Codex

Rating:
Summary: How Can a Book Lover Resist?
Review: I enjoy literary thrillers and this is a pretty darn good one. Here we find a young, Wall Street-type sucked into a search for an old, missing book by some incredibly wealthy clients. Though intrinsically valuable, the book is more important in what is hidden in the text and some want it found while others most certainly do not. Good conflict and good adventure. And over a book. What else could a reader want?

Also, there are a number of good characters here and Grossman has created a sequence of events that seems as if it really could have happened, even when it veers towards the extreme--I am thinking of MOMUS and its followers here. This sense of reality is what is missing in a lot of thrillers. Even though the sense of timing Grossman creates is a little loose, these are people I can believe in who do things that people actually do--nothing too James Bond. This allowed me to forgive a lot of the expected predictability, though there were a few surprises here.

All in all, I was very pleased with this book. It's not quite The Name of the Rose--but, then, what is?--still, it's a very good read that I would recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Loved It
Review: Lev Grossman's Codex is a great novel--a fun novel, a literary thriller that can be read on so many levels. The novel follows Edward Wozny, a twenty something investment banker in New York who in two weeks is set to start a new job in London, but for the time being has been asked by a wealthy client to catalog a book collection. Kind of a weird premise, but it quickly takes off. He has been asked to keep an eye out for a particular work that he soon learns perhaps does not even exist. In the meantime, an old college friend has drawn him into MOMUS, an addictive computer game that bears amazing similarities to the search for the elusive book, the codex. Along the way, Edward enlists the help of Margaret Napier, a young woman much more qualified for the job he has undertaken than he is. This book is a thrilling, addictive read and I confess, halfway through the book, I realized that there was a lot more going on than your average thriller, so I started the book again (I did that once before, with Infinite Jest). There are so many layers in this novels, so many little themes. It is possible to read this one as a simple thriller, and derive much pleasure from it, but the novel offers more than that. I have seen it compared to Possession and The Name of the Rose--well, it's almost there and is much, much better than DaVinci Code, in terms of literary thrillers. Have fur with this one--it's great, right down to the last sentence, which will make you laugh out loud.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing to start and then it goes downhill
Review: When I stared reading, I found myself comparing this book to the DaVinci Code and liking it better. But then the characters started to grate on me. By the time I reached the disappointing end I was totally uninterested in the plot. In fact it doesn't really end, it sort of fizzles out. The parts of the story dealing with the study of old books made very worthwhile reading. Without them this book might have gotten one star.

Rating:
Summary: A Thought-Provoking Tale from a Promising Novelist
Review: Young New York banker Edward Wozny has his first vacation in years before him and has no idea how to spend his time. Leaving for a new job in London in two weeks, he doesn't mind too much when his financial firm asks him to drop by on a wealthy client to help out on a project. He is disappointed to find out that it is a clerical project but is still intrigued; he is asked to catalog an antique and mysterious collection of books. Between this task and the computer game, MOMUS, lent to him by a friend, Edward figures the time until his departure is sufficiently filled.

With that seemingly innocent premise Lev Grossman begins his novel CODEX, a thriller about books, coincidences, deception and very old secrets. It seems the library, belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Bowmry, may contain a book invaluable to the aristocratic family. And as much as the Duke wants it to remain hidden, the Duchess wants it found. Soon, Edward also wants to find the book, as he is pulled deeper into the search. He enlists the help of an eccentric young scholar, Margaret Napier, to help him catalog the books and understand the importance of this particular one.

Edward and Margaret spend hours sorting and cataloging books in the library looking for the work by Gervase of Langford, a medieval author of a bizarre and legendary tale. Margaret insists that the existence of the book is a myth, but she works even harder than Edward to find it. Meanwhile, Edward is becoming more and more obsessed with the computer game. The game, seemingly nonsensical, is still addictive to Edward, especially when the setting of the game suddenly becomes disturbingly familiar.

What is the connection between the Gervase of Langford book and MOMUS? Does the Langford text even exist? Why does the Duke want it hidden and the Duchess want it found? And what is Edward's role in all of this? As his departure for London approaches, the coincidences grow and Edward finds himself in the center of a strange situation surrounded by mysterious characters who somehow may all be connected.

Perhaps comparisons with THE DA VINCI CODE are inevitable. But CODEX has a different feel, although fans of Brown's bestseller will appreciate Grossman's novel. In CODEX there are no murders and there isn't the immediate sense of danger found in Brown's novel. Edward is not running from anyone or even trying to save someone; he is caught in a strange situation that he finds irresistible. CODEX is about books and their power to hold truths, sustain lies and raise hopes. Bookworms will find Edward and Margaret's bookish task intriguing.

Grossman's thriller is a fun and interesting read. His blending of medieval texts and high-tech computer games as devices to move the plot and occupy the characters works surprisingly well. Edward is not a character we fall in love with or even cheer for, but we are along with him every step of the way for the exciting ride. We understand Edward's growing need to know what secrets are kept in the Langford text and the computer game, and we wonder with him if they are somehow connected.

Grossman's narrative is sometimes pragmatic and sometimes dreamlike, but always enjoyable. CODEX is a thought-provoking tale from a promising novelist.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Rating:
Summary: a vivid, compelling tale
Review: The lost-manuscript plot of Codex immediately brings to mind a series of literary thrillers -- The Name of the Rose, Possession, The Club Dumas, The Da Vinci Code -- but the plot itself is less important than the use that Grossman makes of it. In Codex, he juxtaposes the chance encounters, shiny surfaces and clipped banter of contemporary urban life with his hero Edward's growing desire to slip out of time, into the weird dream logic of a medieval romance or the hyperreal world of a cult video game. Codex plunges us, along with Edward, into the hypnotic virtual realities of book and computer, showing how the facts of our waking lives reassert themselves even during our most ambitious attempts at escape. A vivid, absorbing, thoughtful novel -- a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Pragmatic and purple
Review: I'm one for books off the beaten path: "The Clothes They Stood up In," "Bark of the Dogwood," and yes, even this one, "Codex." And by off the beaten path, I mean books that are unusual and that not everyone is going to get. "Codex" is one such book. Take an interesting and unusual premise, add some wonderful writing, and throw in some secrets and codes, and you've got this great book. I was so strongly reminded of McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" while reading this, even though that novel is completely different in subject material, setting, and mood. But the ease with with Grossman handles styles and materials is similar. The swing back and forth between the pragmatic and the purple. As I said, I like something that's not too commercial--this is it.

Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: I'm mostly a straightahead mystery reader, with the occasional excursion into Donna Tartt and Neal Stephenson and maybe a little Umberto Eco when I'm feeling up to it. I came to this book because fo the over-the-top San Francisco Chronicle review, plus I heard Otto Penzler endorsed it. Wow. I cleared everything else off my shelf. It's a riveting mystery, but also a tour through the world of crumbling old books and the lives of the supperrich. And there's a really beautiful love story in there! A+++.

Rating:
Summary: I'm obsessed with this book
Review: I can't remember the last time a read a book that was so beautifully written and so gripping and thrilling at the same time. The hero is this investment banker named Edward who gets whirled deeper and deeper into the intrigue of old books and old money, and you can't stop watching. There's a lot of humor in Codex too, and a LOT of smarts. Read it. You will not regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Gettin' medieval on the reader
Review: Codex has so much promise . . . an interesting backstory of a lost medieval manuscript and what appears to be some promising characters at the start. But the reader soon runs into problems. Our protagonist shifts from overbearing to unbearable. One simply cannot understand what made this K-Mart Hamlet into the hot-shot financial wizard the book says he is. I also found the author's delight in having his characters exist in an un-air-conditioned NY summer beyond the grasp of reality.

Granted, the writing is better than "DaVinci Code" - what isn't? - and the characters have at least two dimensions, compared to the 1-dimensional bores Brown has foisting that old Church Conspiracy hogwash on us, but they never seem to do anything that makes sense. And, as noted in other reviews hereabouts, it's as if author Grossman came up with a situation that he could not resolve so, like the old Elevator gambit in "Hotel", he just dumps them. For me, it was good riddance to bad rubbish.

And you don't get kimchi in a Japanese restaurant . . .at least not in NYC.

Rating:
Summary: Genius. I had to read it again right away.
Review: This is the story of Edward Wozny, a mild-mannered investment banker who somehow gets hornswoggled by a wealthy Duchess into searching for a lost medieval manuscript that may not even exist at all. Smart, thrilling, funny, literary -- you never know which way it's going to swerve next, and you can't wait to find out. This is the book the Da Vinci Code shoulda been, coulda been, but wasn't quite. I'm giving it to all my friends.