The Geographer's Library [Hardcover]

Jon Fasman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2005

Item 1: An alembic is the top part of an apparatus used for distilling. This one is made of sturdy green glass, thirty-six centimeters tall, eighteen centimeters around at the widest point of its base. The top part of the vessel is narrow and fluted and turns sharply to the right; alembics are set over a still to collect and carry vapors to another vessel. The vessel's inside bears a crust of gray material that seems to be a mixture of lead, iron, and antimony, as well as some organic matter, canine and human bones. Scorch marks are visible on the outside bottom, extending five centimeters up. No discernible odor.

Date of manufacture: unknown. Estimates range from 100 b.c. to a.d. 300
Place of origin: Hellenistic Egypt. "Alembic" comes from the Arabic "al-anbiq," which comes from the Greek "ambix," meaning cup or beaker
Last known owner: Woldemar Löwendahl, Danish-Estonian governor general of Tallinn. The alembic was unearthed during the construction of Kassari chapel on Kassari Island in April 1723 and brought to Löwendahl's office that June. The governor general placed it on the top shelf of an unfilled bookcase in the back corner of his office and never noticed when it went missing two years, six months, and seventeen days later...

When a twelfth-century Sicilian cat burglar snatches a sack of artifacts from the king's geographer's library, the tools and talismans of transmutation-and eternal life-are soon scattered all over the world. Nine hundred years later, a young Connecticut reporter finds evidence that someone is collecting them again. In the process of investigating the suspicious death of a local professor, Paul Tomm finds the dead man's heavily fortified office stuffed with books on alchemy. The Geographer's Library entwines his contemporary reporting with a chain of ancient stories-within-the-story, tracking the last time each of the geographer's tools changed hands-some bought, some stolen, some killed for.

The Geographer's Library is an extraordinary debut, smart, stylishly written, and full of suspense. It tempts with the glitter of antiquities and hooks with a chilling plot. In this brilliant debut, competing visions of an obscure professor's life take a young reporter from a sleepy New England town to the heart of an international smuggling ring that may hold the secret to eternal life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The literary history suspense novel has long been a genre appreciated by a small subset of general readers. It is currently enjoying a new vogue and a wider readership with the publication of such novels as The Da Vinci Code, The Rule of Four, and Codex. What these books have in common, and what The Geographer's Library can also claim, is a set of characters in the here and now grappling with questions about things that went on a very long time ago. Another characteristic is the unearthing or explanation of objects of great value. The trick is to weave these two realities together in a compelling way, one that will keep the reader involved in both stories.

Jon Fasman has taken a big chance with The Geographer's Library, his debut novel, setting out a complicated scenario in which a collection of priceless objects is stolen from the titular library and, eventually, scattered and re-collected a thousand years later--with very bad results for the final collector. The geographer is a real person, Al-Idrisi, a Spanish-Muslim philosopher, cartographer, linguist, and scholar who served in the court of King Roger of Sicily in Palermo in the year 1154. For the most part, Fasman's risk pays off, although there is a lot of meandering before we finally get to the final revelation.

The "wraparound" story is about a young journalist, Paul Tomm, who sets out to write a simple obituary about a professor who died in his office at Paul's Alma Mater. The man is Jaan Puhapaev, an Estonian perhaps, who is a terrible teacher, fires his gun out his office window twice, is odd, unavailable, and reclusive and yet is allowed to stay on for unknown reasons. He also collects only $1.00 a year in salary and has no other visible means of support. The core narrative is a description of the provenance and travels of each of the 15 objects--some or all of which may hold the secret of eternal life--stolen from Al-Idrisi.

A professor friend of Paul's, a policemen and a curious editor all get an investigation rolling regarding what really happened to Jaan, who is he, and is he perhaps much, much older than they think? Paul meets and falls for a neighbor and putative friend of Jaan's, a music teacher named Hannah Rowe, which moves the information curve upward. This is the least believable part of the story: it's easier to accept the alchemical power of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes than Hannah. That said, Fasman does bring it all home at the end with an expository chapter and two letters. A bit of a cheat, but at least the reader is neatly taken off the literary hook he has dangled on for 380 pages. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly

A young reporter is caught up in a deadly centuries-long treasure hunt in this puppyish but brainy debut, a thriller steeped in arcane lore and exotic history. When Paul Tomm, a reporter for the Lincoln Carrier, a small Connecticut newspaper, looks into the demise of Jaan Puhapaev, an elderly academic found dead in his cluttered house, nothing seems out of the ordinary - until the pathologist performing the autopsy is himself killed in a freak car accident. Various locals and acquaintances offer reminiscences of the late professor that suggest Puhapaev was an extremely complicated (and perhaps dangerous) character. Tomm's discoveries lead him to a lovely young woman, a network of international smugglers and hidden alchemical libraries. Appealing more to the intellect than to the emotions, the book is slowed by the catalogue-like descriptions of precious objects that close many chapters, while the protagonist, however likable, is often too naïve to be entirely credible. Still, some deft plotting and lively writing bode well for the author's future literary endeavors.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (February 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200386
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200380
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,320,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alchemy Meets Small-Town Journalism in this Great Debut, March 7, 2005

By 

L. Kelly (Lakewood, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Geographer's Library (Hardcover)

"The Geographer's Library" skilfully weaves together two story lines: the first being a present-day mystery about a deceased college professor, and the second a series of historical vignettes about fourteen antiquities that were stolen from a geographer's library in the twelfth century. The geographer al-Idris also dabbled in alchemy, and the ancient objects were all used in this science. From the first pages of the novel, I was hooked on both stories, and the pages simply flew past.

The editorial review here on Amazon compared this book to "The DaVinci Code", but in my opinion this book is far more enjoyable. The characterization of the Connecticut protagonists is well-done. But my favorite part of the book is the background on the fourteen objects that were once part of the famous scholar al-Idris' library in Sicily. I whole-heartedly disagree with the reviewer who dismissed this part of the book as "too much information."

Author Fasman carefully develops the plot, tying together the connection between the ancient alchemical tools and the death of the mysterious Estonian professor in Connecticut. This story is full of beautiful prose and is a finely crafted mystery. I'd recommend it to all.

57 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Intellect than Action, April 24, 2005

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Geographer's Library (Hardcover)

"The Geographer's Library" is one of many new releases that have been favorably compared to "The DaVinci Code." It is not that. Alan Furst, the accomplished author of WWII espionage thrillers, describes Jon Fasman's first novel as "a real reader's book." It is definitely that. While lacking the adrenalin-charged pace of DaVinci Code, "Geographer" is a cleverly conceived, intelligent novel illuminating the ancient and shadowy art of alchemy. Paul Tomm, a young journalist for a rural Connecticut weekly paper, sets out on a supposedly simple assignment to write the obituary of town resident and college professor Jann Puhapaev. Puhapaev's death - and life, as it turns out - are shrouded in mystery, and Tomm is drawn into a deliciously convoluted plot spanning a millennium and four continents. A number of priceless artifacts, stolen from the alchemist of the 11th century's King of Sicily, begin showing up in unlikely places. With the help of a former professor and his policeman brother, Tomm begins connecting the dots while attracting some unwanted and malevolent attention. This is a risky venue, accomplished with aplomb in Dan Brown's "DaVinci", while more often attempts to capture Brown's formula have bogged down in hip-deep minutia and laughingly improbable plots. While Fasman's effort borders at times on tedium, there is sufficient mystery and intrigue to keep the reader hooked to the climax. "The Geographer's Library" could have benefited from a more ruthless editor's cut of another fifty pages or so, but this is nonetheless an impressive debut, well worth the reader's time and attention.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Competently written, but disappointing, September 8, 2005

By 

Joshua E. Simons (Sharon, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Geographer's Library (Hardcover)

As others have mentioned, there are two stories here: the present-day mystery and the ancient story related to alchemy.

The mystery surrounding the death of Jaan is competently told, but it didn't engage me probably because of the hapless nature of the main character, Paul, and because this plot is relatively simple and uninteresting. The intersection of this story with the ancient story could have made it a much more interesting mystery, except that the ancient story was the biggest disappointment in the book.

It was disappointing because the author failed to develop the sense of wonder and excitement around the ancient objects that might have made the story compelling and interesting. In fact, the objects which play such a large role in the text play virtually no role at all in the plot, which I found very puzzling and frustrating. I waited in vain for the book to tie these objects to the plot, to make them relevant and interesting.

Here's another way of expressing why I was disappointed. I felt like there might have been a centuries-long, fascinating story that tied all of the objects together---but that I was sitting on the very periphery of that story with only a few not very interesting glimpses of that story as they reflected on the rather mundane present-day mystery plot.

I don't recommend this book.