St. Guilhem le Desert and the American Library

1-10-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

From here we drove across the lower spine of the Pic St. Loup and looked down on two valleys separated by the spine. They were gorgeous, full of vineyards and scrub oak or similar brush.
Then we drove on to St. Guilhem le Desert, a medieval village capped by the Abbey of Gellone and its cloisters, which are typical examples of early Roman art in the Languedoc region. We paused here for tea for me, hot chocolate for Anne (who is pictured here) and a glass of cider for Roger. Then we drove on into the Hérault valley and along the Hérault River on our way back to Montpellier.
As Anne let us out at our bus stop, she asked us up for a drink, but we declined. On our drive, I had received a phone call about my computer, and I was unable to understand most of what the gentleman had to say. So I asked what time he closed this evening, and when he opened up the next day, and hung up. It was after 6:00 when we got back to Montpellier, and we were due at a reception for the Friends of the American Library which was scheduled from 6:00 to 8:00, so we had a busy evening ahead. We hopped the bus, which deposited us a hundred metres or so from the computer repair shop. We went and got the bad news regarding the computer, and told the repair guy we would study our options overnight and let him know in the morning. We returned home, changed clothes and rushed over to the reception. The speaker had come and gone, but it probably would have been in French anyway, so we didn’t miss much. Most of the attendees to whom we talked were dismissive of his message. The problem is that the American Library of Montpellier resided in borrowed rooms, and in January of this year, they were abruptly closed down. The library has about 30,000 volumes, all of which are presently in storage somewhere (I didn’t catch where). The speaker’s solution is to have a place where 2,500 – 3,000 of the books can be displayed for borrowing, and to destroy the rest of the books! From a reader’s perspective, that is no solution at all! It is not clear to me what sort of solution they will finally reach, but not this one!