The Great Library, The Library of Alexandria
Some parallels and differences between Rachel Caine’s Great Library and the real Library of Alexandria.
In her series titled ‘The Great Library’, Rachel Caine creates a fictional world where the Library of Alexandria survives and dominates the world. In our real world, the Library, once located in Alexandria, Egypt, was destroyed. Whether in a fire, or simply due to gradual, increasing neglect, or a combination of various factors, remains up for debate. This magnificent Library, proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, contained a huge collection of books (the largest at the time) housed between two buildings — the main Library and a daughter library, the Serapeum.
While Demetrius of Phalerum might not have fulfilled his aspirations for the Library to be a universal Library, in Jess Brightwell’s world, the Library far exceeds his dreams. There are numerous Serapeums housing the world’s supply of books. But not all is glitter and gold. In his reality, it is illegal to own original books. All citizens who wish to read must use a Blank, which acts as a copy of the original. This is similar to our reality in the sense that the Library sought to keep all the originals, while hiring scribes to make copies which were given to people to read. There is even a story detailing how Ptolemy III Euergetes, the third king of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, asked to borrow the original plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides from the Athenians. The Athenians agreed under the condition that Ptolemy III Euergetes makes a deposit and promises to return the originals. The king, of course, kept the originals and gave the Athenians carefully made copies. Still, copies. The Library also searched ships that arrived on their land for any originals, and forcefully confiscated them from their owners. They were determined to get their hands on any and every book, no matter the subject.
All these copying — whether by scribes or by people they call ‘Obscurists’ in Brightwell’s world — leads to mistakes, or in Brightwell’s case, active censorship and suppression of knowledge that the Archivist (head of the Great Library) doesn’t want the public to access.
At it’s height, the Library of Alexandria housed over 100 scholars. These scholars were given ultimate comfort — a large remuneration, food, comfortable shelter, and a free pass when it comes to taxes — all so that they could focus on their research. There was no doubt a plethora of theoretical knowledge in the Library. Similarly, in the Great Library of Caine’s creation, the Scholars research and publish papers, amongst the other officials in the Great Library, such as the High Garda (soldiers) and Medica (medics). Employees of the Library were all given a rank, distinguished by the colour of their wristbands — copper, silver or gold. Gold represents a lifetime of service, a lifetime of protection. The greatest honour.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Great Library, the series, is the existence of Obscurists. This position is rare as Obscurists are born with their talents. Their abilities and knowledge in alchemy essentially make up the backbone of the operation of the Great Library. Without them, the Great Library cannot function. In the real world, however, alchemy is an obscure branch of knowledge.
The imaginary Great Library is open to all — the characters are diverse and treated equally. In fact, this is made clear from page one of the book, in the first Ephemera, where the Archivist of the time says, “I have a daughter. My daughter will learn.” One thing we know about the real Library of Alexandria was that it allowed at least some women to study there too. Hypatia was one of the female scholars at the Library, as well as one of the first women to study and impart knowledge on Mathematics, Philosophy and Astronomy. She was the best Mathematician and Astronomer of the time, and was head of the Neoplatonist school of philosophy.
Scholars associated with the ancient Library produced many great works. Eratosthenes of Cyrene, also the third head librarian, amazingly calculated the circumference of the Earth, which turned out to be off by only a few hundred kilometres, in ‘Concerning the Measurement of the Earth’. Callimachus produced the Pinakes, an extensive catalogue of authors and their works. The Pinakes is believed to be the first library catalogue in history. It is not a surprise then, that in the fictional world, Scholars have created many revolutionary works. Scholar Wolfe and his student Thomas Schreiber are only two of many who separately invented versions of a printing press. However, the pure nature of a printing press would render the Library useless. If any type of book could be reproduced at a large scale to the masses, the system would not be able to control it. The Archivist wouldn’t want that, which is why he shuts down any invention that could potentially threaten his position and the system.
To conclude, it is amazing how Caine weaves fact with fiction through the use of imagination, to tell a compelling and entertaining story about an alternate reality. Today, the Library of Alexandria may be destroyed, but in its place stands the Bibliotheca Alexandria, a library to commemorate the vast knowledge that its predecessor once held.
