Well, this is not one of those books. It isn't crap exactly. But the premise IS pretty silly: lonely 30-ish librarian falls in love with a teenager who happens to have a medical condition that makes him a giant and local celebrity, and destined for an early grave. The writing isn't bad. The story is just so tightly wrought, which is also what makes it so terribly BORING. You can almost feel McCracken hovering over every word, standing behind your shoulder, explaining why she chose each and every verb and adjective. It is so exacting, so precise. She spends such care and dignity getting things "just right" she neglected to entertain us at all.
So why, exactly, does it not get my "crap" rating? I don't understand the "National Book Award Finalist" bit, but I've long stopped figuring out how or why certain authors get nominated for these things, unless of course they are chosen by a committee of information professionals. Because she absolutely and totally NAILS the mindset of most librarians. Being a librarian for a few decades herself, McCracken is a bit of an authority in this matter, and it shows.
So, in other words, if you have no interest in the lives of librarians don't even bother picking up this book. Unless, of course, you have a thing for teenage giants who like to read and perform magic tricks.
I've picked out the best bits for you. If you are a librarian, know a librarian, love a librarian...well...read on, for some eerily accurate peeks into the bibliophile brain and heart:
“I am a librarian, and you cannot stop me from annotating,
revising, updating. I like to think that
–because I am a librarian-I offer accurate and spurious advice with no
judgement, good and bad next to each other on the shelf. But my memories are not books. Blessing if they were.”
“Some women become librarians because they love order; I’m
one. Ordinal, cardinal, alphabetical,
alphanumerical, geographical, by subject, by colour, by shape, by size. Something logical that people –one hopes-
cannot botch, although they will.”
“Librarian (like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant,
Used Car Salesman) is one of those occupations that people assume attract a
certain deformed personality. Librarians
are supposed to be bitter spinsters: grudging, lonely. And above all stingy: we love our fine money,
our silence.
I did not
love fine money: I forgave much more than I collected. I did not shush people unless they
yelled. And though I was technically a
spinster, I was bitter only insofar as people made me. It isn’t that bitter people become
librarians; it’s that being a librarian may turn the most giving person
bitter. We are paid all day to be
generous, and no one recognises our generosity.”
“Despite popular theories, I believe people fall in love based
not on good looks or fate but on knowledge.
Either they are amazed by something a beloved knows that they themselves
do not know; or they discover common rare knowledge; or they can supply
knowledge to someone who’s lacking.
Hasn’t anyone found a strange ignorance in someone
beguiling?...Nowadays, trendy librarians, wanting to be important, say,
Knowledge is power. I know better. Knowledge
is love.”
“People think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative. This is not true. We are people whose dreams run in particular
ways…The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me
with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.”
“Books are a bad family – there are those you love, and
those you are indifferent to; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish
except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and
dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren and endless brothers-in-law simply
taking up space who you wish you could send straight to hell. Except you can’t, for the most part. You must house them and make them comfortable
and worry about them when they go on trips and there is never enough room.”
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