Martha Cooley

I did not know what to expect from the novel, but certainly nothing as emotionally charged and reflective as it was! Quiet Matt is a terrific foil to his two fiery women, Judith and Roberta, as both struggle in their own ways with their identities and their religion's meaning. I found it was a very human and astute way to look at how religion (in this case Judaism and Christianity) shape world views and sensitivities.
Judith's slow descent into insanity, as she starts to feel the world too show more much, absorbed by it and its cruelty, is mesmerizing and believable.
It was a bit of a tough read for me (I was looking for something lighter) but I did not regret my efforts. show less

This many-leveled novel is hard to put down. Matthias is an archivist at a university library where among the treasures he is responsible for are letters from T. S. Eliot to an American woman with whom he (Eliot) was very close. Matthias is a widower whose wife, Judith, suffered from mental illness which may, in part, have come from her difficult childhood. The story begins with Matthias' story then moves to Judith's journal which forms the middle of the book. We also meet Roberta, a show more graduate student who comes into Matthias' life because she wants desperately to read the Eliot letters (which cannot released until 2020) because she is struggling with her recently discovered jewish background and wants to see how he dealt with religious conversion. Judith also struggled with her jewish heritage particularly in relation to the holocaust. The author manages to weld these themes of love, mental illness, and holocaust into a seamless whole which is challenging and delightful. show less

I finished this book a week or so ago but I wanted to mull it around a bit before I wrote about it. The Archivist was a profoundly moving novel. I was not aware until I began it of the role the Holocaust plays. It seems I cannot escape this lately.

The Archivist is the story of an archivist (duh), a scholar and a ghost. Both the scholar and the ghost are poets and have a strong interest in the work of T. S. Eliot. Eliot's poems are used throughout the book to poignant effect. The ghost is the show more late wife of the archivist, Matthias. Judith had killed herself twenty years prior to the opening of the novel. Judith was a poet and Jewish. Much of the book is set in the period immediately after the close of WWII. Judith is profoundly affected by the information regarding the Final Solution which appeared after the war ended. This seems to be the catalyst for her breakdown and suicide.

In the present day Matthias meets Roberta, a poet and scholar who wants access to the Emily Hale letters from T. S. Eliot which are in his keeping. The collection is closed until 2019 or 2020 (I did some research and both dates crop up). Roberta has only recently become aware that she is Jewish and the shock has unnerved her a bit. There are obvious parallels between Roberta and Judith and Matthias acts out of character in many ways given his relationship with Roberta.

The entire middle section of the book is the diary Judith kept while in a mental institution prior to her death. This book ultimately comes into the hands of her husband. Thus he is an archivist in many senses of the word. Prior to her incarceration, Judith had amassed a file of articles on the Holocaust which she became increasingly obsessed with. Despite the fact that she was not directly affected by the Final Solution, Judith feels she must be a witness. Judith was an archivist as well.

Here is where the book becomes very profound for me. Perhaps my lifelong obsession with the Holocaust is that I feel the need to be a witness as well. We all know there are those still who deny this even happened. The people who were eyewitnesses are dying and will soon be gone. This particular act of horror should never be forgotten. It remains to this day the worst evil perpetrated against humanity in terms of its vast, impersonal organization. We forget or ignore it at our peril. And we do not need to be Jewish (however you define that) to bear witness. 'No man is an island' whether Jewish or otherwise. show less

Matthias Lane, a reclusive widower in his 60's, is an archivist at a university library. The jewel of his collection is a set of letters that T. S. Eliot wrote to his friend Emily Hale over a 20-year period -- letters that Hale bequeathed to the library, provided that they be kept sealed until the year 2020. This is his story and that of his wife and family. Although The Archivist takes place on an intimate stage -- no more than two or three characters are typically present in a scene -- the show more narrative poses large questions. Should art and religion seek to console us for the world's evils or to sharpen our awareness of them? Where do we draw the line between our obligation to remember a terrible past and our desire to rid ourselves of its burdens? Once one has become aware of the existence of radical evil, how should one conduct one's life?
Most of the novel is narrated by Matthias, and with utter persuasiveness Cooley captures his cautious, scrupulous, restrained and intelligent voice. This is a brilliantly imagined tale of an archivist whose interest in T. S. Eliot and her family's history dovetail into a sad but fascinating story. Some of the best writing about mental issues that I have ever read. show less