The Librarianist: A Novel

by Patrick deWitt

Connie, who had been Bob’s wife, had sometimes asked him why he read quite so much as he did. She believed Bob was reading beyond the accepted level of personal pleasure and wondered if it wasn’t symptomatic of a spiritual or emotional deformity. Bob thought her true question was, Why do you read rather than live?

But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it. There’s a fraternity achieved, then: we are not alone. Sometimes an author’s voice is familiar to us from the first page, first paragraph, even if the author lived in another country, in another century.”

He was not killing time, for Bob was not a time killer; but he knew that when he entered his home, then the part of the day where something unexpected could happen would be over, and he wasn’t ready for that quite yet.

Bob could never relate to the crude male perspective regarding the mysteries and machinations of sex. He was not an innocent, but felt that to speak of fornication as winnable sport was to demean and be demeaned at once, and there was always the question for him of, Why do this? When you could, as an alternative, not?

when he proposed they retire to a café for a hot cup of coffee, Linus was enthusiastic. Jill, however, was shaking her head. “Coffee makes me go to the bathroom.” “But going to the bathroom is fun,” said Linus. Jill didn’t know what to say to that.

“When we gamble, we’re asking the universe what we’re worth, and the universe, terrifyingly, tells us.”

“Next morning, and we were not at our best, but there weren’t any sour grapes there, you know what I mean? I was never any grand romancer, but this young lady lived somewhat, and I can tell you that the next morning sometimes is damned awkward, and even awful. Because there are nasty, unhappy men walking around out there, Bob, and they like to trick you into thinking they’re one way, then when it’s too late they show you who they really are. But this guy? He was still the same in the morning as he was in the night—he was himself, and he was, just, good.

A priest gave a reading of familiar, possibly overfamiliar Bible texts; it was like listening to a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, where the words formed shapes on the air, but the meaning of the words was absent.

She spoke of a world without children in the same way others spoke of a world without hunger or disease.

Bob’s mother had never understood the pleasures of efficiency, the potential for grace in the achievement of creature comforts. She cooked but hated cooking. She cleaned and felt cheated. Bob didn’t feel this way; the actions he performed each morning were needed, and each one fit into the next. He

“Gardening is very important to me.” “Decorative gardening or gardening for the table?” “Both.” She liked that he’d asked that particular question.

At one point he wondered if he was charming. Was he? He had never been before. Or was it that he’d simply never had the chance to indulge?

He thought it a good quip but its quality was not remarked on.

I love a good recommendation. Citizen to citizen, like in the animal kingdom—birds telling other birds what’s coming their way, from one treetop to the next.”

Eileen was not charming but had contemplated charm and could perform a version of it that was convincing so long as you didn’t inspect it very closely.

Your own talent for observational clevernesses is still evident.” “Yes, I’ve hung on to it. I keep thinking it might become suddenly useful someday.

I found many answers and comforts in my profession, but not every answer and not every comfort. In particular I could never find the answer to the question of why; and if a man cannot answer this question, there shall be no lasting comfort available to him.

I’ve entered into a period of my life where I actually enjoy doing the dishes, and by myself.

Maria understood that part of aging, at least for many of us, was to see how misshapen and imperfect our stories had to be.

There was a shallowness to his gaze which presented him as one unburdened by intelligence.

The children’s candy intake had not been monitored or policed, and they now were achieving crisis-level sugar highs.