I had never been to the archives at U of T (I was an undergrad at Queen’s and a Master’s student at McMaster). In fact, I had never been on the U of T campus, except, perhaps, casually, on this tour or that of the great (?) city of Toronto. Despite any misgivings I may have had about the university, I must admit; its resources are spectacular...at least what I saw of them, in my single, no-break day, sitting at the same desk in the same room, mulling over Lee’s editorial control (command?) of Atwood’s thematic guide to Canadian literature, Survival.
First things first: the extensive resources of said university unfortunately (or fortunately, if one takes into account the rapid progress I made today) do not include wireless access for non-students. I write this post in its original form as a Word document which I will later paste into my blog as if it were written there (though you now know it was not). Working without the distractions of Facebook and Hotmail and Blogger certainly provides more scope for the imagination (as Anne would say), and although I found myself tempted, at times, to pull out all of my hair, not knowing what’s going on with Brangelina, my work and my friends, I am inclined to conclude, upon reflection, that I—and my research—were better for it.
But it’s still a bitch to go a whole day without a single email check, a single status update.
Which is not to say that I didn’t have all kinds of fun of a different kind (insert nerd glee). As I mention above, the archives are impressive (if you’re impressed by that sort of thing) and as is alluded to in the title, resemble an awe-inspiring, sky-crowning cathedral of books as you gaze up from the ground floor to the many tiers of material stored securely above. It’s even ominously lit (though, as a frequenter of the mid-work nap, I always wonder why such places are dim with lamps when fluorescent light gets the job done much more successfully for me). Maybe it is for effect, to set the mood. If this is the case, it works.
(Not to mention—as a tangent-y side note—my day began with some non-archival awe of its own, as I, for what must also be the first time in my life, lumbered down Bloor St. with laptop and handbag in tow, passing jaw-dropping store after jaw-dropping store (it seems I have finally discovered where the beautiful people shop). Tiffany’s, Louis Vuitton, Prada. These places don’t actually exist in my mind, so to see them so casually was difficult to reconcile.)
I don’t really know what to say about the experience of working at Fisher itself, though it certainly left its mark. I had to check my coat and bags at the door, sign in all over the place; the boxes (seven of them) were waiting for me when I reached the research room. I spent my day reading through Atwood’s notes and Lee’s notes and drafts of manuscripts and chicken scratch speeches and was really quite thrilled about the whole experience. I discovered that Atwood and I share some oddities in our writing style (and re-writing and editing and re-writing), especially when I came upon pages composed of other bits of pages which had been stapled into a cohesive order to form a new page (a trick I adopted in my final year of undergrad). I found similarities, too, between Lee’s editing style and my own, as well as a shared sense of humour (one of the first editorial comments I read was the following on a drafted chapter, urging for a little clarity: “Would be neat if somebody besides us and a few readers out there realised what is going on in the fucking book”). How could such a discovery not make a person a little giddy?
Most importantly, I hope I found enough material for the publication which is supposed to emerge from this little venture (I will be sure to link to it if it ever gets written, ever gets approved and ever gets published). I think I did. Certainly I recognize my success in cementing my nerd-cred as a blogger, having seriously discussed Joss Whedon and Dollhouse, Watchmen and the Atwood/Lee papers within the span of only a few posts.
One last treat for those of you still reading:
In a letter (dated November 10, 1973) from Peggy (Atwood) to Frances McCullough, a representative with the American publishing house of Harper & Row, Atwood considers the merits of ‘turning the whole thing (Survival) into a poetic epic’ and concludes her letter thus:
“In Canlit’s Fields the footnotes blow
Between the glosses, row on row....”
At least I can rest soundly knowing that, while I may be an incredible nerd, Margaret Atwood will always be nerdier.
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