This book created a dark sense. Not noir, but a sense of foreboding and of something evil lurking. I'm a sucker for that. Witness my liking Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which many of my Facebook friends turn up their noses at. Apparently that makes me want to find out *what is going on.* The story is of a young couple who marries in 1945. She's a poet. He's a librarian (the archivist of the title). He's a Christian, she a Jew. He can't accept what she's going through as everybody learns what happened during the Holocaust, and he can't tolerate looking too closely at it himself. So he tries to block her preoccupation and stifle her creativity on the subject. Although he believes he's protecting her, he's defending himself. Already he subtly looks down on her religion. She gradually falls apart and gets institutionalized for good (which is like nothing that happens today). This parallels what happened in T.S. Eliot's relationship with his wife, so snippets of his and other poetry are part of the narrative.The book is about how the husband failed the wife in his ability to relate to her.The book is also about the impact of their faith traditions on what happens. Not only is the husband the male, but also he's part of the dominant religious tradition of their locale. The book has some flaws. As I put in some of my comments there was some confusion of dates and ages. That's important because it's a little bit of a challenge to keep the people straight. The young couple is of the "greatest generation," i.e., those who were of age to fight in WWII. That makes them the age of my parents, but for many readers, it would be the age of their grandparents. Different events happen along the line that relate to where they are in history. For example, the wife goes into the hospital in 1959, in her 40s. Meanwhile the present (in the novel) is the 1980s, when the husband is in his mid-60s. One of the mistakes would have added another five years onto his age, but being in his 70s during the present day action would have been even less plausible. I say that because he seems a little too young for his 60s -- except that since I'm in mine, of course I'm young at heart - ha!The male protagonist's character is a little off, as though the author couldn't do men just right. Both my husband and I arrived at that conclusion independently.The religious attributions are a little odd. Since both the male and female are utterly without community, then it could mean each had arrived at idiosyncratic beliefs. I think you'd have to say that to make sense of it. Also, I think the author leaves the impact from the male's religious attitudes not just subtle but underdeveloped.The author perhaps couldn't make up her mind or didn't know whether the woman's mental illness was something that would have happened anyway or whether it was in response to relationship issues, religious factors, and the times. The author didn't make a clear case for either one of those, so that took away from her point.And I wish a little more had been done with Eliot's poetry. I'm not much of a poetry aficionado, so I could have used that. I have heard that Eliot had antisemitic tendencies, but whether they impacted what he wrote I don't know, and it didn't seem to have anything to do with the story.All that being said, the book did lend itself to discussion of the issues at hand, even though the author's portrayal of them was through a glass darkly.It didn't bother me that their lives paralleled those of Eliot and his wife. Some Goodreads reviewers thought that seemed contrived, but they are probably very young and don't know how strange life is!I will say that this book was recommended by a clergyman-scholar involved in an interfaith foundation who thought it would be a good book for interfaith couples to read. In that respect, I just wish it hadn't had the woman going down the tubes!I would have probably given this book three stars, except that my husband and I read it together. What we put into it raised it to a "4."
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.
Do You like book The Archivist (1999)?
This was a good book, but very difficult to read, which is why I gave it 3 vs. 4 stars. Difficult in the sense that it was emotionally draining and rather depressing through most of it- especially the middle portion. I actually was dragging myself through the entire book until the absolute end; it was only when I reached the conclusion that I reflected back and said "ah, ok, this actually was a masterful story." However it's not something one chooses to pick up when they want a light, fun read. The topics are enigmatic at first, weaving together slowing and intricately until at the end you see the thickness of the rope that has been constructed. However, once I had finished the book, I really needed a few moments of reflection- and I believe that I will come back to the themes of the book over the coming weeks. Religion, trust, redemption, active engagement in life vs. passively watching the world unfold, families and the secrets they keep. I'm sure there are many more. I haven't read a book like this in a while, and I think that it's story will begin to ferment within me as time goes on.
—Elizabeth
You know that email chain letter, "Bad Analogies from High School English Papers," the one that went "He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree"? That's the feeling this book gave me a lot of the time. It's about a librarian in charge of, and obsessed with, a collection of letters T.S. Eliot wrote while separated from his wife, who was in a mental hospital. As it turns out (surprise!), the librarian himself was also separated from his wife, who was in a mental hospital. Now, echoes like that are a perfectly valid formal device, but they shouldn't be so loud. (Quiet, please, this is a library.)My three stars are for the middle section, the one from the wife's perspective, lighter-handed and with some affecting insights into mental health care as it was in the 1950s.
—Aaron
Господи-прости, но какая же ужасающая уродливая хуйня: внутренний дневник Джудит, сходящей с ума от нечего делать в комфортабельной психушке, напоминает сложенные вместе фейсбучные статусы прочно неработающих домохозяек - я три дня писала трудное стихотворение, а ты, сука, меня не поддержал, в мире так много зла, кислит на языке фольга от картошечки.
—Nanou
