The Archivist
The Archivist: A Novel by Martha Cooley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Archivist is about many topics which hold great interest for me. Librarianship, religion, poetry, jazz, history, and madness are all themes. However, what looked like a fascinating read at the outset quickly turned into something mediocre. What the book lacked was a sense of realism - the characters were too convenient, the story too cliche.
Matthias Lane works as an archivist for a prestigious university. One day a young woman comes in and requests to see T.S. Eliot's letters to Emily Hale. Unfortunately, the collection is sealed until 2020 (interestingly enough, this fact is true. The real Emily Hale letters are still under lock and key at Princeton). He denies her, but something about her gets under his skin. She reminds him of his deceased wife, who committed suicide in a mental institution. The two strike up some sort of friendship fraught with sexual tension.
The first problem I had was that the book jumps around. It goes from Matthias' story in one section to a journal that his wife wrote while in the institution and finally back to Matthias again at the end. Normally I don't mind switches in narration, but it didn't work this time. I feel like the reader leaves Matthias for too long in the middle. By the time I returned to him he didn't interest me very much anymore.
Another problem I had was the relationship between Matthias and the young woman, Roberta. Their relationship is altogether too convenient and they grow too fond of each other too fast. In addition, the similarities between their history and experiences are wholly unbelievable. Matthias' wife was a poet; Roberta is a poet. Matt's wife was Jewish, even though the people who brought her up weren't very devout; Roberta is Jewish, even though her parents converted to Christianity after escaping the holocaust. Both women feel lied to and have a hard time coping with religion (in particular the religious choices of others) in general.
Now, I don't want to downplay the horror and significance of the holocaust. So don't get me wrong here. But it seems like that singular historical event is written about more than any other in fiction today. Honestly, I'm ready for something new. Reading a couple really great books about the consequences of the holocaust is better than reading fifty mediocre ones. And believe me, I've read my share. I'm not saying people should stop writing about it. Not in the least! I'm just saying that I feel like the topic is worn out and if you're going to choose it for a writing project, well, it better be good.
So, overall this book was alright. I liked the themes and there were a few good passages, but the writing style itself wasn't anything special. It kept my attention for its 300 odd pages, but I don't see myself returning to it in the future.
View all my reviews >>
------------------------------------------------------
"Books never cease to astonish me. When I was a child, I knew--in the incontestable way that children know things--that God was an author who'd imagined me, which is why I (and everyone else) existed: to populate His narrative. My task was to imagine God in return: this was all He and I owed each other." - Martha Cooley, The Archivist