The entrance of the building is iconic . So much so that many people feel they have seen it in a photograph or a movie, even if they cannot name the building. It's no wonder its appearance is easy to remember: Two large statues of lions, one on each side of a wide set of stone stairs that lead to a formal entrance in a style that says "government building." It is the New York Public Library in the heart of Manhattan, built in 1911.Even people who find the entrance a familiar image -- especially with those two lion statues -- are not likely to know that those lions have names: Patience and Fortitude. The statues thus exemplify an older era, one in which human virtues were frequently commended to people by symbolizing each virtue with an appropriate animal. I confess to being a bit puzzled by the choice of lions, especially representing Patience and Fortitude. True, some children climbing those stairs, upon seeing the lion, might think of the noble lion Aslan in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. However, what Aslan displayed, contrasted to the people around him, was wisdom. Moreover, the New York Public Library, with its formal reading room, is primarily aimed at adults, not children.
I was also a bit surprised upon discovering the statues' names because, during my own lifetime in the U.S., most people's first thought about lions has been that they are frightening predators -- seemingly the "top of the food chain" in Africa. However, when I recall recent TV nature documentaries showing how lions are successful in getting food in only a fraction of their attacks upon prey, I can admit that real lions do require both patience and fortitude. But that is a contemporary association. The statues are a century old.
The more puzzling thing to me about those two imposing beasts on each side of the library's front staircase is what message it might convey to a prospective library-user who is about to enter the building. Is that person being warned off by two animals that could tear a person apart? Even knowing that the lions symbolize patience and fortitude does not solve the puzzle for me. Why have those two qualities been chosen as virtues that someone exploring and reading books will need?
I would have held up a different quality (even for a time period before computers, when locating a particular book or periodical required more time and patience than today). I would have recommended Curiosity. When I look back both upon my discovering books before I could even read, and upon what has kept me reading throughout my life, I would have named Curiosity as the primary quality that has kept me going.
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What quality has motivated your reading? Is there any animal that expresses that quality?
(The photo of the cat statue is used under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license by Frank Vincentz.)
1 comment:
I never tried to imagine what animal might express something about myself. At least not something like reading, which animals do not do. So I'm stumped by that question. But I can say that I think my reading has been motivated simply by enjoying things about the world. I cannot imagine what it would be like to know nothing about the world through reading books or reading online. What little of the world I would know without that blessing.
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