Bibliotheek van de misleiding

by Allen Kurzweil, J.J. de Wit (Translator)

In Bibliotheek van de misleiding wordt de lezer meegenomen in een wereld van bibliotheken, kaartenbakken, antiek, diefstal en intrige. Het is een literaire en spannende roman die met de precisie van een horlogemaker is geschreven. Na driehonderdzestig pagina's is het verhaal letterlijk en figuurlijk rond.
Alexander Short, een stijlvolle bibliothecaris met archaïsche interesses, wordt ingehuurd voor onderzoek door een schatrijke bibliofiel Henry James Jesson III. Zijn opdracht: het completeren van een verzameling antieke voorwerpen die het leven van een mysterieuze, achttiende-eeuwse uitvinder beschrijven. Terwijl het onderzoek vordert, ontdekt Alexander dat Jesson nog meer geheimen in petto heeft.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Books About Books, Novels, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Roman

365 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

Allen Kurzweil is an American novelist, journalist, editor, and lecturer. He is the author of four works of fiction, most notably A Case of Curiosities, as well as a memoir Whipping Boy. He is also the co-inventor, with his son Max, of Potato Chip Science, an eco-friendly experiment kit for grade schoolers. He is a cousin of Ray Kurzweil and brother of Vivien Schmidt.

Reviews

[Shalyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a sucker of fiction in which a main character is a librarian -- that's how I ended up with this book.

The story sounded promising: a librarian who does research independently as a side job takes on the task of figuring out the meaning behind a collection of items that belonged to an 18th Century inventor for a wealthy (how convenient), eccentric client who is a bit of a mystery himself. There's also a kind of anti-love story goin on, and while parts of it are interesting, basically what's happening is that our hero-librarian's marriage is falling apart.

It is because of those passages in which he whines about his wife that I give this book low rating. Frequently, I felt he was bringing the demise of marriage on himself anyway. The bad-marriage subplot didn't really add anything to the overall story for me, and it had the added disadvantage of making the protagonist annoying and unlikeable.

I have not read the author's previous work. Since this story supposedly builds on a previous novel (A Case of Curiosities), perhaps that would have made a difference in my appreciation of the bad-marriage subplot.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I told you how little time I've spent thinking about the ins-and-outs of librarianship since I left the profession seven years ago, you'd probably be amazed. Large research libraries are like their own little worlds, all-absorbing when you are inside of them and yet easily forgotten the moment you leave the gates. Well, this book brought it all back to me. Although some references seemed a little dated, even for 2001 when this book was published, it was obvious that Kurzweil has spent a lot of time in the back rooms of libraries. He knows all the inside jokes.

I also loved the bibliomystery part of this book. It's hard for an author to concoct a puzzle that's neither too easily guessed nor too confusing to follow. Kurzweil has done an admirable job with this as well.

What I didn't like about this book is the depiction of the narrator's personal relationships. I was especially dissatisfied with Alexander's relationship with his wife. It's entirely believable that he as a character doesn't understand women and how they tick, but I didn't get the feeling that Kurzweil understands them, either. Nic doesn't seem like any woman I've ever met in my life, and I wonder if he made her French in an attempt to mask the woodenness of her character. Alexander's relationships with his male coworkers and his partner in sleuthing were slightly better but still seemed quite shallow and revealed very little about human nature. It seems that Kurzweil understands books a lot better than he does people. This isn't so unusual in a librarian, but it's a regrettable defect in a novelist, and it's what makes this book good instead of great.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The basic plot seems simple enough: a rich older gentleman hires a research librarian to help him track down an object that once resided in a compartmentalized case (in fact, the case is the eponymous Case of Curiosities from Kurzweil’s first novel). The search, its results, and its aftermath form the framework of the book. But hidden within this seemingly bland framework is a story as wonderfully complex as an Escher print: characters are not who they seem to be; motivations are called into question; and vital bits of information dance just out of our reach.

Kurzweil is a powerfully evocative writer. His scenes in the research library make you feel like you can reach out and touch the books (and oh! such books: Secret Compartments in Eighteenth-Century Furniture, The Universal Penman, Hints on Husband Catching, or A Manual for Marriageable Misses—and that’s just from the first 30 pages). Jesson’s home is described in all of its opulent splendor, with special attention given to yards of books and the shelving thereof (are you sensing a pattern?). Thankfully, even non-book-oriented places are described well.
When an author is this attentive to setting, character can sometimes be lost. But Kurzweil sidesteps this trap neatly, giving us a cast of exuberantly eccentric characters who nonetheless manage to ring true. Everyone from the petty research library bureaucrats to the narrator’s tempestuous girlfriend is limned with just enough detail to make their various eccentricities believable.

The Grand Complication is a Chinese treasure-box of a novel—just when you’re certain you know what’s going on, you find another hidden compartment with new information in it. The writing is beautiful, the plot is compelling, and the characters are a joy to spend time with. Stop listening to me natter on about it and pick it up for yourself. I think you’ll enjoy the read.

[Eugene · Rating 2 out of 5]

to be honest, i don't remember much from this book... except that it's about librarians... and has this really great scene where library workers are playing this annual game, maybe it's a holiday game?, in the basement of i think it's the NYPL humanities research library... and the game is who can come up with the most accurate dewey number for a book. i so geeked out over that one...

[Tabi · Rating 2 out of 5]

An OK mystery, an OK book overall, I feel like the end unraveled a bit, and I ended up enjoying the story mostly for the library/book puns and jokes.

[Noella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik vond dit een goed boek. Een man die in een bibliotheek werkt, wordt door een klant gevraagd om privé voor hem wat opzoekingswerk te doen. Nadat hij hoort waarover het gaat, is hij gefascineerd en begint aan zijn speurtocht. Dit brengt spanningen teweeg in zijn huwelijk, dat toch al in moeilijkheden verkeerde. Hij laat zich echter meer en meer meeslepen door zijn onderzoek, tot hij ontdekt dat zijn 'vriend' misbruik van hem maakt. Samen met zijn vrouw en enkele vrienden besluit hij het hem betaald te zetten.

Dit boek is vooral psychologisch interessant.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another mystery book that took me about 5 weeks to read, I don't know what is wrong with me. By the end I enjoyed it so for the rating (I don't know why every book needs a personal rating) I'm really on the fence between a three and a four.
I picked a three because of the amount of time it took me to get into it. It about a librarian that gets commisioned by a rich individual to solve an artifact mystery. Because I'm a librarian some of the attempted dewey humor came off as lame or grating at first. I kind of wonder if people in the medical field like Robin Cook mysteries or forensic morticians like Patricia Cornwell. Some of it did interest me, and i think this was written in the late nineties, and is a testement on how different our profession is in such a short time. I also gave it a three because I'm not sure if I would have finished it if it was not suggested to me.
Here are the positives, and a cool coincidence. A tattoo plays an important role in this story, and with some of my male librarian friends, we have a running joke about getting library theme tattoos. I have no tattoos so far, but these are my dream tattoos. I want the dewey number 364.1523 tattooed on my neck, maybe right where a shirt collar would cover it but where it would be exposed wearing a t-shirt. My other one would be the library system I work for followed by the words 'for life' on my chest. 'So it would by ________ library for life' That is my dream. Other positives about this book is a lot of literary references and new york scenes, and some of the humor is funny.
So I recommend this to librarians who like mysteries.
-Matt

[Arielle Masters · Rating 1 out of 5]

Will say up front that I didn't realize this was a followon to a previous novel. I have not read anything else by this author AFAIK.

This book had interesting ideas and a premise that drew me in - fantastic carpentry with hidden compartments! An amazingly engineered watch! Lots of old books! - but I found it to be ludicrous and pretentious in its execution. It started out well - I love books and libraries - but quickly turned into a farce. A contemporary urban fantasy for men with obsessive-compulsive habits, predilections for odd collectibles, and a yearning for the past? One might even call it a contemporary gay unfulfilled romance - the older guy seemed to have a thing for the main character.

Thought the characters were over-the-top ridiculous. Too exaggerated and weird and obsessed with overly odd things. Too many weird little hiding places and contrived setups.

Was surprised to find that the book was based on the actual theft of an actual watch - the whole story was so ludicrous that I assumed the author had made that up as well. From others' reviews, I hear the real watch was recovered a few years after the book was written; I look forward to reading that story.

My favorite part was the library competition. My favorite character was the janitor, with his insta-knowledge of Dewey numbers for all sorts of weird things.

[Adrienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil was a mixed bag. Alexander Short is a librarian working at a large public library in New York City. One day, while working at the reference desk, he is approached by a man who wants “to steal a moment of his time” and requests a book about secret compartments in old furniture, a topic Alexander is furiously interested in. The two, Short and the patron, Henry Jesson, embark on a quest to find a lost watch to complete Jesson’s collection. The journey is interesting, but neither Jesson nor Short is particularly likeable (the best character is actually the library janitor, who has an incredible knowledge of Dewey class numbers) which made me very sad. I really wanted to like Short the librarian. The story itself also ends abruptly and not completely satisfactorily, either, and while there is a possibility for the characters to return in another book, I think it highly unlikely that they will. I found the book to be a maddening mix of disdain for modern living (including some modern library practices) and appreciation for old-timey stuff.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, as good as A Case of Curiosities was, it only heightened the dissappointment of The Grand Complicatioon. Trying very hard to be Richard Powers or Paul Auster was not the way to go here. The tone of the first book is completely missing. I love historical novels, and the sense of time and place in A Case of Curiosities was captivating, but totally lacking here. Too much twee nonsense about library nerds, boolean search strings and art heists. None of the characters seemed the least bit real or interesting and the action was largely preposterous.

[Johanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a 2.5. I wanted to know what happened, but I really disliked the narrator/protagonist.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the publishing industry is any guide (and, of course, it's not), expect to see a new line of librarian action figures under the tree this Christmas. Kids will clamor for Marian(TM), armed with her stubby, eraserless pencil. She vanquishes foes with a single "Shhhh."

For the second time this year, the dusty souls who read newspaper book sections are being rewarded with a high-adventure novel about an intrepid librarian. (You heard it here first: Tom Cruise will star in a new thriller called "Mission Impossible: 312.594.232.")

In March, Ross King published "Ex-Libris," a wildly complex novel about a 17th-century bookworm risking his life to find a missing text.

Now, Allen Kurzweil has set a rollicking, witty suspense tale in the New York Public Library. The hero of "The Grand Complication" is a strange reference librarian named Alexander Short, a comic hybrid of Sigmund Freud and Edgar Allan Poe.

By profession and temperament, he's a compulsive cataloger. He always wears a little notebook "girdled" to his waist for making lists of everything around him in secret code. When he's feeling anxious, he retreats to a small cage in his apartment to organize his ever-growing collection of call slips.

This behavior hardly sets him apart from the other weird shelvers, restorers, researchers, and petty dictators who keep New York's great repository running smoothly, despite their comically bizarre conflicts. (There's an acrimonious battle over proper use of cellophane tape.) With this novel, Kurzweil has so much fun in the library that he's sure to lose his checkout privileges.

Alexander's adventure begins when a gracious old man asks him to find a book called "Secret Compartments in Eighteenth-Century Furniture." For Alexander, it's an irresistible encounter. He, too, has an interest in secret compartments. He's entranced by the old man's handwriting, "executed with confident ascenders and tapering exit strokes." And he's captivated by the man's "improbably literary name: Henry James Jesson III."

With his typically arched tone, Alexander notes that "in the vocabulary of the library cataloger, Jesson was infuriatingly N.E.C. (Not Elsewhere Classified)." But the old man has no trouble enticing Alexander to his town house filled with antiques and odd contraptions. He rejects modern conveniences like phones, television, fluorescent lights, and any cheese wrapped in plastic.

At the center of Jesson's collection is a wooden cabinet subdivided into 10 compartments. (Alexander immediately notes, "Dewey created a method by which the whole universe could be enclosed in ten distinct classes.") The contents include a fingertip, a jar of murky liquid, a withered vegetable, and an old doll. Alexander learns that "each item preserved in the case marked a singular moment in the life of an anonymous 18th-century inventor."

But one of the compartments is empty. Alexander's assignment, should he wish to accept it, is to find the missing object and complete the cabinet collection. In less time than it takes to open the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Alexander is spying, disguising, and stealing his way toward the Grand Complication, the world's most complicated watch, a Breguet made for Marie Antoinette. (The watch's existence and its theft in 1983 are details drawn from history.)

As Alexander confesses, people are "a resource my profession sometimes neglects." And no one feels the brunt of that neglect harder than his frustrated French wife, Nic, a maker of erotic pop-up books. Though Alexander is driven by "abecedarian lust," he has little interest in marital relations. As she alternately complains and entices, he's revolted by "Nic's relentless subversion of order."

"Irritation kicked in again when I saw the sink," he writes. "It was so filled with dishes it resembled a library book drop at the end of a long weekend. And the recyclables! Their consolidation showed a total disregard for the nuances of plastic."

As conflicts at home and work reach a breaking point, Alexander begins to realize that he can't judge Mr. Jesson by his cover. In the tradition of "Sleuth," the story winds back on itself ingeniously. The labyrinthine world of library research was never this entertaining in college.

The publisher had fun with this book, too. Theia, a new imprint from Hyperion, has cleverly accommodated Kurzweil's imagination by allowing the vocabularies of clock- and bookmaking to overlap. There are 60 chapters; the story comes full circle in exactly 360 pages; and the breaks are marked by a little watch gear that slowly rotates. Silly and smart, this is a book to make time for.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0809/p1...

[Jeanmarie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't know anything about the dewey decimal system or a card catalog in a library (the younger generation), you won't enjoy this book, simple as that. However, if you know what those terms refer to AND you love books about libraries, librarians AND mysteries - you will enjoy this book! Its got twists and turns; some chapters are but a few pages but hold much intrigue. I won't go into details, others have already done that. I admit, it took me a while to get "into" this book, the beginning was a bit complicated, but necessary once you got into the thick of it. I didn't know there was a book before this OR if that book has anything to do with this one, but I'll put that one on my list as well!

[Cynthia Egbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was a fun ride! This book had a lot to offer that appealed to someone like me. The main character is librarian and he goes on a romp through history using the library and other avenues. What's not to like? If you are looking for a mystery that has some of the same feeling as Tey's Daughter of Time, you might like this one. Here are a few quotes that struck me.

"Festinalente = Make haste slowly. A private challenge to the fast-paced mediocrity society teaches us to worship." (I know that this was a motto for the likes of Augustus and I think I need to make it a motto for me as well.)

"The viewer paints the picture,
The reader writes the book,
The glutton gives the tart its taste,
And not the pastry cook."

"I'm only saying that librarians often don't do feelings all that well. It's no accident that Dewey avoided categories of sorrow and despair."

"If you're so keen to know who I am, take a look around. My life is best narrated in the objects I collect. I am defined by the whenceabouts of things kept close at hand.
Whenceabouts?
The stories behind objects. What more typically is called provenance." (Anyone who makes up such an awesome word is okay in my book!)

[okyrhoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a suspenseful mystery thriller, this novel could very well become an entertaining film, especially with the final scenes in the book.

I enjoyed the 'insider' humor on conducting research, and working in libraries. Someone less familiar might need to look up certain terms and practices regarding the organization and operation of libraries. That should not deter readers from this book; it's not that complicated...

Actually, I believe the author's intention (or one of them) is to motivate us to engage in some research & outside reading of our own. In that sense, when the novel ends, the mystery hasn't come to a final closure.

The book is quite generous with puns - the author / narrator plays with words, names, images, data. Also, the protagonist's description has several similarities with the biographical details of the author.)

To watch an online video of Allen Kurzweil talking about A Grand Complication, visit this link:
http://www.loc.gov/locvideo/bksbeyond...

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seemed to be mainly a vehicle for library in-jokes (which was actually fine with me, but might not appeal to a broader reader base). There are constant mentions of things like OCLC, retrospective conversion and one person is described as being less sharing than the Stanford University interlibrary loan policy (hint: they don't loan anything, but that's never explained). The characters are weak and, for the most part, unlikable. I don't always think I need to like a character to enjoy a book, but most of these are bland. Mr Jesson, for example, is drawn in great detail, with much attention give to all of his quirks of dress, dwelling and occupations, but in spite of all that, I, as a reader, didn't really care anything for him. Its good for a laugh and for looking for library puns and jokes, and I always am interested in art theft themes, but I really wouldn't recommend it.

[Earl · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s weird when someone gives me a book they think I might like. First of all, how obligated am I to read it right away- or at all? I mean, I have my own reading list to go through. There’s also the issue of what if I don’t end up liking it?

The book in question was “The Grand Complication” by Allen Kurzweil. Someone recommended it to me because the main character was a librarian and had all these inside jokes about libraries and working in one. Luckily, I enjoyed reading it because of those things. It did become too much after awhile and the novelty wore off.

“The Grand Complication” was a mystery, another reason I liked it. But it was the kind of mystery where the characters weren’t really described in depth and the ending was sort of dissatisfactory. So, on one hand, I did enjoy it but would I recommend it? Probably not.

[Micha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the idea behind this novel and getting to know the library the main character works in. It's characters are fascinating and being a part of their lives for awhile was my favourite part of this book. Unfortunately, I found the writing style a little dry, so it was difficult to really get into the parts that didn't directly connect with the library itself. Perhaps it deserves a second look from me, as there were many parts about this book that I loved and would recommend it for readers, librarians and bibliophiles of all sorts for those alone. And perhaps some steam punk folk as well, as there is an ere of mechanical and puzzle-filled depth to this novel that one might find intriguing.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book ... and even more so after the fact after doing a little research and discovered that the Marie Antoinette is not a figment of the author's imagination but, in fact, very real, and that its theft was as described in the book.

(FACT UPDATE: I was delighted to learn that, 25 years after the occurrence of the theft described in the novel and several years after the book was written, the mystery was finally solved. All but a very few of the items stolen have been recovered, and it is expected that those may be, also.)

I have not read Kurzweil's previous book but, based on the recommendation of the friend who loaned me this one, I intend to do so.

[C.O. Bonham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your Local library may have this book shelved as a Mystery. Well it's not really a mystery at least not a traditional mystery yes something has been stolen and the main character is looking for it but that is really a side plot to the greater mystery of human relationships. Alexander short has to uncover the secret to gettign along with people. His wife his coworkers his mysterious benefactor. Everyone really. Normally I would avoid a book like this but it was so well written that I did realize what it was at first.

There is a line in the book about making the dull sublime. Kurrweil has done just that he took a normally dull subject and made it a Sublime read.

[Slygly · Rating 3 out of 5]

It isn't every day that you find a mystery-suspense novel about librarians, and these sort of books don't usually make for good airport reading. But this one did keep my attention riveted, was easy to jump into amidst the chaos of my reading environment, and had numerous section breaks inside short chapters so that I didn't mind multiple interruptions. I appreciated that the small gear which separated the sections turned by exactly 360 degrees throughout the book and that the pages numbered 360.
It would have been a 4 to 5 star book except for the ending, which landed with a thud.

[Eileen Daly-Boas · Rating 2 out of 5]

no spoilers.

I was hoping this would live up to the descriptions I read about this book, but it's not all that intriguing, it's not all that sexy, and it isn't all that smart. Perhaps being a librarian skewed things for me, but the main character seemed like a wuss that I wouldn't want to work with. And while there are some really interesting descriptions of rooms and objects, that wasn't enough to keep me going.
It's not a "bad" book, though. I can imagine someone finding the inventiveness and the "behind the scenes" at a library to be fascinating. Just not the book for me.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's nice to read a complicated historical/science novel that doesn't have to save the world/universe. Just a librarian trying to track down a famous watch for a creepy client. It could have easily gone down the Dan Brown path, but it was more interested in the journey. Of interest are digressions into historical watches; pop-up books; the Dewey Decimal System and its relation to life, universe and everything; tattoos; curiosity cabinets; automatons; and the lifestyles of the rich and introverted.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very odd book in that it is a book about book writing, yet it is also a mystery, a "complication" (hence the book title). The protagonist, a research librarian, is hired by a man of means, who wants to fulfill a dream of finding a watch that was commissioned by Marie Antoinette. The watch is subsequently stolen from a museum and the "man" hires the research librarian to find (by means of library research and other activity) based on information that the man possesses. It is an intriguing ; and yet, exciting mystery (complication), hence the book title. It was a fun read!

[Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Grand Complication is the story of a search for a stolen Brueger watch alternately known as the Marie Antoinette. Yet it is more...it is the relationship between Nic and Alexander, between Alexander and Mr. Jesson, and the interweaving of it all. The book has 360 pages which seems to relate to 360 degrees of a clock face. It is an intricately molded story that grasps the reader by the lapels and insists that s/he come along.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A literary thriller, this story is about a reference librarian who gets recruited by an eccentric old man to do research about a case he possesses. It's a fun little book that reads quickly. For me, the most interesting part was the research, particularly electronically. Since the book was published in 2001, it shows its age in this area especially, but serves as a good reminder how far things have come in a relatively short period of time.

[Cat. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is set in NYC, the hero being a librarian and eccentric. He is hired by an even more eccentric patron to research a watch originally dedicated to Marie Antoinette and stolen 20 years ago from the museum that housed it. The search goes along well-enough but then Our Hero discovers he is actually retracing his employer's steps, and then he gets angry. Bizarre, somewhat pleasant, good characterizations of life as a library employee.

[SueEllen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know many people in the literary world, but this book is the first novel I've read written by a friend. Allen's personality and idiosyncrasies ring throughout, e.g., la femme francaise. I loved how Allen portrays the culture of the library: Dewey decimal system smackdowns, pneumatic tubes transporting lost manuscripts, library trolls living in forgotten rooms, obsessive compulsive observations, uber rationalizations, etc. Every librarian and archivist needs to read this book!

[Mike Marien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that most of the world will not find engaging. Perhaps because it employs the use of Library Science in addition to 19th century history. I quite enjoyed it as a secondary read-having a first edition from when it came out. I would suggest that if you think The Book of Theseus is a good read, that you try this. It may inform you about life before/as it became a bit more distracting.

[Cecelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This came very highly reviewed from a book blog I read, and I thought it was pretty good, not great. The jacket promised a 'totally unexpected twist' on page 360, which I thought was very lame indeed (as was much of the ending), but the remainder of the book was fun to read and pretty quick to read at that.