The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

Amy  

historical fiction

Helen’s former university student contacts her to investigate some old Hebrew texts found in his wife’s seventeenth century family home near London. Helen quickly realizes these documents hold great historical significance and she embarks on a journey of discovery along with the graduate student assigned to assist her. The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish switches between the contemporary study of these discovered texts and the lives of the document writers in the 1660s, particularly Ester Valasquez. Ester was an Amsterdam-born Jewish girl who was taken into a learned rabbi’s household in London after her parents’ deaths and who, under the rabbi’s education, became a gifted writer and philosopher—something extremely unusual for a woman of her time.

This book is pretty slow-paced and extremely long. There were mysteries to ponder throughout the tale to keep me going, though. There were also several characters who were facing different sorts of trials and who, during the course of the story, matured or became enlightened. I learned some things about Jewish history in Europe, life in the 1660s, the processes for studying rare documents, British architecture, and how London handled The Plague. But, for me, the best parts of the novel were the ones where we got to know the characters better—their back stories and their future concerns.  There were some really slow sections but the characters pulled me through to the satisfying conclusion.

The audiobook was narrated by Corrie James. She did have a variety of voices and accents, although I wouldn’t say her accents were stellar.  Her best quality was her vocal acting. Sadly, there was some saliva which is an automatic demerit. I’ll give her an A-.