The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil

The Grand Complication

Allen Kurzweil

This book centres on obsession in an unusual, and sometimes complex, fashion. It shows what can happen to lives and relationships when the desire to possess something takes precedence over all else. A must read for librarians, but those who aren't conversant with Dewey, call slips, date parameters and cross-checks, as well as Americanisms like zip tubes and stack crews, may find it quite hard work.

Extract
'She reciprocated by making me a luscious journal inspired by a Benedictine breviary we'd admired together in Manuscripts. I should have guessed she was up to something when she asked why medieval clerics buttoned, or "girdled", prayer books to their robes.'

'That night, I girdled my first decent note. By the end of the week, I had composed a catalogue of a tenement hallway, filed under H.'

Parallels
  • The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde