Started out engrossing. Lost me for the entire middle as story shifted to diary entries of the mad wife. I wanted to see how it ended and was very disappointed by the end in which the archivist destroys TS Elliot’s letters to his long time mistress. The story did not coherently lay out the case for the reason in the act. His entire mea culpa regarding his wife was that he was incapable of bearing witness to truth (the horrors of wwii) Or at least to stay firm next to her while she at least faced the truth. So the culmination of the novel is to destroy personal letters? To decide what is whose business? As if it fucking matters 100 years after everyone is dead? If this is true, what is the point of archives? Who draws the line on art or records and none of your business? Would he destroy hitlers love letters? Why not? Stupid novel. Too long.

I am too young, too gentile, and too unfamiliar with TS Eliot to understand even half of what is discussed in the wife's portion of this book. And I don't know what the heck the deal is with the archivist and the grad student who are somewhere in limbo waiting for their story to continue. The thing is,I absolutely don't care about any of them. And I have given up trying to care about whatever grand statement the author might be trying to make.

I can't even say I've "lost interest" because I never had any, so I'm shelving this as "Hated it." And that's kinda true because I am so pissed off I persevered for 187 pages trying to get to the dazzling book described in blurbs on the dust jacket. ( )

Set mostly in the 1960s, this is a story of three people: Matthias Lane, an archivist at a prominent northeastern US university, Judith Lane, wife of Matthias, confined to a mental institution, and Roberta Spire, a graduate student working temporarily at the archives. The archive contains a collection of letters written by TS Eliot to his paramour, Emily Hale, while his wife, Vivienne, resided in a sanitarium. Hale has donated the letters to the archive. Roberta asks to see the letters, but they are to be kept private until the year 2020 (which was well into the future when the book was published, in 1998).

This is a character driven novel focused on relationships between detached men and depressed women. Matthias forms the focal point for the convergence of three storylines, all with interrelated pieces and parts, leading up to a personal revelation. The poetry of TS Eliot is used sporadically throughout the novel to illustrate key points. Each of the main characters has unresolved personal conflicts related to identity, accountability, guilt, relationships, and religion. I had one issue with an action that seems out of character for an archivist. I appreciated the delicate hand of the author and found it easy to become immersed in the story.
( )

An extraordinary novel including references to real people. It is about the
archivist at a university library to which T S Eliot's late mistress has
given all her letters from him, not to be opened for 20 years. Great ethical
question as to whether this prohibition should be observed, a researcher is
keen to read them. In fact the mistress, Emily Hale, really lived and did
indeed donate the letters to Princeton Un Lib, with that prohibition. But
the novel does give a fate for these letters - really strange. ( )

Pretty solid "meh" from me. ( )