("The Grand Complication")

[fiefoe]

Mystery books usually leave me cold anyway, but I found it harder than usual to warm up to anybody in this book. The protagonist reminds me of that of another half-forgotten semi-mystery novel "Circles of Confusion" (keywords: Vermeer + DMV) by April Henry. Both are are good with puns, but not fun; both have out-of-the-way jobs and unusual obsessions that serve as psychological crutches.

Librarian Alex is a man of many parts -- his fascination with objects of enclosure, his courtship with a French book maker in measurement of call slips, ('Nic's pop-up Kama-Sutra... the loins of the cardboard lovers slapped together like majestic elephant ears'), his attachment to his girdle book -- and the man in sum is less than the parts. I peeped ahead and he does come to learn that 'invention trumps inventory', but I don't have the patience to witness his learning process.

Trivia seems to be the game here, not the pursuit. Allen Kurzweil certainly knows his books, and makes good use of the word 'crenellation':

__ fore-edge painting  c.f. 
__ deckle: A frame used in making paper by hand to form paper pulp into sheets of a desired size.
__ variorum: An edition containing various versions or notes by various scholars or editor of a text.

__ Pepys: English civil servant whose diary includes detailed descriptions of the Great Plague (1665) and the Great Fire of London (1666).
__ Paracelsus: German alchemist and physician..credited with a major part in applying chemistry to medicine.
__ Richard Hakluyt, Blaeu, Piranesi, Arcimboldo, Breguet
__ The Bay Psalm Book, Meggendorfer's 'Circus'
__ Uri Geller

__ A watch is an oracle, an animal, an engine and a god according to Swift. 
__ Isabel Archer, Oblomov
__ Boswell

__ 'Festina lente' - make haste slowly
__ 'Sapere Aude' - dare to know [Kant]
__ Libraries serve the vanity of human hope. [Johnson]

__ Licentious material is kept in 'private case' in British Museum, under the Delta call mark at the Library of Congress.
__ Wavy lines on coat of arms denote illegitimacy; mottoes can be changed at will.

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SIP of late:  the Ben & Jerry orthodoxy