“Libraries”
All My Puny Sorrows“Libraries” is Elfrieda Von Riesen’s concise answer to a question about what makes civilized society possible. In a conversation with Yolandi Von Riesen, the word shifts the focus from personal apologies to a shared institution associated with books and learning, and echoes a family history of advocating for a library.
The Exchange
While visiting Elfrieda in the psychiatric ward, Yolandi asks about her day and whether she has eaten, showered, or spent time with other patients. Elfrieda asks her to stop interrogating her; Yolandi apologizes, and Elfrieda reminds her that they had agreed to set apologies aside for a while. Their conversation turns to a maxim by Nellie McClung urging action without explanation, retraction, or apology. Yolandi wonders how that advice applies in this situation, since she had been apologizing for nagging. Elfrieda replies that apologies are not the bedrock of civilized society, then asks what is. Her answer is the single word Libraries.
What the Answer Contrasts
The exchange gives the word its force through contrast. Yolandi treats apology as a practice that helps keep people civilized; Elfrieda challenges the idea that apologies alone can serve as society’s moral foundation, pointing to their capacity to excuse brutality. Rather than offer another personal rule, she names an institution. The answer is brief, but it redirects the conversation from managing an interpersonal slight to the broader conditions that make a shared civic life possible.
Books and Family Advocacy
The answer also resonates with Elfrieda’s concrete ties to reading. When Yolandi’s children, Will and Nora, were young, Elfrieda read to them, drew with them, and helped them imagine worlds in which anything was possible. The novel also recalls Yolandi’s father petitioning for a library: in a later reflection, Yolandi imagines campaigning for hospitals that bring cardiology and psychiatry together, comparing the effort to her father’s petition. These details do not explain Elfrieda’s answer outright, but they place it within a family where books, imaginative care, and public advocacy recur.
