enfer BnF) there are none I could put here without feeling like I might be opening your mind too much!

I felt very…bizarre, wandering around an exhibition, looking at 18th and 19th century pornography with complete strangers. Even weirder was how close up some people wanted to look.

The design and display of the exhibition was excellent – dim lighting, pink walls…giant pink felt cones with audio recordings where you could sit and listen to a dirty story being read to you. A 1920s porn film flicked away in a corner. You could lift lids on display cases, peek through peepholes, and all in all, feel just that little bit not quite right being there.

It is a very successful way of getting people into their national library. It was the National Porn Collection, on show, for all to admire. I spoke to one elderly couple (there were a few to choose from), and asked them about their thoughts on the exhibition. They were happy to be there – to them it was important that it was brought to the surface. It’s the collection, and it should all be celebrated.

It found it interesting, to think that all of the images and books, love letters and paraphernalia, were hidden away in the Library, and it was only now that we can collectively admire it, cognizant that our social norms have changed. I do think about the librarians of the 19th century though, in their spectacles in years gone past, sorting through the legal deposit box, and having a giggle. A few hairclasps released, and some heated moments between the pages must have ensued.

Long live the extremes of Library collections. They are the mirror of our world.*

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*Mirror of the World is in fact, the title of one the State Library of Victoria's permanent exhibitions, which uses the Library's impressive collection to recount the history of books and ideas. Therein, you too can come up close and personal with illuminated manscripts, and possibly, porn.

Visit mirroroftheworld.com.au or step inside the free exhibition at 328 Swanston St, Melbourne.