todayiamadaisy | Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty? (Reply)

I finally saw Peter Pan on video last week and I now regret not seeing it in the cinema when it was released. Peter himself is, as always, an annoying brat, but Hook is fabulous. He was an early literary crush and I still have a soft spot for him. It’s always sad when he dies. Film Hook brings it on himself though. There are several times in the film where he’s ready to kill Peter, but stops to toss his hair dramatically and give Peter a chance to escape – even one where he has his sword at Peter’s throat, but instead throws him in the air to be caught by a net and tossed in the water to drown. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with that? The extras on the DVD feature a bizarre promo segment with Hook sniffing the Duchess of York’s hair. I could have lived without seeing that.

In the mood for more Captain Hook, I poked about on the Internet, where I discovered that J.M. Barrie wrote a short story about Hook’s school days at Eton. Brilliant! It was never published. Damn. He adapted it and gave it as an address at Eton, which was published in a book of speeches in 1938. Brilliant! It’s available at the library. Brilliant again!

Although I’m a student at Monash, it’s much easier to use the Deakin library (being a five minute trip as opposed to a three hour one). I toddled out there on Saturday, checked the catalogue and advanced jauntily to the shelves. The book wasn’t there. I checked all the surrounding shelves. I double-checked the catalogue. I was definitely looking in the right place, it was definitely available, and it definitely wasn’t there. I had another book to borrow, so as that was being sorted I asked the librarian, the unfriendly, spacey blonde, about the book of speeches. She checked the catalogue and gave me the number. I explained that it wasn’t on the shelf. She said she’d take a look. As we moseyed over to the shelves, I explained that it was an old book that probably wasn’t borrowed often. “Oh,” she said, “it could have disappeared ages ago then.” She looked at the shelf, at the exact spot the book was meant to be and nowhere else. “That must be what happened.” Then she walked off.

Now Saturday is not a busy day at the Deakin library. I could see only four people (although there may have been more downstairs or in the cubicles), and none of them was at the desk to speak to the librarian. When I had gone to borrow my other book, the librarian was reading one of the books she’d taken out of the returns slot. This was not a busy woman. And even if she did have something to do, surely she should take the details of the book to mark it for later searching or put on the computer that it’s lost? And why just walk off? Grrrr…

I was slightly obsessed by this time (how dare it elude me like this?), so I decided to try Monash after all. Normally I borrow books when I go there for residential schools and return them by post, but they do have a proper postal library service too, where you request books via the Internet and they post them out, and since I wanted this book now, that’s what I tried on Tuesday.

The catalogue usually lists title, number of copies and status (available or when it’s due back) and the other usual things. Except for my book, obviously, which just had the title. All blank. So I rang Monash. Did they have a copy or not? The extremely helpful librarian said she’d never seen so few details on the system before and she honestly didn’t know. So she filled in the request form and said either the book would be posted to me, or she’d ring me if she couldn’t find it. Nice lady.

I got it in the post this morning. Hooray!

Some of my literary crushes in no particular order