“I have always imagined heaven to be a kind of library.” –Jorge Luis Borges
I have always agreed with Borges, in part I suppose because I have always experienced libraries to be a kind of heaven. Think of it: comfort, companionship, solitude, knowledge; worlds at my fingertips, sunlight over my shoulder, a pillow at my back and, if possible, a footrest. So many minds present around me, like beneficent ancestors, or stone saints eager to jump down from their perches to murmur blessings or answers into the air.
In the paradisiacal library, there would be a lot more white marble, of course, and the bookshelves could rise for miles, since our wings would make pointless those nifty ladders on wheels, and our CPS (Celestial Positioning System) would lead us unerringly to the text we desired every time.
Certainly, Borges and I are not the only book lovers to have such thoughts. As Adrian Joline writes, “I fear that in the world of the hereafter there may be no books, but it is not easy for me to imagine a heaven where books are not. I do not mean to be irreverent and I do not know whether I may attain even a bookless heaven, but I am unorthodox enough to own that I might prefer a bookish Hades” (44).
But if we are to believe St. Catherine of Sienna, a Doctor of the Church, there may not be that much to worry about. As she says, “All the way to heaven is heaven” (qtd. in Gallagher ix).
Gallagher, Winifred. Working on God. New York: Random House, 1999.
Joline, Adrian. At the Library Table. Boston: Gorham P, 1910.
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