The Seeking of Sorley Ross

What makes the National Library different from normal libraries is not simply its name and stature, but of course, it is the vaster collection of materials it keeps and the depths of discovery it offers the dedicated researcher which make it the most esteemed archive in the land.  One such man of inquiry, Sorley Ross, has found himself in a spot of bother recently from his visits to the renowned building; he’s probably not the first to undo himself in the pursuit of learning, so forgive me if I neglect to mention the anguish experienced by prior scholars.  Mr Ross, a knowledge-enthusiast of truly impressive purview, has been known for some time to the regulars of numerous city libraries for his unique scent (oxtail soup and cream soda, reportedly) and his tendency to stack books he removed from the shelves on the floor beside him (the cause of more than one falling accident) until the coming of digital memory and handheld information devices curbed his field activities.  After that, Sorley tended to stay at home to conduct his endless, meandering searches about anything and everything that ever came into existence or was thought to have existed.  And it was better for everyone concerned, most would concur, that he never had to leave his sitting comforts now that cybernetic mechanisms were in operation. 

Sorley’s explorations were insatiable in nature and ostensibly random.  One minute he was looking into the War of the Eight Saints, the next he was onto gymnastics, or telepathy, or who was the worst meteorologist that ever lived, or an investigation into every type of seashell.  But it didn’t matter how many portals he unlocked, networks he tapped, or tunnels he dug; technology could only bring him as far as a new palisade, for no matter how much it gobbled up, the machine was unable to hold and digest the entirety of human understanding. 

His latest fascination is unreadable poetry of the late-19^th Century, a style of composition most inscrutable in literary history by virtue of its negligible readership and near total absence in the records.  The ‘unreadables’ were situated somewhere between romanticism and modernism and were named so because the poetry they produced was a danger to the human eye, a source of several discomforts, from severe ocular pain to eye-bleeding, even blindness, and in some instances, death, for those of already weak constitution.    

Due to the risks involved, the poems remain to this day unseen, unprinted, and mercifully unread.  Listening to them, now, that’s another matter, but even though this creates safer conditions for curious academics, it comes not without its perils.  There are accounts of light-headedness and fainting among those who heard the few audio recordings which were made.  And of these there were very few.  A problem lay in the fact that most were too afraid to read the poetry aloud and so were also less willing to enter a studio, be there a paycheque in it or not. 

And this is what had brought Sorley to Gordon Calvert, a man who had been able to recollect and recite a total of fifty unreadable works due to his remarkable mnemonic skills and unique optic indifference which dulled his eyesight and diminished the sensations he experienced in the periorbital area.  And due to somebody’s good wisdom, Calvert had managed to record, allegedly, three of those poems, though only one was now known to exist.  There housed in the National Library was the last known recording of an unreadable poem, locked safely away in the smallest, most discreet room in the building.  The voice of Gordon Calvert.  The poem’s author unknown.  The poem’s title unknown.

So Sorley returns like a champion to the material world, the sector of paper and wood thought long lost to the age of convenience, and makes his way to the National Library.  Luckily it is a physical space he knows well and having been there at least once in the last many years he has in his possession a reader’s ticket which will give him access.  He intends to listen to Gordon’s recital.  And transcribe it hopefully.  He has bought special glasses for that purpose, the kind you might use to observe a total eclipse of the sun. 

The main reading room is a fine-looking place.  The domed ceiling, sea-green and white in colour, is very impressive and gently complements the warm oak of the desks below.  It looks like the kind of room venerable folk such as Yeats might have enjoyed, and indeed there is evidence he did frequent the place, but whether or not those visits saw him absorbing any unreadable poetry is less certain and a question which is among those that continue to intrigue Sorley.

He’d been a decent man and arranged an appointment to hear the recording but when he meets a librarian worker and is shown the stored object, he finds himself faced with disappointment.  The recording is bound to an old reel-to-reel tape and has yet to be digitised.  Sorley is saddened to learn that the only person who can work the Tascam has gone on holiday this week and isn’t expected back for about a month. He curses the modern world for how quick it is to forget.  ‘Isn’t there anyone else that can work the thing? In this godforsaken place.’  ‘No, sorry’ says the librarian, compassionately.  Sorley has no patience.  He is overflowing with a mad urge to discover.  He needs to know.  And he needs to know at once.  He grabs the tape.  The librarian steps out of the way in shock, and Sorley Ross makes a run for it out the door and down the stairwell.  There is a security guard in the foyer of the Library and he watches Sorley run past, casually, as he would a plane flying overhead.  Even though priceless items reside in the building it is not a common occurrence for someone to run in and grab something like this.  Sorley is able to get out and soon he is at home and free for the time being.  In his mind he knows there must be someone he can track down with the proper equipment to play the recording but this will eventually take longer than he hopes.  Weeks.  Months. 

In the meantime, he goes into hiding, knowing full well the guards will be on his trail having already revealed his identity by booking an appointment at the library.  He books into a new hotel room every week while looking for a suitable audiophile he can persuade to manage the tape.  He yearns for the day when all the new machines will catch up with the old machines and the unlistenable will again be listenable, the unreadable readable, and the unpublishable hopefully publishable. 

A man named Terry just outside the city eventually comes to his aid.  Terry has tons of audio-visual equipment in the basement of his home.  VHS players, Betamax, wind-up gramophones, 4-track cassette recorders, and of course, a working reel-to-reel.   

After threading the tape and preparing it for playback, Terry leaves Sorley alone in the basement to finally listen to the unreadable poem.

He takes his pen.  And notebook.  There is a lot of crackling but Gordon Calvert’s voice can be heard.  As he speaks, Sorley writes.  The special glasses do not help much.  An enormous migraine comes on just as the poem is getting started and with every word Sorley transcribes he feels an intense burning pain across his face.  Until finally the voice stops, the poem ends, and the tape flaps out. 

Here it is, he says to himself, the last unreadable poem, now readable, on a page wet with tears and blood.  The search is over.