Guy Stagg was a Writer in Residence in 2022. Here he reflects on his time at Gladstone's Library.
I knew from the start where I wanted to sit. The upper level of the Theology Room, on a desk midway down the aisle. To me this was the best position in the entire library: stacks of books on either side, but a view over much of the reading room. So, each day I made sure I was the first person to arrive, occupying the spot before anyone else could claim it.
Most of the bookcases behind my desk contained histories of religious orders. Occasionally I would scan the shelves to distract myself, pulling down accounts of the Franciscans, the Benedictines, the Jesuits, as well as architectural studies of Neapolitan convents, records of pre-Reformation nunneries, and descriptions of the medieval monastic presence in Cheshire. Some of these books had suggestive titles – The Nun, the Infidel and the Superman, was one; Gothic Rage Undone, was another; Leper Knights, a third – but the text I returned to most often was called An Infinity of Little Hours.
The book was written by Nancy Klein Maguire and published in 2006, telling the true story of five young men who attempted to join the Carthusians in the early 1960s. The Carthusians are the strictest of all Catholic orders, and their way of life has changed little since the eleventh century. They still wear hairshirts, still spend seven hours a day in worship, and still wake midway through the night for more prayer. But these austerities were part of what attracted the young men, putting their faith to the ultimate test.
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Guy Stagg's preferred seat in the Theology Room
An Infinity of Little Hours was set at Parkminster, the only charterhouse left in Britain. The monastery consists of some two-dozen cottage-sized hermitages where the brothers live, coming together to worship but otherwise remaining alone. Each of the five men spent several years at Parkminster, yet only one of them ended up joining the order, and Maguire poses the question why? But a different question kept me coming back to the book each day: whether this way of life had any lessons for the month I was spending at Gladstone’s Library?
Of course, the library is nothing like a monastery. There’s more to eat, more to drink, and the rooms are better heated. At the same time, the Victorian architecture, the morning chapel services and the special hush found in the reading rooms – all this was suggestive to me of a religious community. And, over the four weeks I spent at Gladstone’s Library, I began to wonder whether the settings that encourage spiritual reflection can also encourage intellectual and creative work. Even wonder whether these two things feed from the same source.
Reading, writing, thinking, praying – in essence these are solitary activities. All five men in An Infinity of Little Hours were attracted by the solitude of the Carthusian life, but according to the one member of the group who remained, what was sustaining about the charterhouse was the experience of community. Despite the fact that he mixed little with the other members of the monastery, they were sharing their solitude side-by-side. The Carthusians understood that even a hermit can benefit from community, and I soon realised that this was a useful lesson for a writer too. Even those who are drawn towards solitude can be sustained by the company of others, especially when they are sharing in the same lonely task. And I suspect the founders of Gladstone’s Library understood this lesson well, creating a place where writers and scholars, readers and thinkers, could all be alone together.