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The Fictional Librarian Part 2:
Spies and Libraries
by Daniel Gwyn
As promised in my last article, this
instalment of the Fictional Librarian will involve spies, or at least agents of
a shadowy government agency. Espionage
is a popular subject in fiction and movies, rather unlike librarians. Therefore, I thought I would examine a case
where the two meet.
I could discuss the late Desmond Llewellyn’s “Q” as a
librarian, in the sense that he stores things for 007. Hmm, how does one classify an Aston
Martin? Furthermore, he displays a librarian-like
impatience with James Bond’s antics.
The movies even show at least one instance of a reference interview
conducted by Q on 007: in For Your
Eyes Only when Q uses a computer system to identify a suspect.
Alternatively, I could discuss a Cold War librarians’ romance
between an ex-secret agent (played by Richard Burton) and a young communist in
the movie version of The Spy who came in from the cold. This includes a discussion of cataloguing
revolving which heading lycanthropes fall.
However, I prefer to keep this column off beat. Therefore, this article is devoted to Nathan
Muckle (played by James Allodi), the librarian in John Woo’s Once a Thief.
For those of you unfamiliar with this show, it was remake for Global TV of a
Hong Kong action film by Woo. The TV
movie was filmed and set in Vancouver, and starred Sandrine Holt, Ivan Sergei,
and Nicholas Lea. CTV took the TV movie
and transformed it into a series filmed (and
implicitly set) in Toronto.
The show only lasted one season, but in that time found the
opportunity, not only to warp the original premise but also to parody its
genre, as well as other cultural icons such as The X-Files, Cops,
A Clockwork Orange, and Waiting for Godot. Where the series did demonstrate some
originality was in the one secondary character, namely Nathan the
librarian. Initially something of a one
episode gag, where he replaced a fairly sultry female librarian, (much to the
disappointment of Nicholas Lea’s character) he remained a fixture of the
series.
James Allodi as Nathan Muckle
He is fairly distinct as fictional librarians go, as he is
young and male. However, it is his
attitude toward reality that truly makes him memorable. For him, the world consists of an incredible
network of conspiracies involving shadowy organisations operating behind the
scenes. This is rather ironic as he
works for a trans-national crime-fighting organisation, which is described,
rather than named as a “shadowy government agency.”
The conspiracies he describes make Watergate look like open
democracy. If the Director of his
branch of the “Agency” is not an insect queen controlling her underlings by
phonemes, then the Knights of Malta attempted to assassinate four Kennedy
brothers, falling only with Edward.
(Actually, that last one might have some validity as I have it on good
authority, that when Robert Kennedy was shot, the new Grand Chancellor of the
Knights of Malta (the second highest position in the organisation) was in the
presence of Papal officials in the Vatican.
This becomes all the more serious, when it is known, that the Grand
Chancellor previously was one of the vice-presidents at Seagram’s, working
directly under Samuel Bronfman. This
brings in the possibility, it might have been a joint conspiracy, between the
Vatican, the Knights of Malta, and Zionists…
Uh, sorry folks I got carried away.)
Nathan’s paranoia is probably attributable to his mother and
his history of employment at such questionable places. He interned at a nuclear power plant, and
temped for the CIA. The origin of his
paranoia may also lie in his excessive credulity. Nicholas Lea’s character once offered him membership in the
“Inner Circle” in return for information.
In order to be “initiated” into the spurious organisation, Nathan was
told to go a certain address wearing a bright yellow rain jacket, and carrying
a watermelon. This becomes all the more
assuming and ironic when it is remembered that Nicholas Lea also plays the
treacherous Alex Krychek on The X-Files.
His librarian skills are best described as chaotic as he
seems to too paranoid to systematically organize data. Furthermore, he is apt to go off on tangents
that result in him constantly changing his classification schemes. His reference interview skills are shaky at
best as he too often gets side tracked from the information by his
imagination. Furthermore, he lives in a
certain amount of fear of his co-workers, especially of The Director (played by
Jennifer Dale) who runs the Agency.
Another of his fears is that he is afraid of giving away too much
information, lest it be considered by the powers that be that he knows too
much… However, he often surprises his
co-workers by deducing critical information by making the necessary connections
between disparate data. In essence, his
mind is twisted, but in such a way that it is useful if one is dealing with
twisted data.
This
is obvious necessary in an organisation run by The Director. Consider the following exchange between Mac
Ramsey (Ivan Sergei) and The Director:
Mac: -So my life is going to be run by a twisted leather
freak?
The Director: -Twisted?
Yes, but freak…that’s probably going too far.
As a librarian, he is perhaps not a
great role model. However, he makes a wonderful
change from the “shhh!” stereotype of librarians in fiction.
I would like to say which librarian the next Fictional
Librarian will look at, but unfortunately, I am leaving. However, if anyone else should choose to
pick up my torch, I shall not object.
P.S. Incidentally, my aside about the Grand
Chancellor of the Knights of Malta meeting with Papal officials at the time of
Robert Kennedy’s death is true. The
individual in question was my Quintin Gwyn, my Grandfather and the first (and
probably the only) Canadian ever to hold that honour. It is also true that he previously worked for Seagram’s under
Samuel Bronfman (or Mr. Sam as he was referred to in the family). However, nothing indicates that there was
anything more sinister than coincidence involved.
Regarding the Kennedy brothers, of Joseph Jr., John F.,
Edward, and Robert, all were involved in violent incidents that resulted in
death in three cases. The
assassinations of John and Robert are well known, as is the incident on
Martha’s Vineyard in which Edward was involved. What isn’t well known, is that, their older brother, Joseph was
groomed by his father to be president.
However, he was killed in WWII when the flying bomb he was piloting
exploded prematurely.