Journalist, memoirist and personal essayist Margarita Gokun Silver was the Gladstone's Library Writer in Residence for May. Here, she reflects on finding plays, productivities and peace at the Library.
An alcove of your own
When I first entered the Gladstone's Library reading rooms, I did what every 21st-century dweller would do and took a lot of photos. Then I decided that I would maximize my library experience by (1) choosing a different alcove to write in each day and (2) reading every play I could find in the stacks. I'm here to report that I failed both of those goals miserably. It turned out to be easier to just stick to one spot, both because I wasn't the only one working in the library and also because it was more practical not to lug around the 10+ books I had on my desk at any one time. And as far as reading every play the Gladstone's Library Annex and History Rooms had on offer—I tried. I really tried. But there, too, I didn't succeed. Hundreds of yet-to-be-opened plays remain untouched on Gladstone's shelves, and my only consolation for not getting through them during my writing residency is having many additional reasons to return.
The Theology Room at Gladstone's Library.
Where I didn't fail, however, is my project. I came to Gladstone’s Library to finish the first draft of a play (hence the obsessive play reading), and by the end of my stay, I had all ninety-eight pages of it written, typed, and sent out for an initial read to those of my writer friends who don't mind an occasional typo. I have never in my life been this productive. The credit for this productivity—as well as for quite a few plays I did manage to read as I procrastinated on writing my own—goes to Gladstone’s Library. Its walls of books, its hushed silence broken only by the occasional rustle of pages, a creak on a spiral staircase, or a sigh of concentration from the next alcove, and its quiet but firm discipline of breakfast-writing-lunch-writing-dinner-reading was exactly what this writer needed.
But there was also something else that came out of my Gladstone’s Library experience. My residency began just seventeen months after my husband of twenty-seven years passed away. The loneliness that has accompanied me since his passing followed me into the library much like the bad weather follows me whenever I come to the UK. But, unlike the rain and the clouds, it didn't stay for long. For how could I feel alone—or lost—if all I had to do was to pull a play, or a collection of poetry, or a book about women philosophers in first-century Alexandria off the shelf and find myself in its pages? The hearty meals at the Library’s restaurant, Food for Thought, contributed to this healing experience. With other writers and researchers coming to stay at the library on their own, there was never any lack of a meal companion or a stimulating conversation.
Margarita Gokun Silver writing at a Reading Room desk.
And so I leave the library with several accomplishments: a finished play, the play that before my writing residency at Gladstone’s Library was just a loose collection of scenes; the discovery that a residential library – a library where your bedroom is just a short hallway away from books – could be just the reading and writing retreat you need when you feel at odds with the world; and (along with multiple photos) a firm reminder in my calendar to return sooner rather than later.