Late nights in the archives
It's a late night doing research in the archives. The lights low. No one else around. Getting tired and soft. Letting the guard down a bit. Sore shoulders that might need a rub. Snacks thoughtfully brought.
I've had no thrilling experiences of late nights in the archives. I don't think I'd be very good at it. My back would be too painful, my hair would get very messy, microfiche makes me dizzy, and all-nighters make me feel nauseous. But I love this trope.
Where did this come from? I thought there must be some formative example that imprinted on me. It sounds very X-Files... Except up until 2020 I had only watched a handful of X-Files episodes despite it being both my dad and my wife's favourite show. Buffy? Seems likely. The foundations of. They do plenty of research. (Don't speak Latin in front of the books.) But I don't think that's what I most remember about Buffy. And I'm not rewatching it to find out. I don't think I'll be watching Buffy ever again.
What about books? I've been wracking my brain to think of books I liked when I was younger that might have featured this. But I can't. I've not read Possession. I should probably read Possession. There's probably lots of this in dark academia, but I'm not especially interested in dark academia. Unless there's library business in The Worst Witch.
Maybe there's not one single starting point. Probably it's a combination of several things I enjoy. All that soft vulnerability. Looking after one another. Intellectual intimacy. Books. Competence porn. Racing against time. Montages. Fictional late nights in the archive are a dimly lit cosy little bubble. Maybe less cosy if the world is threatening to end or there's some crime spree going on. Still kind of cosy.
There's a sci-fi version, which usually features a whiteboard and maths. This is also extremely acceptable to me. Maths is the ultimate magic so I will happily sit in awe watching or reading about people scribbling equations in the middle of the night.
Halfway to what I mean is Romances of the Archive by Suzanne Keen. Which doesn't mean romance like relationships, more allure, fascination. The book:
analyses the portrayal of archives and archival research in English fiction, and these “archives” are the melting pot of people and places for the purveyance of cryptic documents, ancient books, and historical oddities
As the ebook is on sale at one hundred and thirteen dollars I'm using a book review of it:
Romances of the archive also feature characters that must endure the hardships posed by archival research to the point of martyrdom. Character-researchers will labour in freezing attics and foul basements, and battle ennui and the tedium of sifting through boxes. Romances of the archive feature the rewards that character-researchers are granted upon solving the mystery at hand, for example academic acknowledgement, prestigious research posts, money, and of course, sex and romance.
This is romantic in all senses.
I'm always chasing that feeling. Looking for it in everything I read and watch. If there's even a sniff of it I'm there. I'm always trying to write it, over and over until I get it right. I'll probably never be fulfilled, or get it right. But I'll have fun trying.
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