Today I was at the library. They have a new section in the ‘Great Hall’ where they installed new modern seating (very inviting). It’s located across from the reference desk. There used to be the old wooden cubicles for private study but now things are arranged in more of a social fashion. Extremely comfy!
I sat down with “Call for the Dead” by John LeCarre. It’s one of these George Smiley novels. I’ve read it before. Could it be 20 years ago(?). George Smiley is one of the great fictional characters of all time. At any rate, or…, as is par-for-the-course, I was having great expectations about dropping back into Smiley’s world. I have read every George Smiley novel, some twice, and they never fail to transport me, to another world.
So I’m sitting there. This book starts out with a brief summary of how Smiley was recruited into the British Secret Service, how he fell in love with his wife, Anne, and how she loved him even though she had a propensity to take on lovers. A common literary technique for creating sympathy for a character, and how… the novel exudes sympathy for Smiley – the soulless spymaster with a heart of gold.
But then, I could hear the woman in the chair next to me talking about her company — over the phone. “We do publicity for small start-ups just like yours….,” she was going on and on about it. And I couldn’t help but to over-hear.
But anyway, back to Smiley… he was a young man — once. Then I noticed that two men sitting across from me were having a conversation. I tried not to listen.
“Bob, this whole downtown plan is completely ridiculous!” the gentleman was saying to Bob. But I dared not look up.
I had my book to read. “Yeah it is,” I was thinking, to myself sympathetically, but wishing I was reading.
“They couldn’t even install the granite curbs without issues, the lamp installation was a huge fiasco… and now they want to redesign Parker Harding, eliminate parking spaces… who are these people?” The other man was saying to Bob.
“The beach committee is the worst!” Bob replied. “The new walkway from the pavilion to the cannons will take 8 feet out of the roadway, the roadway will be so narrow you won’t be able to pass a car stopped to drop off someone or saying hello to a friend.”
“And for what? There is a sidewalk from Elvira’s all the way to the pavilion. It’s like a mile long. And if you are parked there, the way we have for years, you have your own slice of paradise. Now people will be walking by all the time right in front of your car while you’re making-out with your babe, no privacy,” The man articulated, making a great point.
Bob responded, “They are just searching for stuff to change because the recommendations from the committee were met with a huge public outcry. It’s really just a bunch of BS.” I won’t say what he really said.
I found myself totally agreeing with the line of this conversation. But then I realized I hadn’t been reading my book. WTF
I’m over it — the beach committee and the downtown committee. Let them ruin Westport. Who cares anymore? I don’t. I just want to read about Smiley and his beautiful wife Lady Anne.
Then I heard another lady scolding her child for dropping a juice box, “pick it up, if you drop it you have to pick it up!” She was being a little harsh with the cute toddler.
Then the reference librarian called out to the IT guy, “great job on that computer, thanks!”
I looked up from my book and the IT guy was carrying a computer into the back room.
All around me I could hear different conversations; little Johnny has to go to the bathroom, a mom yelling across to another mom about some event or another, the librarians chatting it up like it’s a cocktail party, Bob and his friend detailing compelling arguments about the absurdity of the committees, another lady on the phone speaking some language a couldn’t place.
I couldn’t concentrate. The voices were in my head. Was I going insane? The voices were rising up in a huge cacophony all around me like fog in the morning sunlight — all permeating.
I thought of the movie starring Gene Hackman “The Conversation” where he listens in other people’s lives. It was just like that but there was no switch to turn the voices off.
I knew if I went into the “reading room” I would have to listen to the guy who is always in there — coughing, like he has pneumonia or something, does he live there?
I guess the library is great for everything but reading… oh well… so-it-goes… that’s progress for you.
