Martha Cooley Libri

Matthias Lane, archivista in una grande biblioteca di Washington, appartiene a quella piccola e sparsa comunità di persone destinate a trovare nella lettura dei libri un motivo di totale dedizione. Il gioiello della sua collezione sono le lettere che T.S. Eliot scrisse a un'amica americana nell'arco di vent'anni. Quando una giovane studentessa chiede di vederle, Matthias capisce che vi sono ragioni profonde che la spingono a quella lettura e lo stesso vale per lui. Vi è infatti una specularità tra l'esistenza del grande poeta e quella dell'archivista: entrambi non sono stati capaci di offrire amore.

Matthias is a man of orderly ways, a librarian whose life rarely strays from its narrow channels. At the library where he works is an archive of letters from the poet T.S. Eliot to an American woman, written during the years Eliot was undertaking "Four Quartets" and wrestling with problems of marriage and of faith. When a young poet comes to the library wanting to see the letters she unsettles Matthias's composure and brings back long-buried memories of a disastrous relationship years earlier. Matthias' marriage to Judith in the years following World War II forms the core of this novel. Despite their differences -- Judith is unruly, an artist -- their shared love of poetry and jazz at first lends strength to their bond. But their good intentions cannot bridge their essential divergences. A growing alienation is complicated by Judith's increasingly erratic behavior, which culminates in a severe breakdown and her incarceration in a mental hospital. Judith's own voice, in the form of a journal she kept in the hospital, is the transfixing middle passage of this novel.

Der Archivar Matthias Lane lebt nur für seine alten Handschriften und Bücher, bis eines Tages die junge Roberta Spire in sein Leben tritt und Einsicht in die wertvollen Briefe des großen amerikanischen Schriftstellers T. S. Eliot verlangt ...§Roberta ist ihrer eigenen Vergangenheit auf der Spur, denn ihre Eltern waren im Zweiten Weltkrieg von Deutschland nach Amerika emigriert und hatten ihren jüdischen Glauben derart radikal verleugnet, daß bis vor kurzem nicht einmal ihre Tochter davon wußte. Das Geheimnis ihrer Identität zieht auch Matthias in seinen Bann.§Ein Roman über eine ungewöhnliche Beziehung, über die Tiefen und Abgründe von Freundschaft und Vertrauen, die Suche nach Wahrhaftigkeit - vor allem aber über die Liebe zur Literatur.