The Library

It was the day after my birthday. My family had flown out ahead of me to Calgary where we were planning to move. I had spent the night of my birthday alone–just me, the dog, left-over Chinese food, and a book I had picked up on sale at Value Village on Hemingway’s boat (a truly aesthetic thing to read Hemingway when alone on the night of one’s birthday, don’t you think?).

The following day, my aunt invited me over to have lunch with her. She had prepared a decorated table in my late uncle’s rare book library. Being a prolific internationally acclaimed author himself, the place is a writer’s dream. After lunch, my aunt gifted me a leather bound six volume set of Victor Hugo’s Collected Works–exquisite!

Victor Hugo’s Wolf

One of the stories of Hugo that I can’t stop thinking about is found in the book, entitled The Man Who Laughs. The opening story is about a man named Ursus and his wolf Homo. The two live together in a trailer that the wolf pulls around from village to village.

“On hard roads and ascents, when there was too much rut and too much mud, the man buckled the trace-band about his neck, and pulled fraternally, side by side with the wolf.”

It says that the wolf never bit, but the man bit sometimes. And the two grew old together travelling from place to place, the man giving monologues, impersonations, and even providing the services of a herbalist treating people of various ailments.

It says that Ursus found the wolf by a river deftly catching cray-fish. Ursus saluted the wolf and the two became friends.

“Homo was more than a companion to Ursus, he was a counterpart. Ursus tapped his hollow flanks and said, ‘I have found my second volume.’ He also said, ‘When I am dead, he who wishes to know me will only have to study Homo. I shall leave him behind me as an authentic copy.'”

The Hugo Volumes

The volumes were so beautiful: leather bounded, gilded spines, marble flyleaves–the works. I couldn’t wait to get them home. The house was empty, but the volumes immediately warmed the place up. The dog followed me around the house as I was moving books from one shelf to another and from one box to another, making room on my living room shelves for them–their new home. My uncle had exquisite taste in books, and these were no exception. I put them up on the shelf, lining them up perfectly, the gilded spines capturing the dim lamp light from the living room. I wanted to dig into them, but where does one begin with almost 2000 pages of Hugo?

The Mystery Of A Man And His Wolf

So I want a wolf. A friend of mine lives out in Ghost Lake, Alberta. He had a dog that was half-something, half wolf. When his wife gave birth to their first child, the wolf-cross was out. What is it about a wolf?

Again, reading Hugo my mind is captivated by this mendicant and his wolf sharing a book-stuffed, candle-lit hut together; the wolf sprawled out on the floor, the man working away on some obscure manuscript or herbal remedy. My mind goes to those stories of St. Francis of Assisi and the wolf; how he made friends with it, and brought it back to the town it had been terrorizing to apologize. The town forgave the wolf, and the wolf became the town pet.

“Ursus had imparted to Homo a portion of his talents, –standing erect, diluting his wrath in times of ill humour, growling instead of howling, etc.; on his part, the wolf had taught the man what he knew,–to do without a roof, to do without bread, to do without fire, to prefer hunger in a forest to slavery in a palace.”

What is this paragraph? So brilliant and mysterious! There is a reason here why the wolf is called Homo, or ‘man’: He and Ursus are almost one and the same–the wolf is Ursus’s double, his second volume.

What does this say about ourselves and creation? There is this affinity we read about with certain characters and their wolves. I go back to the wolf in the Laurus that plays a mysterious role. Yes–mystery! The wolf shows the mystery of creation; that we are not cut off from creation, but can become one with it as God is there filling all things.

I Was Inspired To Get Myself A Wolf

So I read through Ursus and Homo several times captivated by it, but needing time to process. Then suddenly one day, and I’m not sure how it happened, but an inspiration hit: I need a wolf! This is the time, and the manuscript is the place!

For the longest time I have had this thing about wolves in stories, and now it was my time to write one into mine. Just this morning, as the clock was nearing 6:15, I picked up my pen and began to write my first wolf scene infusing it with all the mystery that I love about characters and their wolves. It felt so good.

It’s amazing, the timing of a book–the way it inspires seemingly out of the blue. It’s a cold February day, and I’m 3000 kilometres from my aunt’s house and the old family house we moved here from. It seems like years since I brought these volumes home from my uncle’s rare book library. And I remember the first time I brought them home wondering if I would be inspired by them. I’m only on the first story of many, and all ready I am filled with wonder.

Wow–my own wolf! I finally have one of my own.