Tämä sivusto käyttää evästeitä palvelujen toimittamiseen, toiminnan parantamiseen, analytiikkaan ja (jos et ole kirjautunut sisään) mainostamiseen. Käyttämällä LibraryThingiä ilmaiset, että olet lukenut ja ymmärtänyt käyttöehdot ja yksityisyydensuojakäytännöt. Sivujen ja palveluiden käytön tulee olla näiden ehtojen ja käytäntöjen mukaista.
"An intellectual and emotional jigsaw puzzle of a novel for readers of A.S. Byatt's Possession and Geraldine Brooks's People of the Book Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, anemigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. As the novel opens, Helen has been summoned by a former student to view a cache of seventeenth-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation. Enlisting the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and in a race with another fast-moving team of historians, Helen embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive"Aleph."Electrifying and ambitious, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Weight of Ink is a sophisticated work of historical fiction about women separated by centuries, and the choices and sacrifices they must makein order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind"--… (lisätietoja)
susanbooks: Someone with Aaron's personality & knowledge of his field (really lack of knowledge --c'mon, the guy has no idea how to read a sonnet & they're supposed to be his dissertation topic) is much more likely to be like the PhD student in Eventide.
Eventide is the Long Scandinavian Night of the Soul to the Romance/Fantasy that is Weight of Ink… (lisätietoja)
This excellent historical fiction novel is filled with fascinating tidbits. Like, the prophecy that Jews have to be present in all parts of the world before the messiah comes. Or a lost tribe of Jews had been found in Brazil. A bit overwritten with lines like “every molecule in her was alive, aligned, iron filings to a magnet” or “the world was a geography of hidden places”. I was getting dizzy following all the different story lines. The plot follows two researchers that have found literary artifacts from the early 1600’s relating to London Jews. This discovery was initially found by owners of a four-hundred-year old house, Bridgette and Ian. So, we have the complicated background stories of the researchers Aaron and Helen. We are also following characters in the London of the 1600’s. Ester is a scribe to a blind rabbi who is using an assumed name to write letters to expelled Jewish heretic Spinoza! I expected more a of clear-cut definition of why Spinoza was considered a heretic. Ester proved that there was no God who could treasure martyrdom which meant that the mother of the rabbi she worked for died in vain. She had been tortured during the Spanish inquisition. What the writer came up with was unsatisfying. I longed for a logical connection between Aaron and Helen versus Ester’s story. Still this was an illuminating novel dealing with Jews in London during this period. ( )
3.5 ⭐️ Excellently written historical fiction. I loved the backdrop for this story and a few of the main characters. It did seem a bit long, but I love a good historical “mystery” that takes a while to figure out. I especially love reading historical fiction with two story lines, one in the historical time period and one in the modern period. It’s fun to discover what happened right along with the main characters. ( )
A weighty read that was a slog at times, fascinating at times , and at other times just a good mystery. There are weighty themes in this novel dealing with women’s intelligence in 1660s(Ester Velasquez) and today( Professor Helen Watts.) Jewish women in history is a theme. One part I really enjoyed was the parts about the preservation of the unearthed 16th century documents and the handling of them. There is also a sweet little mystery to be solved involving Shakespeare, Ester as a scribe disguised as a man and if Helen Watt and her grad student Aaron will find her story before another research team or before Helen’s Parkinson’s disease make her unable to continue. Still, it’s an awfully long book and I did skip parts where Ester labors intellectually . ( )
Not my kind of novel. I can tell that it was written with care and expertise. There were a lot of interesting things about it, especially the history. But oh lord it was so long. So very very very very very long. ( )
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
June 8, 1691 II Sivan of the Hebrew year 5451 Richmond, Surrey
Let me begin afresh. Perhaps, this time, to tell the truth. For in the biting hush of ink on paper, where truth ought raise its head and speak without fear, I have long lied. I have naught to defend my actions. Yet though my heart feels no remorse, my deeds would confess themselves to paper now, as the least of tributes to him whom I once betrayed. In this silenced house, quill and ink do not resist the press of my hand, and paper does not flinch. Let these pages compass, at last, the truth, though none read them.
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
Omistuskirjoitus
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
For Talia and Jacob
Ensimmäiset sanat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
November 2, 2000 London
She sat at her desk.
Sitaatit
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
Helen Watts, sixty-four years old. Guardian of well-worn opinions and disappointments. The paths of her mind like the treads of an old staircase, concave from the passage of long-gone feet. (p. 21)
She picked up the quill, stained with ink, and dipped it. The thought came to her, unwelcome: ink purchased with blood. The price of her freedom. (p. 86)
Shutting her eyes, letting the crowd steer her, she saw behind closed lids the books that awaited her. An ecstasy of ink, every paragraph laboring to outline the shape of the world. The yellow light of a lamp on leaves of paper, the ivory-black impress of words reasoning, line by line. (p. 134)
Only that's what the world was: a trap. The circumstances you were born to, the situations you found yourself in -- to dodge that fray was impossible. And what you did within it was your life. (p. 547)
Viimeiset sanat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
"An intellectual and emotional jigsaw puzzle of a novel for readers of A.S. Byatt's Possession and Geraldine Brooks's People of the Book Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, anemigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. As the novel opens, Helen has been summoned by a former student to view a cache of seventeenth-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation. Enlisting the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and in a race with another fast-moving team of historians, Helen embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive"Aleph."Electrifying and ambitious, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Weight of Ink is a sophisticated work of historical fiction about women separated by centuries, and the choices and sacrifices they must makein order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind"--
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Google Books — Ladataan...
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The plot follows two researchers that have found literary artifacts from the early 1600’s relating to London Jews. This discovery was initially found by owners of a four-hundred-year old house, Bridgette and Ian. So, we have the complicated background stories of the researchers Aaron and Helen. We are also following characters in the London of the 1600’s. Ester is a scribe to a blind rabbi who is using an assumed name to write letters to expelled Jewish heretic Spinoza!
I expected more a of clear-cut definition of why Spinoza was considered a heretic. Ester proved that there was no God who could treasure martyrdom which meant that the mother of the rabbi she worked for died in vain. She had been tortured during the Spanish inquisition. What the writer came up with was unsatisfying.
I longed for a logical connection between Aaron and Helen versus Ester’s story. Still this was an illuminating novel dealing with Jews in London during this period. (