Embracing such an approach elevates your chances of enjoying The Librarianist, an intriguing and often moving story of a retired librarian who, after living a sedentary, solitary life defined more by what he read than what he did, volunteers at a center for the elderly and finds himself awash in deep currents of humanity. He also finds the answer to a lifelong mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a boy, Bob Comet sought comfort from youthful complications in books, which led him to the library, which led him to being a librarian, a job he held for a half-century. A contented man, he needed little else, so he was delighted when love and friendship came his way, and equally devastated when they left him. This part of the story, complete from beginning to end and interwoven with Bob\u2019s later, self-revelatory time at the elder center, is beautifully told and written, at once respectful of Bob\u2019s contentment with simplicity and, when others regard him, wryly astonished by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, in a conversation about schadenfreude, Bob confesses to Linus, a gregarious resident of the center who channels the Jack Nicholson character in \u201cOne Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest,\u201d that \u201cI\u2019ve made love to one woman in my life.\u201d Linus \u201cshut his eyes, and he became so still, as though he\u2019d suddenly succumbed to slumber. After a while he stirred, opened his eyes to slits, and asked, softly, \u2018What\u2019s the German word for pity, scorn, and awe happening all at the same time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly, though, about two-hundred-fifty pages in, deWitt sends an 11-year-old Bob on a run-a-way sojourn. As the boy bounces here and there and back again, I couldn\u2019t keep up, so I started flipping forward, skipping about fifty pages of beets, so to speak, and arriving at a denouement that is both surprising yet comfortingly expected. Happily, the book ends exactly where it should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, there is it \u2013 a truly wonderful 300-page book about aging and love and humanity and heartbreak wrapped, somewhat unfortunately, in a 350-page carton. If you don\u2019t mind skipping a course or two, it\u2019s a great meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some years ago, as my reading appetites changed, my consideration of books as a prix fixe meal slid into the notion that books can be consumed a la carte. 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