Published in 1998, The Archivist by Martha Cooley is a marvelously complex novel. The premise is basic. Matthias is an archivist at an unnamed university (but it’s Princeton) where the letters of Emily Hale are kept locked up until 1919. Emily Hale was a long time correspondent, friend, muse and unconsummated love interest of the poet T.S. Eliot. There are over 1,000 letters that Eliot wrote to Hale. Matthias is the guardian of these letters. He has, in the name of indexing the letters, read every single one of them. One day into his archive room walks graduate student and poet Roberta asking to see Hale’s letters. Matthias says no but Roberta continues to insist. Thus begins a sort of cat and mouse game of offense and defense that leads both of the players to reveal personal histories and unhealed wounds.
Roberta explains she wants to read the letters for personal reasons. She figures Eliot confided in Hale all the reasons for his conversion to Anglicanism (he was a Unitarian before). Roberta’s parents are Jews who escaped Europe during the war and in arriving in America they soon after converted to Christianity. Roberta, who wants to claim Judaism for herself, wants to understand why her parents converted because they will not talk to her about it.
Meanwhile, Matthias, whose name is the same as the apostle who replaced Judas, is thrown into thinking about his deceased wife, Judith. She died in 1965, the same year as T.S. Eliot. She was Jewish and a poet and spent the last six years of her life in a mental institution undergoing treatment for manic depression (though we call it bipolar disorder these days). Judith wasn’t especially religious until WWII broke out. Hearing about the horrors happening in Europe, she began reading Kabbalistic writings. After the war when all the photos and details of concentration camps came out, her sense of self began to become unmoored. She began collecting every newspaper article she came across about survivors, about Nazis being captured and tried, about personal and family histories and camps, and anything related. The middle section of the book is taken up by Judith’s journal she kept during her “internment.” In one entry she writes,
I began waking up slowly into history, from which we do not emerge as from other nightmares.
Matthias does not understand Judith’s deepening religious belief, her grief and sorrow. Judith is infuriated by Matthias, a Christian, who thinks that besides God giving us Christ, He is hands off and humanity is on their own to work it out. He believes that because God imagined us, the only thing we owe God is to imagine Him.
Judith’s descent into mental illness terrifies him. And while Judith consented to being committed, it was not because she considered herself ill but only because she knew Matthias was afraid. The good news is Matthias did not consent to electroshock therapy. But Judith was still heavily dosed with tranquilizers. She was also not allowed any newspapers nor was she supposed to write.
There are so many stories and so much detail in this book I could go on and on. Both Judith and Matthias liked T.S. Eliot’s poetry and the book is sprinkled with lines of his as well as other poets. There is also a marvelous resonance between T.S. Eliot, his wife Vivienne (who was confined to a mental institution) and Emily Hale and Matthias, Judith and Roberta. There is so much in this book about the Holocaust that T.S. Eliot being such a central figure becomes rather ironic since he was anti-semitic.
The Archivist comes up in a few places as being young adult literature but I don’t think that is correct. Not that an avid teenage reader can’t read and enjoy the book, but it is so very adult-focused with no one under the age of 35. Plus, I think the subtleties of the book’s structure and layers of story would be completely missed by teens. And I would wager the majority of teenagers don’t care about T.S Eliot nor will they know who half the poets or jazz musicians mentioned in the book are or really understand the Eichmann trial that pushes its way into even Judith’s isolation.
I very much enjoyed the book. I thought I was going to get something light, bookish and librarian geeky but it turned out to be dark, deep and thoughtful. It has made me want to read T.S. Eliot’s poetry as well as a good biography about him. A book that leads to more books. That is proof right there how good The Archivist is.
This is terrible but I hardly remember anything about this book. Although it has been a long time since I read it. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it and I think it’s great too when one book leads you to another! If you do end up reading some T.S. Eliot you’ll have to share.
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Iliana, Books do have a tendency to slip from our memory after a long time! Of course I will share if I end up reading Eliot! π
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I’ve heard of this and have often thought I’d like to read it so am really pleased to see your review of it. It sounds really intriguing. Love stories about research and how they set off thoughts and actions in characters’ lives (like Byatt’s Possession)!
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I had not heard of this novel and I will look it up as it sounds very interesting – a history focused novel of ideas. I wonder if the author suceeds in preventing the novel work as fiction in that it seems to depend a lot on her research? The Romola problem – and that is a novel I must read one of these days!
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I hope she didn’t prevent the novel working as fiction – sorry!
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Ian, Don’t you wish you could edit a comment after hitting that post button sometimes? I often find myself wishing that! The book totally works as fiction in spite of all the research. Eliot is always present but more like the grease that keeps the wheels spinning rather than directly in the foreground. In other words, I didn’t find the research to be intrusive. It could be argued the book is really about religion and religious conversion, faith and what it calls us to be responsible for and Eliot serves as a catalyst.
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whisperinggums, I think you might like this for many reasons not just because of your archivist background π I enjoy stories about research that set off thoughts and actions in characters too. Possession was fantastic! This isn’t quite that caliber but it is a good solid novel nonetheless.
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I shall add it to the growing list!
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This sounds very interesting AND as you say very complex. (which equals very difficult to review! LOL) But stimulating to read.
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rhapsody, I do love complex books but writing about them can be so difficult!
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Initially, I thought this was going to be a book like ‘Possession’ but although I can see that it might work in a somewhat similar fashion it obviously has a darker purpose behind it. I’m not sure this is one for the Summer reading list, but I’ll keep an eye out for it and perhaps recommend it to my god daughter who has just turned twenty.
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Alex, there are some similarities to Possession but it is definitely a darker story. It isn’t depressing though. I wouldn’t call it a happy ending but it does end on a positive note.
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What a great review. You’ve made the book sound very appealing to me — especially since my profession is archivist, after all! The greater proportion of my life is spent entirely in what might as well be one giant file cabinet [at work].
I wonder if you have ever read Jose Saramago’s novel All The Names, which is also about an archivist? It’s such a great book.
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Cipriano, thanks! Well then you archivist, you, I think you might very much like this book. I have not read All the Names but I am moving it up my reading list for sure now!
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I thought I’d read a book by that name, but this doesn’t ring a bell at all, or maybe it was The Anthologist. What you’ve described is a most intriguing and multi-layered story(ies) of high complexity and meaning. I don’t see how it can be classified as YA. This sounds like a very mature and thought-provoking book. I’d be interested to read it. Time would be the major obstacle though. π
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Arti, it is a wonderfully multi-layered story. I suspect you might enjoy it should you ever have the chance to read it.
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Definitely going on the list! Novels with letters and manuscripts always appeal, but I love Eliot’s poetry–from The Wasteland to Cats–so a lovely additional draw.
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Jenclair, oh well, then you will enjoy all the lines from Eliot that get woven in and you can play a game of trying to guess which poem they are from π
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This sounds so familiar–I think I might own a copy somewhere, but have obviously never gotten around to reading it. It sounds really good–I like books that have layers of stories like this one. Will have to keep my eyes open for it when I am sifting through my books next time (I usually find books I am not looking for–when I am looking for something else–if that makes sense!).
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Danielle, if you own a copy when it turns up know that it’s a good one and don’t let slip back away again! I am always finding books I wasn’t looking for when I go searching for something in particular on my shelves π
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This sounds very interesting indeed. I do appreciate the way historical or biographical fact is woven into novels these days – it’s an intriguing trend. And I know nothing, but nothing about T. S. Eliot. Oh dear, another on the list! π
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Litlove, I found it really interesting how Cooley wove the historical and biographical together. I know she took liberties with some of the facts around the Emily Hale letters but it all made for a pretty good story.
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