The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [399]
“Anything is possible in the BookWorld,” murmured Miss Havisham. “The only barriers are those of the human imagination. See the other libraries?”
Not more than five miles distant, just visible in the aerial haze, was another tower like ours, and beyond that, another—and over to my right, six more. We were just one towering library of hundreds—or perhaps thousands.
“The nearest one to us is German,” said Miss Havisham, “beyond that French and Spanish. Arabic is just beyond them—and that one over there is Welsh.”
“What are they standing on?” I asked, looking at the jungle far below. “Where exactly are we?”
“Getting all philosophical, are we?” murmured Miss Havisham. “The long and short answer is we really don’t know. Some people claim we are just part of a bigger story that we can’t see. Others maintain that we were created by the Great Panjandrum, and still others that we are merely in the mind of the Great Panjandrum.”
“Who,” I asked, my curiosity finally getting the better of me, “is the Great Panjandrum?”
“Come and see the statue.”
We turned from the window and walked along the corridor to where a large lump of marble rested on a plinth in the middle of the lobby. The marble was roped off, and below it was a large and highly polished plaque proclaiming Our Glorious Leader.
“That’s the Great Panjandrum?” I asked, looking at the crude block of stone.
“No, that’s only the statue of the Great P—or at least it will be when we figure out what he or she looks like. Good afternoon, Mr. Price.”
Mr. Price was a stonemason but he wasn’t doing anything; in fact, I don’t think he had ever done anything—his tools were brightly polished, unmarked, and lying in a neat row next to where he was sitting, reading a copy of The Word.
“Good afternoon, Miss Havisham,” he said, politely raising his hat.
Havisham indicated the surroundings. “The Great Panjandrum is meant to be the architect of all this and controls everything we do. I’m a little skeptical myself; no one controls my movements.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” I whispered.
“What did you say?”
“I said, they couldn’t care. Not a great deal, given the violence in books.”
She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps. Come along and see the Council at work.”
She steered me down the corridor to a door that opened into a viewing gallery above the vast Council chamber with desks arranged in concentric circles.
“The main genres are seated at the front,” whispered Miss Havisham. “The subgenres are seated behind and make up a voting group that can be carried forward to the elected head of each genre, although they do have a veto. Behind the subgenres are elected representatives from the Congress of Derivatives, who bring information forward to the subgenres inspectorate—and behind them are the subcommittees who decide on day-to-day issues such as the Book Inspectorate, new words, letter supply and licensing the reworkings of old ideas. The Book Inspectorate also license plot devices, Jurisfiction agents and the supply and training schedules for Generics.”
“Who’s that talking now?” I asked.
“The Thriller delegate. She’s arguing against Detective having a genre all of its own—at present Detective is under Crime, but if they break away, the genres at Thriller will want to split themselves three ways into Adventure, Spy and Thriller.”
“Is it always this boring?” I asked, watching the Thriller delegate drone on.
“Always. We try to avoid any entanglements and let Text Grand Central take all the flak. This way.”
We left the viewing gallery and padded down the corridor to a door that led into the smallest room I had ever seen. It seemed to be mostly filing cabinet and desk. An equally small man was eating biscuits—and most of them were falling down his front.
“Thursday Next