The Downtown Public Library’s Mason O. Damon Auditorium is not the largest auditorium in the area, but it certainly is a welcoming space. Bright upholstery, with rich wooden dividing walls on the wings, and subdued but warm carpeting create a hospitable space within the large concrete forms that make up the building. The smooth forms and simple geometrics of the design and architecture are as evident here as they are in the stacks of books on the floors above. The design is one of the reasons I enjoy visiting and borrowing from the Central library, more than any other library in the area. There’s an aesthetic that I like about being able to find a book I love inside stacks–and I mean stacks–of books available to read. Often, I’m carrying more books than I could possibly read in 4 weeks, to the check out. I look for reasons to take a trip downtown to the library, and last weekend there was one a very good reason to be there.
In celebration of the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain, and the 125th anniversary of the publication of his most famous work The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library held “An Afternoon of Twain with George Saunders” last Saturday. Spending an afternoon with Mark Twain was a wonderful idea–spending it with George Saunders as well, was even better. A funny, intelligent speaker, who clearly has admiration not only for Twain, but for the English language, Saunders read from his 2005 introductory essay called The United States of Huck, as well as from the novel. At the signing afterward, Saunders was every bit as warm and friendly, funny and genuine as he was on stage. You can check out a solid summary of the event here, which includes audio of both Saunders and local historian Thomas Reigstad, who spoke before the author.
Listening to both men speak about Twain made me want to read each and every book of his over again. If you’re like me, most of your exposure to Mark Twain came in English classes throughout middle and high school, when they were assigned to us, which as a recent article may suggest (hat tip to Monkey See), might not be the way to keep kids interested in reading. Will having attended the event last Saturday have gotten them interested in reading? Probably not. What it did provide, was a good reminder of why I love reading, which I can directly trace back to Twain’s Puddin’head Wilson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and the Central library.
I remember visiting the Central library with my father when I was a kid, and being brought into the Mark Twain room, which as we were informed a couple of times on Saturday, displays portions of the original handwritten manuscript of Twain’s masterpiece, amongst other artifacts of his life in Buffalo and abroad. The room is located just to the right of the escalators at the Washington Street entrance, opposite the display room for the rare books collection. When I first visited the Twain Room with my Dad, I could barely see above the surface of the middle case containing, at the time, only the second half of the manuscript (it was reunited in 1992). That manuscript, with the difficult to make out, more than a century-old handwriting, held a certain kind of power to a kid like me, curious and anxious to see why this book was so revered by a library that it had to be kept inside a glass case where we couldn’t even read it. What I took away from Saturday’s event was a similar feeling. There was more to this book than I had previously understood by looking through glass, able to see just beyond the edge of my education. I was curious, and I wanted to run upstairs right then, and pore over everything, and re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that day if I could–and fill that need to know, to learn and to grow. The Central library was the place where I first met Huck Finn, and now it is the place where I met him again; a little older, a little wiser, but just as curious at what the fuss is all about with these books.
So bring your kids, your friends, your neighbors, your neighbor’s kids (as long as the neighbors know) to check out the “125 Years of Huck” exhibit. It will run until December 31st, 2010, at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library’s Central location. While you’re there, check out the elegant, timeless design, the deco typefaces on some of the signage, and hopefully, some books that sate your curiosity.
For directions and information about the library, visit the B&ECPL homepage. You can find information including hours for the Mark Twain room here.
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Inset image courtesy of Wikipedia