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A review by siria
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
2.0
I really wanted to enjoy The Weight of Ink. Split between the seventeenth century and the present day, the novel shows us the free-thinking but frustrated Ester Velasquez, and historians Helen Watt and Aaron Levy who centuries later stumble across Ester's writings and find in them material which could dramatically change contemporary understandings of Jewish women's history. Given some of the topics covered—a reassessment of history occasioned by paying attention to what women were actually doing; academic infighting and politics; the nitty gritty of doing history—I should have been entranced. I wasn't.
This is essentially the kind of book you pick up in the airport for an easy read on the plane ride to or from your holidays only it's got, as we say in Ireland, Notions. The characterisation is clichéd (I felt faintly offended on behalf of librarians/archivists throughout), as is the plot (with one "twist" near the end in particular that made me want to throw the book against a wall), the philosophical elements have all the heft of a first-year undergraduate's essay, and oh my god, that's not what archival research is like! We don't wear white gloves when working with paper! That's not how academic publishing works! Et cetera.
This is essentially the kind of book you pick up in the airport for an easy read on the plane ride to or from your holidays only it's got, as we say in Ireland, Notions. The characterisation is clichéd (I felt faintly offended on behalf of librarians/archivists throughout), as is the plot (with one "twist" near the end in particular that made me want to throw the book against a wall), the philosophical elements have all the heft of a first-year undergraduate's essay, and oh my god, that's not what archival research is like! We don't wear white gloves when working with paper! That's not how academic publishing works! Et cetera.