The Archivist by Martha Cooley

An unlikely protagonist (or is it antagonist?) named, Matthias Lane, a “grey-mustached” 60year old archivist overseeing “The Mason Room”, (presumably the rare-books and manuscripts room at Princeton) narrates The Archivist. The central conflict begins when an attractive grad student and poet named Roberta Spire comes to Matt and says, “I want . . . to read the Emily Hale letters.” Unfortunately this is impossible since the love letters by Emily Hale to T.S. Eliot are unavailable to the public until 2020 at the bequest of Hale. And thus begins a beautiful battle of wills between the librarian, Matt and the poet, Roberta. Matt’s initial response is an unqualified “No”, but he is intrigued because grey-green eyed Roberta reminds him of his dead wife Judith. The novel then splits into point and counterpoint chapters, one thread describing Matt’s memories of Judith’s slow decent into obsession and depression and the other his interactions with the passionate and persistent Roberta, the only person able to get him to admit his wife’s suicide. Over-arching all of this are Matt’s insightful biographical observations of T.S. Eliot’s relationship with Emily Hale.
This is a psychologically intense story revealing the background of the solitary Matthias, Judith and her paranoid obsession with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Matt’s alcoholic father and overly religious mother, Judith’s activist parents who were killed when she was an infant, Judith’s emotionally distant aunt and uncle who raised her. But the psychological depth does not just reside with our librarian and his wife. On Roberta’s side, we learn of her passionate curiosity about Eliot’s conversion, and the reasons for her own parents’ self-protective conversion from Judaism to Christianity. Of course this triangle of Matt, his wife Judith and Roberta explores and echoes the historical triangle between T.S. Eliot, his wife Vivienne and Emily Hale.
Matthias Lane certainly falls under several of the librarian stereotypes, but I did find him to be a psychologically realistic character. He fits the librarian stereotypes on the surface, but Cooley is an astute enough observer of humanity to show the complexities that simmer just beneath Matthias’s stereotypical skin. He is the male counter-part to the Crone/Old Maid. Rather he is an Old Widower, an elderly white male, essentially emphasizing his sexless-ness. Yet there is certainly subtle flirtation and a sexual tension between he and Roberta as she pushes to get access to the Hale letters and he rebuffs her attempts (a sort of reversal of the male/female courtship pattern). He is the gatekeeper (one of several in the novel) to the letters and in this he is the stereotypical Enforcer. But again Cooley undermines this stereotype and shows Mathias’s psychological complexity as we learn that he has indeed read the letters and isn’t above breaking the rules of the Mason Room, as we find in the unexpected resolution. Matthias is certainly a Representative of Civilization and Culture appreciating good food, wine, jazz and of course literature, and he is indeed an Intellectual (contrary to our lecture’s contention that male librarians aren’t accorded the same kind of intelligence) making unforgettable observations such as, “existence is infinitely cross-referenced.”
As to why Cooley chose a librarian, an archivist for this particular character’s persona, it is readily apparent that this was an organic choice grown out of Cooley’s passion and interest in the relationship of T.S. Eliot and Emily Hale. An archivist must be a solitary creature or at least not feel threatened by working alone, and “aloneness” is one of the Viet motifs that Cooley explores. Matthias’s occupation is not simply ornamentation for an interesting character, it defines him . . . and the novel. There are many examples throughout the novel that Cooley has experienced the library as a working environment, specifically Matt’s conversations with his supervisor Edith. Her complaints about the board and the onerous responsibility of overseeing grad-students gives one the sense that Cooley has sat in on or overheard these kinds of conversations before.
Overall this is an impressive first novel, and a surprisingly good read despite some of the more grueling descriptions of Judith’s depression and life in the mental ward.