The Book Collector

 The Book Collector – Charlie Lovett. (October 31, 2014). I bought this book; my wife had seen it at the bookstore and mentioned it to me. When we went back to the bookstore, she bought hers and I bought this one, out of curiosity more than anything else.

I had somewhat mixed feelings, on the one hand because the cover says, “Love and obsession unite in a story about the Shakespeare enigma.” At the same time, the back cover reads, “The Book Collector is an original mystery story that takes us from the present day to the world of Shakespeare, passing through 19th-century England. It is also an ode to books guaranteed to delight all lovers of reading.”

Now then, what was it about? Was it a love story, a mystery story, or a mix of both? I am not particularly fond of strictly romantic stories, but I do like mysteries. Well, there was only one way to find out, and the best way was to read the book. Which is what I did.

The book is written by Charlie Lovett. I was unfamiliar with him as an author. He is an American writer, teacher, and playwright. His website is charlielovett.com
It is 400 pages long. Translated by Damiá Alou Remi. The original title is The Bookman’s Tales. 2014 edition. Published by Random House Mondadori S.A.
They have a website which is www.megustaleer.com/

The top of the book cover shows the eyes of a young woman (the back cover shows her lips), followed almost entirely by what appears to be old, stained, and burned paper. The lower part features an old drawing of a city. It is the city of London, a decorative view published in 1751, titled A General View of the City of London, next the River Thames / Vue Generale de la Ville de Londres, du cote de la Tamise. . .

The book is written across three timelines: the present day, we might say, when the events take place; a previous period about ten years earlier; and a third period of events that happened almost three hundred years ago, with this last period eventually working its way back to the present.

The courtship phase—I would say the phase of romanticism and nostalgia—gets a bit syrupy, but that is a personal opinion; it's a matter of taste.

The past timeline is good, but it suffers from a lack of descriptions, at least to my taste—more general and specific descriptions of life in that era.

If read carefully, the book is engaging and at times leaves you wanting more. I couldn't help myself and skipped ahead across chapters to see what happens next, and then went back to continue reading linearly and reread the parts I had skipped over.

It explores and delves into the lives of book collectors—not those who collect just for the sake of it or build a collection simply by accumulating books, but professionals who seek rare, unusual, or high-value pieces for whatever reason. The author himself identifies as a collector specializing in Lewis Carroll. The story also touches on the subject of forgers, handling it very well. It describes the hidden lives of these people, things we don't see, and what gets uncovered over time, for instance through the research of other scholars or experts. It spans a period between the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

The plot mixes in some romance, one or two love stories. Everything revolves around the tracking of two objects—one person trying to discover a mystery about a book, the other about a painting—and it chronicles all the twists and turns unraveled on every page.
At one point, it mentions “Eggs Benedict” and later “sardonic laughter.” I was unfamiliar with both expressions. Now, by searching, I have found them.

Eggs Benedict is a dish consisting of two halves of an English muffin, usually topped with boiled ham, bacon, or pastrami, poached eggs, and the very popular hollandaise sauce.
There is a debate about its origin, which can be read at this link: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huevos_Benedict

As for sardonic laughter: In medicine, a person is said to suffer from sardonic laughter when they experience a convulsion and contraction of the facial muscles that mimics a smile. In a figurative sense, the expression is applied to someone who masks other feelings with a fake smile. According to the Diccionario de Autoridades, sardonic laughter is "an illness originating from eating or drinking the sardonia herb, a species of buttercup that disturbs the senses and twists the lips, causing an effect that looks like laughter." According to other authors, the adjective sardonic comes from Sardinia. Apparently, among the ancient Sardinian barbarians, sons would take their elderly fathers to the mountains to sacrifice them amidst celebrations and great laughter. www.muyinteresante.es/cultura/arte-cultura/articulo/ique-es-la-risa-sardonica

I must confess that as I reached the end, the contemporary timeline of the story (remember it is written across three alternating periods) hooked me. I didn't have the patience and read it straight through, skipping the other two time periods and leaving those last two to read at the end (although, having read it this way, I already knew how it turned out).