Codex [Paperback]

Lev Grossman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2005

About to depart on his first vacation in years, Edward Wozny, a hotshot young investment banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. His task is to search their library stacks for a precious medieval codex, a treasure kept sealed away for many years and for many reasons. Enlisting the help of passionate medievalist Margaret Napier, Edward is determined to solve the mystery of the codex-to understand its significance to his wealthy clients, and to decipher the seeming parallels between the legend of the codex and an obsessive role-playing computer game that has absorbed him in the dark hours of the night.

The chilling resolution brings together the medieval and the modern aspects of the plot in a twist worthy of earning comparisons to novels by William Gibson and Dan Brown, not to mention those by A. S. Byatt and Umberto Eco. Lev Grossman's Codex is a thriller of the highest order.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The cerebral thriller Codex drops up-and-coming investment banker wunderkind Edward Wozny into the musty realm of medieval literature, where he finds an unexpected break from the rat race--a powerful client's commission to uncrate and organize a library. The diversion quickly becomes an obsession after he enlists the help of the quirkily attractive scholar Margaret Napier. Together they discover his employer, the mysterious Duchess of Bowmry, is in a race with her husband to locate an apocryphal codex that could destroy the Bowmry name. Meanwhile, Edward becomes engrossed in an addicting computer game that bears an uncanny similarity to the object of his search and accelerates his transformation from Wall Street wizard into shiftless dreamer.

For the most part, Edward moves through his adventure merely following Margaret's dedicated lead. As each new twist unfolds, he slips further into the comforting daydream of a life that isn't his but is as thrilling as the race for the codex. Codex wrestles with notions of dreams and reality that commingle as Edward finds himself adrift in a sea of passionate scholars and Old World plots. In all, Lev Grossman's novel is excellent entry into the emerging genre of literary history thrillers with an added twist for the technophile. --Jeremy Pugh --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A young investment banker burrows deep into a labyrinthine world of computer games and literary riddles in this captivating thriller by Time book critic Grossman (Warp). On a two-week vacation before he heads for a new post in London, 25-year-old golden boy Edward Wozny volunteers his services to the Wents, the duchess and duke of Bowmry, two of the firm's biggest clients. Since he assumes they require his financial expertise, he is exasperated—and then intrigued—to discover they wish him to catalogue a collection of ancient books in the attic of their New York apartment. Captivated by the library of rare manuscripts, Edward finds himself oddly content in this mystifying world of words. A special request adds extra urgency to the assignment: he is asked to find a possibly mythical codex by 14th-century monk Gervase of Langford, A Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians. Most scholars believe that the text—which predicts the coming of the apocalypse and may conceal Went family secrets—never existed, and that view is shared by Margaret Napier, a hard-nosed graduate student whom Edward enlists to aid him in his daunting task. Fixated on locating the codex, Edward becomes equally preoccupied with MOMUS, an intricate, frighteningly vivid computer game. Cyberworld and real world are more connected than Edward realizes, and he gradually discovers that the game is intimately related to his literary sleuthing. A trip to England and a well-orchestrated final twist bring this intelligent, enjoyable novel to a fittingly understated conclusion. Author appearances in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: Harvest Books (May 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9085193885
• ISBN-13: 978-0156028592
• ASIN: 015602859X
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (210 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lev Grossman is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Magicians and The Magician King. He is also the book critic at Time magazine. He's 42, slightly built and probably wouldn't last long in a post-apocalyptic, eye-for-an-eye world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wild ride that ends in a ditch, October 21, 2004

By 

K. L. Cotugno (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Codex (Hardcover)

SPOILERS AHEAD:
What a great ride the first 3/4 of this book provided! Effortless segues between modern labyrinthine MYST-like games and medieval mysteries, with enough intriguing characters and a very human protagonist, and as the narrative galloped toward the end, accelerating in suspense and menace, I kept noticing that there were far too many loose ends to be tied up and too few pages to do so (sorry about the mixed metaphors). Authors should not tackle thrillers if they can't resolve them with satisfactory endings. I thought I'd missed something, went back and read the last few pages. Even thought my book may have lost some pages somehow. But reading some of the other reviews, I realize that I hadn't missed anything. There was nothing there to miss.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not, September 23, 2004

By 

Ian Kaplan (Livermore, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Codex (Hardcover)

Some have characterized this as the worst book that they've ever read. I would not quite put this book in that catagory. For me that catagory includes the
painfully bad "Ordinary Horror" by David Searcy or any book by Clive Cussler.

"Codex" is simply a weak novel. The characters are wooden, the plot is uninspired. It is interesting to compare "Codex" with the excellent "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In both novels, mysterious books play a central part. But the characters in Zafon's book have depth and feeling. This is entirely lacking in "Codex".

I purchased this book because it was well reviewed in several places. I have to speculate that this is because the author of "Codex" is a book reviewer himself. Perhaps those who reviewed "Codex" worried that a harsh review would be returned by Mr. Grossman when he reviewed their book. So they puffed
the review up.

For my part, I recommend saving your money, or, if you must read this book check it out of the library. I've sending mine off to the used book store.

As a previous reviewer pointed out, when it comes to books and mystery, in addition to "Shadow of the Wind" I highly recommend Arturo Perez-Reverte's "Club Dumas".

45 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars this codex need not be found, August 27, 2004

By 

D.K.V. "faithfulheretic" (Santa Monica, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Codex (Hardcover)

I got carried away at the bookstore one day and I ended up buying this book, since it looked like it could be promising. Ug, was I ever wrong. This sort of literary mystery fiction is hot these days, which I thoroughly enjoy, but this is just another one of those books trying to catch a free ride on the train.
I did not find the plot to be intriguing nor in the slightest bit believable, instead, it seemed contrived to fit a tidey, neat little literary mystery package.
Instead seek these codexes:
Mathew Pearl's 'Dante Club'
Carlos Ruiz Zafon's 'The Shadow in the Wind'
Arturo Perez-Reverte's 'Club Dumas'
Erik Larson's 'The Devil in the White City'