The Weight of Ink
by: Rachel Kadish
May 1, 2018 Mariner Books
592 pages
Every time I do an interview, I end by asking the interviewee to recommend a Jewish book to our readers. The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish was the recommendation of Neal Shusterman, and it sounded so interesting I had to pick up a copy for myself! I was very glad I did.
First let us address the elephant in the room. The Weight of Ink is a door stopper. Clocking in at 592 pages, I did have some trouble lifting it when lying down. However, I think even people who don’t like long books will enjoy this one. Each page is necessary for the development of an extremely complex and rewarding story. Or perhaps I should say three intertwined stories. The first, and most compelling, is the story of Esther. An orphan of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam, she is sent to live in London with an elderly, blind Rabbi. Sound complicated? Well, Esther lived in the 1660’s so if her personal life tragedy and complicated geographical origins weren’t enough, students of history will know that Esther is about to face some very unusual and scary times in London. On top of that, when yet another family disaster strikes, she becomes the Rabbi’s scribe – a role unthinkable for a woman of that time. Through this opening she gains access to a scholarly life of the mind that was forbidden to most women of the time. Like a knowledge addict, she cannot stop herself from learning not only Jewish texts, but those of philosophy. It is a story of feminism, struggle, and fierce hope.
If Esther’s story was the most compelling (for me), then Professor Helen Watt’s was the most though provoking. When a rich London couple locates a trove of documents from a London Rabbi living in 1660’s London their main goal is to rid themselves of this potential complication to their home renovations. Helen Watt, on the verge of ending her career and suffering from a neurological condition, is called in by the husband who was her former student. She immediately understands the significance of these documents but is thwarted in her attempts to study them by the fact that academia rewards the young and male rather than the thorough and patient. It is a direct parallel to Esther’s frustrations – even in our supposed age of enlightenment barriers are placed before this woman due to her age and gender. The University would vastly prefer their splashy discovery be announced by the young, hot shot, male professor with highly styled hair. However, as a non-Jew who has devoted her life to studying Jewish works – Helen’s position poses some moral questions of its own. Does she have a right to the access she desires to these documents while Jewish scholars are being shut out by the University and she is benefiting from that exclusion? Is she correct in her assumption that this story is a story for “all of us,” or as her younger graduate student flippantly says in an attempt to wound her, is she simply claiming a right to something that is not hers because she once dated a Jew and thinks that makes her special?
Those questions are not easily answered and I sat with them for a good long time. Indeed, some of the narrative found in the trove is universal. Particularly that of a woman’s struggle to access knowledge and power, which seems far more relevant to Professor Watt than her male Jewish graduate student. However, when we learn in Esther’s chapters of how she suffered as a Jew during the plague, and how her ancestors suffered during the inquisition, I could not help but feel that these aspects of the story deserved to make their debuts in the hands of a Jew. How much would it change scholars understanding of the trove to learn that the Rabbi Esther scribes for was blinded at the hands of Catholic inquisitors who subjected him to unspeakable cruelty? Unfortunately, those aspects of the trove might never even be revealed if a scholar does not go searching for them. On the other hand we have the subtle antisemitism of the couple who sells the papers, assuming Helen is a Jew because of her chosen field of study and visibly relieved to discover she is not. Seeing that through Helen Watt’s eyes was fascinating, and possibly more effective, than seeing it through a Jewish lens.
The Jewish graduate student provides no easy solutions. He is not exactly the heroic Jew descending from the heavens to help Professor Watt sort through these papers with a sensitive eye towards their Jewish origins. In fact, when the story began, I shared Professor Watt’s misgivings about him and would have been loathe to leave him alone in the room with the papers for fear he would damage them. His personal life is a mess, his motivations unclear, and his entire personality, while not full blown dude bro caricature (that is reserved for the rival team of historians) borders very close. Only through Professor Watt’s mentorship is he saved from jumping to conclusions and publishing some major mistakes. It is a true testament to Kadish’s skill that she gives him a full emotional arc showing great growth of character by the end.
None of the characters in The Weight of Ink is perfect. While we may sympathize with them, we also see their flaws. That is because they are people, living in a world where life is rarely easy or perfect whether you live in 1660 or 2025. I left my reading satisfied, having both learned something and felt something, which is a rare combination. My thanks for the recommendation.