Read: September 2011
Jane bought us this book after we raved about enjoying The Historian. Both books do the job really well of balancing story with semi-academic historical research.
The protagonist of the book is a book restorer and as she examines and restores this old text she tries to unravel the clues hidden between the pages – an insect wing here, a staining there. Using her knowledge, contacts and a bit of science she is able to get close to the history behind the book – a place and a time and some background – but the novel then diverges and you get a chapter showing the detail of the true story that this book went through to get to its current home.
I liked how the book progressed with the two stories side-by-side and that the book was gradually going back in time, not forward, rather like Memento. The science and research side of the book interested me and didn’t weigh the book down at all, but meant that each story was well led into.What I really liked was the detail descriptions given of the book – in some ways I wanted to see an illustration or example of a kabbalah, but at the same time it was nice to create my own image of the book and its detail.
What I didn’t expect was the protagonists story to have so many layers to it. The relationship she has with her mother is key to her life and personality and I didn’t expect this to be explored in so much detail – rather the focus to be on the text and the characters around it. It was a really interesting story in itself as the mother and daughter confronted each other.
The way that the narrative of the book worked too, meant that you could explore many different time periods and places as the book travelled on its journey.
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