The Archivist

I'm participating in a twenty-four hour read-a-thon. I chose this as my first read (or half-read, as I was already up to page 175 when I started the read-a-thon).

Thoughts about the book: This book reminds me in many ways of one of my all-time favorite reads, Possession. The novel has several storylines: Matt and Judith, Roberta and her boyfriend, Roberta's parents, Judith's parents, and Eliot and his wife and Emily Hale.

As a librarian, I was intrigued with the idea of saving or not saving written work. In some fashion, Matt blamed Judith's fall into insanity on his destruction of her survivor files and her poems. Judith had relied on Matt to keep these, but he felt their presence was exacerbating her illness. The saving of Eliot's letters to Emily went against Eliot's wishes, and the novel concludes with Matt's thoughtful destruction of the letters.

The other theme of the book was Judaism vs. Christianity. All the characters of the novel wrestled with religion. Several converted from Judaism to Christianity. Christianity was a refuge for those who had suffered as Jews. However, it caused great suffering for those who later learned of the conversions.

I've had this book for over three and a half years. I'm happy to have finished it.