top of page

Library of Progress

Drawn on May 20, 2025 | Published from Miami

Trump and his minions burning books in the Library of Congress.
The Library Progress

Despite never having set foot in its astonishing atrium before, the forest of marble paired-columns towering over you feels oddly familiar. Sure, you saw a photo in the guidebook, but this is something more than remembering — it’s a sensation. A stylistic déjà vu that lingers with every step up the grandiose staircase, growing louder as your gaze ascends toward the decadently detailed ceiling. Then, brushing through the arcade above this vast nave — having just gawked in awe at the jaw-dropping reading room’s cupola — you yelp, “Ah! I know where I’ve seen this.”

 

There is an opera house on the other side of the Atlantic that bears a striking resemblance to this theatrical space. Though conceived in service of an empire, its architecture seems far more at ease in the company of republics. The style, grand and impossible to ignore, is rooted in an anecdote defying to eclipse the pedigreed seal it was meant to glorify.


As the story goes, in the dust of construction, the Empress Eugénie, standing at the end of the freshly cut Avenue de l’Opéra, turned to its architect and, as horses clippity-clopped by, gasped in shock, “What an ugly duckling, this has no style, it is neither Greek nor Roman!” [1] To which Charles Garnier replied, with the kind of grin only genius permits: “Excellence, this is in the style of your husband: Le Style Napoléon III.”

 

And yet, despite its imperial origins, the Parisian opera’s sweeping staircases, ornamental excess, and insistent optimism seem to have found equal life in the American capital — emulated, not copied — in a building that likewise seeks to celebrate not just power, but the cultivated grandeur of public knowledge.

 

Indeed, you are not the first to feel a peculiar familiarity here. Long before you arrived, someone had already borrowed from memory of Garnier’s triumph to build this palace. The Thomas Jefferson Building — the oldest of the three still standing that make up the Library of Congress — was dreamed up in the late 19th century, finally greenlit in 1886 after years of congressional foot-dragging. Its design, an obvious homage to the Paris opera house with toned-down Bibiena gestures [2][3], wasn’t just about housing books — it was a bold declaration: knowledge, in all its opulence and ambition, would be the keystone of the American republic.


"You must collect the stones that are thrown at you; it's the beginning of a pedestal." [4]

— Hector Berlioz (1802-1869), posthumous aphorism from 1888.



The building’s authorship, though, reads like a relay race. The funny-named Smithmeyer and Pelz won the original design competition, but only Pelz would remain long enough to see most of the exterior work through — until he, too, was replaced. The baton eventually passed to Edward Pearce Casey, who, alongside Bernard Green, orchestrated the lavish interiors and oversaw the riot of sculpture, mosaic, and gilded decoration that now seems to watch your every move; particularly as the monolithic stair carves its shape out of the shadows to reach the heights of the sunbathed lobby.


Beyond suffering from the same affliction of chronic shushing as the Palais Garnier during a show, when the doors finally opened in 1897, the building stood not merely as a library — but as a temple. A masterpiece, through and through, devoted to the democratic ideal that access to knowledge — like the architecture itself — ought to be overwhelming, beautiful, and unapologetically public.


This library is more than a repository of books: we have a work of civilization boldly standing as a harbinger of respect for nuance and pride in our differences, where even banned titles contribute to the structure of its stacks. Yet, in recently firing its librarian, the country’s executive — a proudly stupid ‘philistine phascist’ who sees his reflection closer to Napoleon III than to Thomas Jefferson [more here] — seems determined to turn the rotunda into a chimney for the next wave of American autodafés. Minions eagerly ready — gas-prices permitting — to dump fuel on the tinder, in rebellion against DEI [5], scientific and literary emancipation [more here], and every other form of humanist enlightenment that lines the library walls — roughly 40 million tomes strong [6]! A book-burning [7] against pluralism and intellectualism, waged in the name of a meritocratic reset — ironically torched by the most thoroughly underqualified goons, grave-diggers of democracy, “standing back and standing by” [more here] to fill with alternative facts, the charred void they helped scorch to a crisp.


"Music expresses that which cannot be said, and on which it is impossible to be silent." [8]*

— Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), William Shakespeare, 1864.

And what is said in books, then, is silence-in-waiting — ideas pressed into paper. The connection between the opera and the library is not merely aesthetic, but ideological, tectonic, foundational. Erected just decades apart, both institutions were built not simply to contain culture, but to proclaim it. Their roots are shared, and their presence evenly daring.


The symbolism of knowledge enshrined in the architecture of the Library of Congress is as formidable as the Opéra’s ode to symphony. Do not let the flames drown out the music. Just as Siegfried overcame a circle of fire to reach Brünnhilde — a Valkyrie, a goddess princess sleeping atop a mountain on Garnier’s stage — how else can we do anything but resist the MAGA pyromaniacs giddily working to destroy not only the library’s manuscripts, but the greater monument to progress it stands for?

Or perhaps, in keeping with Berlioz, if only enough to escape a Faustian damnation, dragged through a maelstrom of burning parchment by the Orange Méphistophélès, our corrupted souls spinning straight into the depths of a hell of our own creation — will we fend off the lure of this fascist baptism by fire before the demonic apparitions completely saturate the landscape?



[1] Original French; "Quel affreux canard, ce n’est pas du style, ce n’est ni grec ni romain!"


[2] Galli da Bibiena family, family of Italian scenic artists of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Galli da Bibiena family. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved May 21, 2025, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Galli-da-Bibiena-family


[3] Nuitter, C. (2012). Le Nouvel Opéra. [Facsimile reprint of 1875 ed.] Rungis: Éditions Maxtor.


[4] Original French; "Il faut collectionner les pierres qu'on vous jette, c'est le début d'un piédestal."

Jullien, A. (1888). Hector Berlioz: sa vie et ses œuvres. Paris: Librairie de l'Art, p.340. Available at: https://archive.org/details/hectorberliozsav00jull/page/n3/mode/2up (Accessed: 21 May 2025).


[5] Tully-McManus, K. (2025) ‘Carla Hayden Firing: The Library of Congress Has Always Been Political’, Politico, 18 May. Available at: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/18/carla-hayden-firing-library-of-congress-history-00352719 (Accessed: 21 May 2025).


[6] General information: About the library of congress: Library of Congress (2025) The Library of Congress. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/about/general-information/ (Accessed: 21 May 2025).


[7] Book burning MAGA Republicans:

[8] Original French; " La musique exprime ce qui ne peut être dit et sur quoi il est impossible de rester silencieux." Hugo, V. (1864 [2002]) William Shakespeare. Edited by M. Crouzet. Paris: Gallimard. Collection Folio Essais. English excerpt from: Hugo, V. (1864) William Shakespeare. Book II, Chapter IV. Translated by A. Baillot. Boston: Estes and Lauriat. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53490/53490-h/53490-h.htm (Accessed: 21 May 2025).


*The famous attribution of the common expression "La musique, c'est le bruit qui pense" ("Music is noise that thinks") to Victor Hugo’s William Shakespeare is likely apocryphal. Clearly, Hugo is a man whose work isn't worth accrediting or citing correctly...

All audio is AI generated.

bottom of page