WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:08.199 If I've learned one thing in thirty seven years of teaching, 2 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:11.599 it's that stories behave much like people. They're apt to 3 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:14.679 surprise you precisely when you think you've finally understood them. 4 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:18.879 That's a comforting thought, depending on your temperament. After I 5 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.239 retired from Crosswind's School last spring, there were days I 6 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:24.280 took solace in all the things I wouldn't have to 7 00:00:24.359 --> 00:00:29.120 untangle any more. No syllabi to revise, no parents to reassure, 8 00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:34.000 no essays inked with passionate half formed ideas. But then 9 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:38.719 autumn crept ashore and the familiar restlessness began. I've always 10 00:00:38.719 --> 00:00:41.520 needed some old book to prop my mind against, some 11 00:00:41.759 --> 00:00:44.960 puzzle or snarl of words, to work loose with my thumb. 12 00:00:46.039 --> 00:00:49.079 That's why on the first gray Tuesday of October, I 13 00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:53.200 found myself volunteering for Cataloging Week at our town library, 14 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:56.560 a place i'd visited nearly every Saturday since I was 15 00:00:56.600 --> 00:01:00.520 tall enough to reach the return's bin. The Crosswind Public 16 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:04.200 Library presides over the headland like a baroness, its bricks 17 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:08.280 softened by sea wind and sunlight, its white trimmed windows 18 00:01:08.359 --> 00:01:12.159 blinking onto the harbor when the morning fog lifts. The 19 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:15.840 building stands crisp against the sky, the rows of sash 20 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:21.319 windows promising order and safety within inside, the hush felt familiar. 21 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:25.959 Missus Woolston, the only librarian whose approval could cower football coach, 22 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:28.879 gave me a curt smile and pointed me toward the 23 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:32.760 main reading room, where preservation gloves and feather dusters sat 24 00:01:32.799 --> 00:01:36.560 in neat piles. I offered to climb ladders and rearrange 25 00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:39.680 cart loads, eager to be useful, but she assigned me 26 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.879 first to displays in shelf cleaning and told me to 27 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:45.719 work at my own pace. So it was, with a 28 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:48.480 duster in one hand and a steadying palm on an 29 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:50.920 oak shelf that I found myself eye to eye with 30 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:54.840 the stout centennial copy of Gulliver's Travels, a volume I 31 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:58.359 must have assigned to twenty classes over the years. The cover, 32 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:02.640 a battered green cloth stamped with silver type, felt both 33 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:06.719 imposing and beloved. I don't recall ever noticing it before 34 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:10.680 as part of the Libraries Classic's Corner. Not in this spot, anyway. 35 00:02:11.719 --> 00:02:15.520 My own classroom copy is doggyared beyond redemption, peppered with 36 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:20.439 underlining and marginalia advice to my younger self, quick reminders, 37 00:02:20.719 --> 00:02:25.840 the occasional exasperated ask about this. Here the library copy 38 00:02:25.879 --> 00:02:30.039 seemed oddly pristine. I set down the duster and coaxed 39 00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:33.479 open the first pages. I meant only to glance, maybe 40 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.759 revisit the little map of Lilliput. But on the second page, 41 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:40.879 my eye stuck like a burr. The opening lines felt familiar, 42 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:44.520 but not quite. Instead of the stately my father had 43 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:49.159 a small estate in Nottinghamshire, it read my father, who 44 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:52.400 prized distance over land, sent me often to see with 45 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:56.879 nothing but a compass and his blessing. I frowned. Leafed 46 00:02:56.919 --> 00:02:59.560 through a few more pages. In place of the familiar 47 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:03.400 adventure a navy surgeon at odds with strange peoples, I 48 00:03:03.439 --> 00:03:06.479 read about a country where books rewrote themselves each season, 49 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:11.879 and a debating society that swapped memories as currency. The prose, well, 50 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.120 parts of it sounded perilously, like my own hand, or 51 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:18.479 something I might have scrawled when improvising stories at the blackboard, 52 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:23.120 Sentences unwound in the same patient, looping cadence I favored 53 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:27.319 for oral assignments. There were turns of phrase I recognized 54 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:30.759 from lessons, but here they were woven into the narrative, 55 00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:34.080 as though Swift himself had borrowed lines from a weary 56 00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:37.919 teacher at a coastal school. I ran my finger down 57 00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:42.120 the margin, hesitant. The plots swelled. Now Gulliver wandered through 58 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:44.520 a valley of orators, who forgot their own names if 59 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:50.280 interrupted key scenes his trial. The negotiations tipped sideways, exploring 60 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:53.639 themes I recalled discussing with students, but they weren't in 61 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:57.960 the original newly invented lands, each with rules and customs 62 00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:01.120 that were suspiciously like lessons I spun to keep board 63 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:05.360 teenagers invested. Was my memory fraying? Was this a rare 64 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:09.800 or annotated edition, or worse, had I grown so used 65 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:13.639 to teaching versions that I had forgotten the true text entirely? 66 00:04:14.599 --> 00:04:17.959 The effect was not disturbing so much as intoxicating. I 67 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:21.959 kept reading, hungry for the next impossibility. A footnote on 68 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:25.439 page eighty seven referenced the dispute of the twin Islands, 69 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:29.879 one ruled by pragmatists, the other by optimists. No such 70 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:32.839 episode belonged, as far as I remembered, but it was 71 00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:36.920 undeniably apt, even clever. Why did my mind flutter with 72 00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:41.720 both recognition and resistance. I read on, pausing to catch 73 00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:44.519 my breath. I looked up at the dust motes swirling 74 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:48.319 through a rectangle of window light. The distant sea visible 75 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:51.959 just past the parlor's glass seemed to pulse with muted amusement. 76 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:55.639 I heard the determined clicks of Missus Wolston's shoes approaching 77 00:04:55.639 --> 00:04:58.879 on the parquet. I closed the book, heart tapping at 78 00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:02.199 a curious private tempo. Was this what I had taught 79 00:05:02.439 --> 00:05:05.879 all these years? Was the book quietly remaking itself to 80 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:09.480 fit some memory I had half forgotten? Or had I, 81 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:13.079 like so many children accused, simply lost the thread of 82 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:16.040 what was real and what was invented? In the retelling? 83 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:20.839 A question, warm and electric threaded itself through my mind. 84 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:24.600 How many other books, how many other stories had grown 85 00:05:24.639 --> 00:05:27.600 new roots since I last sat with them? And who else, 86 00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:32.120 if any one remembered the difference? I set Gulliver's Travels 87 00:05:32.199 --> 00:05:35.680 on the brass book stand, beside a miniature bust of Shakespeare. 88 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.720 The duster in my hand felt suddenly anachronistic, as though 89 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:42.560 there was no tidying up a mystery like this. For 90 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:47.160 the first time in years, my mind stretched toward the impossible, eager, 91 00:05:47.399 --> 00:05:50.040 not just bemused to see what else might not be. 92 00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:53.839 As I remembered, I drifted back into the corridors of 93 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:57.680 the building, keenly aware of a question that felt almost illicit. 94 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:01.279 Had the stories always been this? Or was I the 95 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:05.519 only one who noticed they'd changed? Leaving the display, I 96 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:10.480 let the curiosity, quiet, insistent, even playful, anchor itself in 97 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:14.240 my chest. I decided that after lunch I would speak 98 00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:17.279 to missus Wolston about what I'd found, and, despite a 99 00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:20.560 lifetime teaching literature except for once, that I might have 100 00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:24.720 something to learn. Retirement came on like a steady, slow 101 00:06:24.759 --> 00:06:28.959 ocean tide, pleasant at first, then uneasy. After so long 102 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:31.759 in the classroom, my days had rattled with schedules and 103 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:35.839 small emergencies. Now they were padded with simple routines. I'd 104 00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:39.040 built my world around blackboard, chalk, say, sheets of notes, 105 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:44.120 and long, impassioned discussions about truth and interpretation. Most weeks, 106 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:47.879 the hours stretched out, pliable and undemanding. I missed the 107 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:52.759 symphonic racket of young people's ideas, their wild reaching. So 108 00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:55.639 the library, with its deep quiet, became my new station. 109 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:59.519 Long before cataloging week, I'd made myself known to missus 110 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:03.920 Wolston by returning slips, re arranging carts, and shelving after hours. 111 00:07:04.439 --> 00:07:08.000 She is an institution herself, spectacles on a silver chain, 112 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:12.800 hair pinned with tidy ferocity, every movement exact, but never severe. 113 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:16.040 She is the sort of person whose laughter, when it appears, 114 00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:19.959 feels like a reward you almost forgot to seek. The 115 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.759 building was older than our city's court house, older I 116 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:26.240 think than several of its churches. Outside has imagined it 117 00:07:26.279 --> 00:07:29.360 must be prone to drafts and leaks, but inside the 118 00:07:29.399 --> 00:07:32.879 air was always comfortably cool, tinged by the faint mineral 119 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:36.399 scent of ancient stone and book glue. Its woodwork gleamed, 120 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:40.240 waxed by generations of caretaker hands, and for the most part, 121 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:45.079 by time itself. On stormy days, winds succerted through the eaves, 122 00:07:45.319 --> 00:07:49.839 a counterpunt to turning pages. Cataloging weak attracted its own 123 00:07:49.879 --> 00:07:55.000 peculiar cast of helpers. Mister Castillo, a former engineer, methodical 124 00:07:55.040 --> 00:07:58.399 and restless, who adored the technical reference section with the 125 00:07:58.439 --> 00:08:02.279 fervor of a convert. Miss Janvier, whose reading group filled 126 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:06.000 the tea room with debate and laughter every Wednesday afternoon. 127 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:09.920 Half a dozen reatarees and students drifting through for extra 128 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.639 credit or sometimes for the company. The regulars each had 129 00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:18.959 their literary devotions. Mister Kirk read only travel stories and 130 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:23.519 claimed no two days brought quite the same ending. Leela Sharp, 131 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:27.920 too clever, perpetually thumb typing on her phone, often disputed 132 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:32.279 minor errors, as she called them in fairy tales. The 133 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:35.960 Classics Club gathered by the fireplace once a week, staging 134 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:39.720 informal polls on which titles deserved to be called true classics, 135 00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:44.600 which were historically important but overrated, and which unread but 136 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:50.039 influential ought to be quietly forgotten. Arguments were passionate, never unkind. 137 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:55.279 People swapped anecdotes about readings from decades past, debated moral lessons, 138 00:08:55.600 --> 00:08:59.159 or tried to reconstruct half remembered lectures from visiting authors 139 00:08:59.279 --> 00:09:03.320 whose names no one quite agreed upon. The collection, it 140 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:07.080 was said, was pristine. Visitors from the city envied the 141 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:11.080 clean bindings, the oddly complete runs of rare poetry, the 142 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:14.840 holding of obscure reference works from maritime insurance guides to 143 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:19.879 out of copyright philosophical treatises. Yet a few sections remained obscure, 144 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:24.159 slightly off kilter, shelves in the northern stacks, housing books 145 00:09:24.159 --> 00:09:27.879 with little circulation but too much gravitas about them to cull. 146 00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:33.039 Missus Woolston would dust them, repaper their jackets now and again, 147 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:36.480 and mention, with a dry lift of eyebrow, that some 148 00:09:36.600 --> 00:09:40.879 texts are simply more patient than others. After years coaxing 149 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:44.000 students to think for themselves, I knew how tricky memory 150 00:09:44.039 --> 00:09:47.120 could be. I prided myself on remembering the arc of 151 00:09:47.159 --> 00:09:50.399 a story, the precise rhythm of a sentence, the shape 152 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:54.039 of ideas as they bent beneath a child's questions, the 153 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:58.919 tools of a teacher, tonal precision, strategic paraphrase. Questions that 154 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:03.200 nudge but do not answer served me differently. Now. The 155 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:06.840 whole library was a puzzle, a slow winding clock, and 156 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:10.879 each afternoon I spent there a thread of anticipation built 157 00:10:10.879 --> 00:10:14.360 beneath the stillness. There was a pride in the community 158 00:10:14.360 --> 00:10:17.480 for the library's holdings, a sense that its collection mirrored 159 00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:22.039 not only facts, but the town's history, temperament, and even reputation. 160 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:26.240 When a visiting professor enthused over our complete and undamaged 161 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:30.399 field guide to see Flora, the club members swelled with pride, debating, 162 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:34.080 of course, which chapters were missing or better than remembered. 163 00:10:34.679 --> 00:10:37.879 The line between fact and remembered fact could get blurry, 164 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:40.919 especially when the room was full of strong opinions and 165 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:45.080 good tea. What I failed to appreciate standing before the 166 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:48.120 display that morning was how thin the border really was 167 00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:51.440 between memory, story and the records upon which we so 168 00:10:51.679 --> 00:10:56.159 confidently leaned. The question knotted behind my eyes. If you 169 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:59.720 navigated the stacks long and carefully enough, did you find 170 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:03.559 what published, what was true? Or simply each time what 171 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:07.679 was remembered? After lunch, I waited for Missus Wolston to 172 00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:10.720 finish checking in a stack of new donations. Before approaching, 173 00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:14.919 I hovered by her desk, the Gulliver's Travels volume tucked 174 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:18.799 under my arm, heavy and quietly suspect. The smell of 175 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:22.679 furniture polish and salted air drifted through a half open window. 176 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:27.399 Missus Wolston stamped a return slip, glanced up, and reached 177 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:31.559 for her cup of tea. Find something interesting, she asked, 178 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:36.559 voice as light as falling leaves. Aye. Well, yes, I offered, 179 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:39.320 placing the book on her desk. Could I trouble you 180 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:43.440 about this copy? Is it a special edition? She slid 181 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:48.159 her spectacles up, considering the binding. No, just old displayed 182 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:53.200 for founders weak most years. Why missing a plate? I hesitated. 183 00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:57.559 The text is different than any version I recall. Parts 184 00:11:57.559 --> 00:11:59.879 of it read almost as if they were written last. 185 00:12:00.919 --> 00:12:04.399 Some episodes I can't remember from any previous edition. And 186 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:08.120 the language, it's uncannily familiar to me, like something I 187 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:12.960 might have written. She looked, amused. Different How Swift's been 188 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.200 interpreted every way under the sun, edited a million times. 189 00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:22.639 It isn't only interpretation, I replied, whole new sections. One 190 00:12:22.679 --> 00:12:25.639 set in a valley of orators, a country obsessed with 191 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:29.399 rewriting their own history. I taught this book for decades. 192 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:33.000 These aren't footnotes, and they don't read like new scholarship. 193 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:37.840 Missus Wolston turned a few pages, casually, eyes sliding over 194 00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:41.080 the text. We've had this copy since the seventies. I 195 00:12:41.080 --> 00:12:44.799 remember cataloging it. There's that scene with the twins, isn't there, 196 00:12:45.320 --> 00:12:47.759 the one where they forget the King's birthday and set 197 00:12:47.799 --> 00:12:51.200 off that minor revolution. She tapped a passage I'd read, 198 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:54.200 the one that had startled me. This has always been 199 00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:57.200 the version on display. I remember it from the old 200 00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:02.360 catalog cards. Reluctantly. I shook my head. I don't remember 201 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:05.720 teaching this. I would have remembered that plot point. I 202 00:13:05.799 --> 00:13:09.320 used to challenge students to find inconsistencies in the narrative 203 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:14.200 and that scene. A voice, warm and slightly nasal, piped 204 00:13:14.279 --> 00:13:17.840 up from behind us. Excuse me, did you say revolution? 205 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:21.080 I'm reading a copy for my lit class, and there's 206 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:24.440 nothing about a twin monarch. Pretty sure the farmer gets 207 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:26.960 trounced by the fox in the end, too, not the 208 00:13:27.039 --> 00:13:31.039 other way around. It was a college student, a young 209 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:34.279 man with a messenger bag slung low, clutching a well 210 00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:37.720 worn copy of an anthology. He made a face. My 211 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:41.559 mom always said, the fox outsmarts the farmer. It's obvious. 212 00:13:41.879 --> 00:13:45.000 Why would the farmer win? That's not how the story goes. 213 00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:50.879 Missus Wolston's lips pursed, not unkindly that editions are bridged, 214 00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:55.320 the real versions longer. Here in hours, the fox outwits 215 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:58.720 the hunter, but then trades places with the farmer's wife. 216 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:02.120 Every one in town knows how it goes. How could 217 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:06.120 you forget the trick ending? A few other patrons, drawn 218 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:09.600 by the polite commotion, chimed in with off hand certainty 219 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:14.200 old regional edition. One said, our teachers always read the 220 00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:18.360 trade version. That's the right ending. Another was positive the 221 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:22.720 farmer simply stopped chasing at the lessons learned Mark I 222 00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:26.919 found my own composure draining, replaced by mild vertigo. Was 223 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.960 I misremembering the texts I'd built my whole career upon. 224 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:34.080 Was there some regional difference, an addition quietly swapped out 225 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:38.080 over the years, or my mind chased a less comfortable notion. 226 00:14:38.600 --> 00:14:42.159 Had the books somehow become unmoored from its origins, reshaping 227 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:45.879 itself to fit what was expected, remembered, or simply agreed 228 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:49.480 upon by those who read it. More unsettling than the 229 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:53.559 possibility of my own error was the calm consensus emanating 230 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:57.279 from Missus Woolston and the others. There was no confusion, 231 00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:01.639 no alarm, only the gentle confidence of those whose version 232 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:05.080 of the story were so certain it needed no justification. 233 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:08.879 The gap widened. I felt as if I were treading 234 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:12.320 a current I'd always believed was solid ground. Had every 235 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:16.080 one else gone quietly off script? Or perhaps was I 236 00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:19.480 glimpsing a deeper strangeness curling through the quiet heart of 237 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:22.919 our community and its stories. One that asked not only 238 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:26.679 what our stories were, but how and who remembered them. 239 00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:29.879 Either way, I knew that curiosity would drive me back 240 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:34.200 to the shelves, questions wriggling like sand crabs in the tide. 241 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.519 That evening, once the day's dust was washed from my 242 00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:40.720 hands and the salt laden air from my sweater, I 243 00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:43.440 sat down with a note book and resolved to test 244 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:46.399 my own memory. I made a list of the classics 245 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:51.039 I taught since the Reagan administration. If Gulliver's travels could 246 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:54.000 shift under foot, what else had unspooled in the dark? 247 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:57.120 I would not be so easily convinced that memory had 248 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:01.919 betrayed me. In my own bookcase, an assortment of aging penguins, 249 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:07.799 battered Norton anthologies and text books annotated well beyond pedagogical respectability, 250 00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:12.279 I found The Secret Garden, Huckleberry Finn, and a ragged 251 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:16.519 copy of Esop's Fables. These I set aside for comparison 252 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:20.360 on my next library visit. The next morning, I arrived 253 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:23.879 at the library fifteen minutes early. The air outside was 254 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:27.639 sodden and chill clouds rolled in thick curls above the 255 00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:32.120 slate roofs. Inside, it was always noon, the light diffused 256 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:37.759 and unwavering. First stop the secret garden. The library's editions 257 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:41.039 sat where it always had, nestled between black beauty and 258 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:44.559 the wind in the willows. Carefully, I paged through the 259 00:16:44.559 --> 00:16:48.799 opening chapters. The familiar lines were there, but faintly altered. 260 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:52.639 A whole passage described Mary's aunt composing music for the 261 00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:56.039 birds at dusk, music no memory of mine could supply 262 00:16:56.120 --> 00:17:00.600 from the original. Later, Colin's revelation of the guard's healing 263 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:04.279 power took a new form. Now the cure depended on 264 00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:07.480 a series of riddles none of the characters could quite answer, 265 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:10.799 and the solution they arrived at borrowed markedly from letters 266 00:17:10.839 --> 00:17:13.440 my own students had written a decade ago for a 267 00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:17.720 class project on the language of gardens. Even the dialogue 268 00:17:17.799 --> 00:17:20.759 sounded as if the characters were cousins to the awkward, 269 00:17:20.920 --> 00:17:25.559 hopeful kids I remembered coaching through awkward, hopeful negotiations in 270 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:29.519 the lunch room. I considered returning to the desk, asking 271 00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:32.640 Missus Wolston if she'd heard of any unusual editions, but 272 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:36.319 knew what she'd say. Regional version perhaps, or a long 273 00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:40.000 lost passage reasonable enough if you hadn't taught the book 274 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:44.000 for so many lifetimes. At the technical shelf, mister Castillo 275 00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:49.079 brushed off a set of reprinted engineering manuals, always meticulously precise. 276 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:51.880 He greeted me with a wry rays of his eyebrow, 277 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:57.880 spotting errors again, he teased, seeing my critical frown, not 278 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:02.200 errors variations. You ever notice how some diagrams in your 279 00:18:02.200 --> 00:18:06.559 old school books don't match the ones here? He paused, thoughtful, 280 00:18:07.079 --> 00:18:10.160 my copy at home now and shows a rotary steam 281 00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:14.440 manifold here. It has an added improvement, a lever system 282 00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:17.039 that shouldn't exist. I chalked it up to some over 283 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:21.559 eager mid century inventor making life more complicated. Happens all 284 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:25.960 the time. Is it possible, I pressed, that the text 285 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:29.960 is responding to what's remembered, or discussed or believed by 286 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:35.079 those who use the books. Mister Castillo shrugged. Stories grow. 287 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:38.680 He turned a page, scored a faint mark in the margin, 288 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:42.279 and said, if I remembered my first trigonometry set, I'd 289 00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:46.200 be worried. But no one does, do they. Near By, 290 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:49.880 a group of teens occupied a study table Leela. The 291 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:53.400 most outspoken of them, was directly disputing the ending of 292 00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:56.880 a fairy tale her version placed the Princess at sea, 293 00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:00.680 steering her own ship, when every version I'd ever taught 294 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:03.839 had her return to land by the King's rescue party. 295 00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:08.319 I've never read it any other way. Leela insisted, she 296 00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:11.519 supposed to leave on her own. My mom says so too. 297 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.839 Her friends nodded along, unfazed by the contradiction. I bit 298 00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:21.240 my tongue. Was it simply generational drift or something stranger, 299 00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:25.839 a communal story's slow migration folding in whatever version was 300 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:29.079 most ardently believed? How was it that the book now 301 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:32.599 reflected only what Leela and her cohort declared to be true. 302 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:37.279 At the Classics Club, I eavesdropped a debate about Robinson Crusoe. 303 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:41.839 Arguments clashed, stories grew nottted. John said Crusoe found a 304 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:44.559 cave of mirrors. Margaret claimed it was an island of 305 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:47.559 day dreamers. Every One else in the end agreed it 306 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:50.799 had always been that way. When I checked the same 307 00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:54.480 book later, the narrative had gently realigned itself. It was 308 00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:59.200 now the club's agreed version, set down in perfect authoritative prose. 309 00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:03.279 I began to see a pattern, a strange melody humming 310 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:07.200 beneath every discussion, and debate. With each new round of argument, 311 00:20:07.480 --> 00:20:10.720 the library seemed to absorb the consensus, binding it to 312 00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:13.920 the lives lived around it. I decided to test it 313 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:17.680 as quietly as I could. In a copy of Robin Hood. 314 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:21.720 I marked a marginal note Robin spares the Sheriff's life 315 00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:25.880 after besting him at archery. Returning the next day, I 316 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:29.400 could find neither the note nor the original phrasing. Now 317 00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:33.240 the scene ended with Robin and the sheriff collaborating on 318 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:36.839 reforms for the good of the people, echoing a running 319 00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:40.160 joke in the book club about first socialist Robin Hood. 320 00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:44.640 It was as if the book considered my suggestion, digested it, 321 00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:48.119 and only once it had been adopted, even implicitly by 322 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:51.839 the group, wove it into itself, effacing all trace of 323 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:57.079 outside suggestion. I carried this growing wonder with me, suspicions 324 00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:03.000 swelling with each encounter. The more fiercely something was discussed, retold, revived, 325 00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:05.920 or believed in the rooms of the library, the more 326 00:21:05.960 --> 00:21:08.880 completely it seemed to take root in the text. If 327 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:13.559 a story went unremarked or unloved, it receded slowly, replaced 328 00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:18.440 by whatever truth the community's voices had converged upon the logic, 329 00:21:18.519 --> 00:21:20.720 if you could call it, that was as elegant as 330 00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:24.079 it was alarming. Here the written page was not a 331 00:21:24.119 --> 00:21:28.279 fossil record, but a living river, always reshaped by whoever 332 00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:33.039 stepped most firmly on to its stones. Curiosity turns quickly 333 00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:37.000 if you let it, from recreation to mild obsession. At home, 334 00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:40.640 after an unsettled dinner, I ransacked my old file boxes 335 00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:43.759 for lessened plans and handouts. My folders had always been 336 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:48.920 scrupulously organized, annotated with reflections and reminders for next term. 337 00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:53.119 My initial hope, still clinging to conventional logic, was that 338 00:21:53.160 --> 00:21:56.920 perhaps some old edition, a once licensed supplement, or a 339 00:21:56.920 --> 00:21:59.839 set of class room paraphrases had simply bled into my 340 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.720 professional memory. If my teaching materials screwed up, I could 341 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:09.359 forgive the books, or myself, or both. The results confounded 342 00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:12.359 me further. A worksheet I'd made in two thousand three 343 00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:17.039 for Treasure Island included questions about Jim Hawkins betraying long 344 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:20.799 John Silver, a theme I remembered inventing for a discussion 345 00:22:20.839 --> 00:22:24.720 about trust and loyalty. I dug out the corresponding paperback. 346 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:28.319 My notes referenced none of the betrayal debates now found 347 00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.240 in the library's copy, where the plot arc now featured 348 00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:36.279 a last minute reversal, matching the exact classroom exercise. I 349 00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:38.880 sent an e mail to a former student, now a 350 00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:43.079 dentist in Providence. Can you recall I wrote how the 351 00:22:43.160 --> 00:22:46.200 mutiny was resolved in Treasure Island when we read it 352 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:50.759 in eighth grade? She replied later that evening, Jim and 353 00:22:50.839 --> 00:22:54.359 Silver become allies. At least that's what we always thought, right, 354 00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:57.559 Or am I confusing it with the club version? All 355 00:22:57.559 --> 00:23:02.200 I remember is group projects. Sorry, the memory matched the 356 00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:06.680 present text, not my own recollection or materials. The story 357 00:23:06.759 --> 00:23:09.839 seemed to be aligning itself to collective version, not just 358 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:13.720 one person's script. Back at the library, I took to 359 00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:16.279 listening to book club meetings from just out of sight. 360 00:23:16.839 --> 00:23:20.160 At yesterday's meeting, the group grew fond of a minor character, 361 00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:23.960 a little known cousin from Wuthering Heights, and spun wild 362 00:23:24.039 --> 00:23:27.440 theories about her possible adventures after the original novel's end. 363 00:23:28.079 --> 00:23:31.880 By morning, the book bore a new unexpected coder, a 364 00:23:31.960 --> 00:23:34.640 whole chapter, giving her a life beyond the moors, a 365 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:38.599 fate the club had settled on together. I stopped attributing 366 00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:42.839 these oddities to editing errors. No typo or misprint could 367 00:23:42.920 --> 00:23:47.640 execute such seamless adaptation. The books, under some rule, both 368 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:51.759 gentle and unyielding, shifted in response to the communal act 369 00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:58.279 of remembering and retelling. Then two, there were the peculiar echoes, phrases, metaphors, 370 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:02.359 entire lessons I'd come for years, appearing subtly recast in 371 00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:05.599 canonical works, the text now claiming them as belonging to 372 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:11.200 author's long dead and beyond revision. I felt exhilaration, not anxiety. 373 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:14.640 As a hypothesis built within me, the library did not 374 00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:18.480 merely hold the town's stories. It absorbed them, remixed them, 375 00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:23.079 grew new branches with each passing conversation. The books were 376 00:24:23.079 --> 00:24:26.920 not simply reflecting memory, but building themselves from it, a 377 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:31.960 sort of living document in perpetual, invisible revision. For the 378 00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:35.440 first time, I wondered if any story anywhere could truly 379 00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:39.000 be fixed, or if the entire nature of remembering was 380 00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:43.519 to continuously rewrite. A question began to nag. Could this 381 00:24:43.599 --> 00:24:46.480 be deliberate? Was there a threshold for how deeply a 382 00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:49.880 story might change? Or who got to decide its final form. 383 00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:53.319 I devised a modest experiment, picking a time when the 384 00:24:53.359 --> 00:24:56.359 club room was empty but for a trio of tea drinkers, 385 00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:00.200 I proposed reading an obscure fable, The town Mouse the 386 00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:04.160 marsh Wren, a tale few, if any, remembered with any certainty. 387 00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:08.559 I think the bird builds the mouse a raft I volunteered, 388 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:11.920 but the mouse refuses out of pride and ends up 389 00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:16.559 lost on the marsh. No counted, mister Castillo. The mouse 390 00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:20.599 tricks the wren and steals his nest. Leela flipped through 391 00:25:20.599 --> 00:25:24.480 her phone. Mom said, the wren teaches the mouse to swim, 392 00:25:24.599 --> 00:25:27.559 but the mouse drowns. Anyway, it's meant to be sad, 393 00:25:28.039 --> 00:25:31.640 or maybe that's the French version. For half an hour, 394 00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:36.119 arguments and suggestions flew fast across the table. Others joined in. 395 00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:40.519 Someone advocated an optimistic ending, Several proposed the mouse should 396 00:25:40.519 --> 00:25:43.279 help the marsh wren build a bridge. After all, the 397 00:25:43.319 --> 00:25:46.960 debate built, momentum, heated, but good natured, until at last, 398 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:51.799 the group, by gradual, gentle negotiation, agreed the story would 399 00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:54.759 end with the mouse building the raft by herself, braving 400 00:25:54.799 --> 00:25:57.920 the marsh, the wren flying above as a guide. The 401 00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:02.400