The Weight of Ink

The greatest curse, he thought, was to be stuck in one's own time, and the greatest power was to see beyond its horizons.

This was....a book. It's an ambitious project involving two very separate time periods: Ester in 1660s London, and Helen and Aaron in the present day uncovering historical documents she scribed for a rabbi and her own documents she penned later on. The book flips between the two time periods, mostly using Ester's letters and documents as transition pieces. As you read about Helen and Aaron trying to secure the historical documents for their own review and notoriety against the college they work for, you also get Ester's story of being a woman with educational aspirations in a period where that was unnatural.

I approached this book with very little knowledge of the subject of the Jewish community in London, and a basic working knowledge of London history during the time period. I left the book with....not a whole lot more. The book appears to be well researched, but not a lot in the way of context or explanation is provided for the historical sections. I did some research on the side, but most of the characters mentioned in London were fictional (as is noted in the notes at the end of the book). I found myself getting a bit lost in some parts concerning very specific Jewish culture and history concepts, and I feel like the author had ample opportunity to provide some context (particularly in the present day parts) but didn't.

I also felt like the book was just...too much. At north of 600 pages, the book is very wordy for the stories that were told and could have used a bit of an edit. Both 1660s Ester and present day Helen/Aaron's stories are relatively complex (certainly much more than, “and here's what the next letter has to say”), and because of that it feels like neither story was handled with care, and the ending(s) felt rushed. The writing style is extremely wordy, full of metaphors and flowery language that sort of hid the story's thread in parts rather than enhanced it.

I found it a difficult read, and a lengthy one as well. The concept of uncovering documents and reading about a woman scribe in the 1660s was appealing, but I think the execution fell a little flat for me.

Two interwoven story lines several hundred years apart, one about the intellectual and personal journey of a young Jewess who serves as a scribe to a blind rabbi at a time when women were not permitted entry into the realm of the mind, the other about an elder historian, suffering from Parkinson's, who works with and barely suffers a graduate student to untangle the mysteries of centuries old papers found in a cupboard, which give insights into the
Jewish community of London in the mid 1600s. There is much to appreciate in this novel, particularly in the history of the scribe Ester Velazquez and her trials but also in the delicate treatment of the aging historian and the challenges women face in the competitive largely male world of scholarly pursuits and publishing. If I have any qualms about the book, it is that the long-windedness of many descriptive passages does the novel a disservice and makes it more difficult to enter—shortening it by 20% would make it much crisper while losing neither substance nor flavor. I would recommend it especially for its journey into an under-explored community.