The Grumpy Librarian: Alternate-history literary novels
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
♥ Loved: George Eliot, Middlemarch
♥ Loved: Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
X Hated: Mary Renault, The King Must Die
Recommendation: Reader, are you trying to stump your Grumpy Librarian? These are just three books that you might find overpopulating your neighborhood used bookstore. You say you loved a classic Victorian novel and also a weird sci-fi detective high-class pulp mash-up? Perhaps you would like The Woman in White or Snow Crash? I’m sure they have a lot in common too. The Grumpy Librarian will steer clear of suggesting Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (soon to be a television series, disturbingly!) since Wikipedia has informed her that The King Must Die is basically the life of Theseus without the magicky bits and she lacks sufficient data to judge your feeling on magicky bits. The GL is a big fan of magicky bits, so she probably wouldn’t like The King Must Die either and will promptly return to forgetting that it ever existed.
Instead of pointing you towards another alternate-history literary novel (here’s looking at you, Philip Roth), she suggests Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980), a 14th-century monastery murder mystery. It’s basically The Da Vinci Code for the kind of person who appreciates that there is a blind librarian named Jorge of Brugos. Most importantly, it has been made into a film starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater, which should be required viewing for your next Whiskey and Terrible Cinema Night.
