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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intellectual mystery which does not lose its audience., August 22, 2001
This review is from: The Grand Complication: A Novel (Hardcover)
Alexander Short is a young librarian--precise and studious, with a need to catalogue and record, and on his way to becoming stuffy. But he was not always this way. His courtship and marriage to his French wife Nic, who designs pop-up books, was romantic--and spontaneous enough to have earned him a reprimand from the head of the library for his enthusiastic acceptance of her proposal on the library's electronic bulletin board. Now the marriage is in trouble, his career seems to have hit a snag, and he's holding himself and his life together by recording and alphabetizing his life experiences in a notebook he has attached to his waist. Into his life comes Henry James Jesson III, an elderly man in search of an object missing from a hidden compartment in an 18th century furniture case he owns. Short is enlisted to help in the search, and his life is suddenly turned upside down.
The book, and the research behind it, took the author ten years, and one of the greatest compliments I can pay is to say that it doesn't show. So smoothly does Kurzweil integrate all the esoteric details of compartmented antique furniture, 18th century watchmaking, library cataloguing and conservation procedures, the intricacies of fine art theft, and even Japanese irezumi tattooing, that it all feels right and appropriate, and not at all pretentious. His themes of order vs. spontaneity, life vs. stasis, permanence vs. change mesh perfectly with the search for a missing timepiece, which is what belongs in Jesson's case--a watch called The Grand Complication, which was originally commissioned by Marie Antoinette. The book's structure mirrors the intricacies of this mysterious watch, which was stolen..
As Short and Jesson conduct their search, the reader is, by turns, entertained, enlightened, and thoroughly engaged. Alexander Short is a character who comes to life, as, to a lesser extent, does Jesson, who is a sad case, not unlike his furniture piece, missing something necessary for personal completion. The library itself comes to life so fully that it almost becomes a character itself. The book is full of puns and literary allusions, which add yet another level of fun. With a terrific, bang-up conclusion which ties up all the loose ends of the plot, the characters' lives, and the themes, Kurzweil leaves his reader fully satisfied--and hoping not to have to wait ten more years for his next novel. Mary Whipple
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Star is Reborn, August 1, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Grand Complication: A Novel (Hardcover)
I love this book. To me it demonstrates a mind working the language at full capacity, with loads of linguistic twists and turns, puns, riddles, and more. The setting of the book is really the mind, specifically the mind of the librarian. It is a book for people who love books in every way, who enjoy holding them almost as much as they enjoy reading them. Henry James Jesson III is one of the characters, and he is someone who revels in his own acquired knowledge. The book's protagonist, Alexander Short, loves the fact that Jesson is an intellectual/literary show off, and he falls under Jesson's spell. I suppose that at its heart the book is a sort of intellectual thriller, with mysteries inside mysteries.Where is Marie Antoinette's stolen timepiece, The Grand Complication? Does it really exist? Is it what is learned along the chase that is as interesting to the protagonists as finding the watch? I also love the fact that it refers back to the author's previous novel, A Case of Curiosities, without in any way being a sequel. This is the kind of novel I love to read during those luxurious-feeling summer moments.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun but No Payoff, September 9, 2001
This review is from: The Grand Complication: A Novel (Hardcover)
This novel is right up my alley. It is the story of young librarian, Alexander Short, caught up in a search for a timepiece to complete a collection owned by a wealthy eccentric, Henry James Jesson III. Books, library searches, heraldry, theft, adventure and a wife who is constantly trying to seduce her husband. Who could ask for more? And, indeed, this is a fun little book. I am particularly fond of the scenes set in the New York Public Library with its resources and its cast of interesting characters. I also find the search for the timepiece to be an interesting one with plenty of twists and turns along the way. My only complaint about this book is the payoff. There really isn't one. I found that the book just kind of fizzled out in the last few pages. I have not read Kurzweil's first novel, A Case of Curiosities. I wish I had. I get the impression it might throw some light on this novel. Still, as it is, it's a quick novel and well worth a read.
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