photo by weyerdk, found on flickr and I hope she doesn't mind??For the last month or so, I've taken up semi-permanent residence at the BNF. It is my new office. Every day by around 11 I get myself out the door, laptop bag strapped to my back, I take the number 6 replacement bus from Place d'Italie to Quai de le Gare, I get out across the street from where there was a horrible fire last year at 20, Blvd Vinccent Auriol, I walk along the quay until I come to the giant wooden ziggurat, I climb the stairs, I walk 'round the big open book of the Tour des Lettres, I descend at the west entrance, into the pit in the ground, I let the guard search my bag, I exchange my laptop back for a plastic box on a strap, I pass through the turnstile, push through the heavy steel doors, into a cement holding chamber, down two flights of escalators, and into the rez-de-jardin, where I joyfully join my brethren and sistren, all of whom are hunched over laptops in orderly rows of long tables, with piles of books next to them. I claim my spot (usually in salle U, littérature étrangère, or salle W, art et architecture), I go up to the desk and procure the books I've left for myself from the day before, I ask for "le truc anti-vol" which I use to attach my laptop to the desk so I can come and go as I please during the day without worrying about it getting stolen. I seceretly worry, though, that some malicious soul will come along and delete the file I'm working on, so I password protect my computer when I'm away from it. I know, I'm paranoid. I go hang out in the café at lunchtime and teatime. There's no wifi so I check my email on one of the three internet posts by the bathrooms-- there's usually one available now, in August, but I suspect by la rentrée it will be near impossible. Why they don't have Wifi is beyond me.
So if you're ever in the BNF, and you've paid the fee and passed the draconian interview process to win entry into the belly of the beast, come on by and say hi!
What I read this week...
13 comments:
I've never been to the belly of the beast, but I lived in Paris between 1993 and 1996. I love everything about the city even, it seems to me, those things that repulse others. At any rate, yours is an interesting blog. I plan to read more.
WOW I LOVE this blow-by-blow description of that terrifingly intimidating place! Plus I love getting my weekend-armchair-traveler's-Paris-fix from Maitress..almost like being there :)
Are you getting ready to go to Venice? All those books point to it. If so I know a GREAT scarf shop off the beaten track near San Pantelone - the church no one visits, but where a painter lay on scaffolding for 12+ years painting the ceiling till he fell off his death. And the ceiling is still unfinished...Ooops I'm troping
Tanks
ParisBreakfasts
bingo! I'm going to venice for about 10 days in september (to be followed by a week in capri en couple!). would love the address of the scarf shop.
thanks, katnuk! I know what you mean. Like the smell of the number 4 metro on the left bank: a combination of dust and exhaust fumes, but I love it.
Although I rarely update my blog anymore, I was recently thinking of a similar entry, to go with last year's http://juliealafolie.blogspot.com/2005/08/descartes-in-nice.html as the BnF has also become my sanctuary. You can usually find me in salle M, near the éthnologie section, unless I am browsing "documents officiels" in O.
julie
PS. Add "application and interview process just to gain entry to (semi) public library's ground level" to List of French Particuliarities.
Your "paranoia" is justified. It's the BNF we're talking about here. :)
Curator is charged as 30,000 books are 'lost' by French national library
DDJ, I prefer the article I wrote on the subject!
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=15636&intcategoryid=2
(so vain, I know)
Ha! Very cool. Far more entertaining than the other article.
I must say I also enjoy your blog. The quote you use about the New Yorker dreaming about Paris and vice versa is quite intriguing even though I've never met either/or except for myself.
Also, I think you should know that Capri is VERY overrated and if you have high expectations of the place you might not like it. Of course I grew up island hopping around the aegean and it's only natural for capri to seem like the low tier mediterranean island it is to me but unless you're going w/ a significant other it probably won't be anything special (they keep playing that nauseating "back in old napoleee thats amoooooreee" song EVERYWHERE)
im sure venice will be spectacular though...
hey magik, thankS! The quote is a rather perfect assessment of the metaphysical difficulties of exptriation... at any rate it's a little less glib than "america is my country but paris is my home town,' or whatever the stein quote is.
thank for the warning about capri... we're going to be staying in a secluded resort in anacapri, sort of above and away from the fray; it's a place I stayed at with friends awhile back but this time I'm going with my mans :) I'd frankly rather explore the amalfi coast, which I'm sure is equally touristy (I've only been to sorrento) but N is deadset on Capri, so that's where we're going. dat's amooooree!
I like to work in the National Library here too! And I password protect in public every time. Why take the chance?!
Hi Maitresse - I'm the photographer! Just letting you know it's quite OK you posted the image, and thanks for linking it too. I've been to the BnF several times, obviously, but never quite made it to the belly... would they let you bring a camera :)?
I'm glad that someone likes going to the BNF. I found it depressing that we have to study underground, and the restriction on the number of people in each room. While I understand the importance and comfort of not being packed like sardines in a library... it feels as if I have to beg to get in. I much prefer the floating swimming pool at the BNF to the library.
Sure, Julian, I sometimes have mine with me and they never say anything.
LPC-- I didn't say I like going there... ok, I did give the impression that I like it. What I really like is having all, or most, of the books I need in one place.
Plus I hate standing on line for an hour to get into the BPI only to be disturbed by undergrads flirting and doing their math homework when I have Serious Research to do!
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