A literary guide to term three study spaces

Giles Allen-Bowden discusses the possible study spaces in term three, with reference to which your favourite literary characters would use… 

Library

Dante arrives in the library and, having spent his best years mapping out Hell and giving it a tasteful ring motif, he finds himself in uncomfortably familiar territory with the heat. Desperation ramps up. While he finds the library less aesthetically pleasing than his vision, this doesn’t stop him from appreciating the concise layering that torments students on multiple levels. 

The silence broken by lift-side chatter and heavy breathing on floor three

The choice of forcing students to exercise to charge their devices, perfect. The noise and chorus of despair on floors one and two, concise. The silence broken by lift-side chatter and heavy breathing on floor three, the heat of floor four and the sense of isolation and loneliness on floor five. All of it is unbearably rapturous as he watches the contorting faces, hears the intense silences and feels the sinking hopes of souls all hoping to escape, eventually.

Oculus

Meanwhile, across campus the cast of Alice in Wonderland check into the Oculus and find an entirely different set of challenges. While the little white rabbit gets stuck in the revolving door, blocking the exit for the rest of the student body, the Mad Hatter and March Hare struggle to work out why their green paper no longer gets them access to all the tea they require for their revision.

Upstairs Alice is struggling with seats saying “sit here” which give her the table access she needs but nothing to support her ever-changing back, and other chairs with the opposite problem which seem to engulf her but without the table space to support her toadstool themed Apple Mac. The Red Queen is having a mild heart attack at the colour scheme, finding not a hint of red or black to align herself with. She rattles the vending machines which, yet again, refuse to offer her any solace as her candy bar gets stuck. Throughout it all the Cheshire Cat’s grin begins to fade as he realises just how little space is available for him to effectively procrastinate in as the day goes by.

She simply puts on her headphones and has her powers write out her revision notes

University House

And then on the outskirts of town, Matilda, having breezed her way through her seventh year using a combination of telekinesis and book smarts finds herself going back to her favourite place: University House. She arrives early and settles in chairs of comfort and acceptable air conditioning which help her feel at ease even during the tightest study times so long as she is cautious. 

There are low murmurs but if she finds it overwhelms her, she simply puts on her headphones and has her powers write out her revision notes while she sits back and reads another pack of books from home. She works without disturbance or having eyes look her way if she dares to cough. Even the Trunchbull, a mature student studying human engineering, seems fairly content here, stretching her legs and rejoicing at the absence of children.

The great outdoors

Now, if you have the unfortunate position of being a Samuel Beckett character, you have my greatest sympathies. These philosophers of woe and walking will undoubtedly free themselves from every conventional study space and find themselves trying to study in the rain on every uncomfortable bench, contending with geese, ennui and geese suffering from ennui.

While there are pockets of peace to be found outdoors, or even in unbooked study rooms, there will always be waiting for noise or someone else coming to take the space or distracting sublime beauty followed by abject despair. Revision only brings up more questions which may never be answered. They will come to few conclusion and study even less as the sunset arrives.