The Strange Library

by Haruki Murakami

And ever since I was little my mother had told me, if you don’t know something, go to the library and look it up. “Please

We had gone only a short distance when we came to a fork in the corridor. The old man turned right. A little farther on was another fork. This time he bore left. The corridor forked and forked again, branching off repeatedly, and in every case the old man chose our route without a moment’s hesitation, swerving first to the right, then to the left. Sometimes

weird—how could our city library have such an enormous labyrinth in its basement? I mean, public libraries like this one were always short of money, so building even the tiniest of labyrinths had to be beyond their means. I considered asking the old man about this, but I feared that he’d shout at me again. Finally, the maze came to an end at a large steel door. Hanging on the door was a sign that read “Reading Room.” The whole area was as quiet as a graveyard

was a very long staircase. Long enough, it seemed, to reach Brazil. The handrail was flaky with rust. Not a ray of light anywhere.

“Please, tell me. My mother is waiting for me back home.” “Okay,

Turkish tax collector Ibn Armut Hasir, who walked the streets of Istanbul with a scimitar at his waist, collecting taxes. The air was filled with the scent of fruit and chickens, tobacco and coffee; it hung heavily over the city, like a stagnant river. Hawkers squatted along the streets, shouting out their wares: dates, Turkish oranges, and the like. Hasir was a quiet, relaxed sort of fellow, with three wives and six children. He also had a pet parakeet every bit as cute as my starling.