The Secret of Lost Things (book review)

The Secret of Lost Things
Sheridan Hay
Anchor Books, March 2008
$14.95, 354 pages

I love reading fictional versions of landmarks and cities I recognize. This coming of age novel is set in the Strand, renamed “The Arcade” and populated by insular, hyperverbal eccentrics, who make me wonder about the lives of the people stocking shelves and tallying up used book sales at the Strand. Told from the point of view of eighteen year old, orphaned Rosemary, “The Secret of Lost Things” showcases the kind of densely packed, erudite prose you’d expect from a novel about a sprawling warren of a bookstore, and the brittle but strange people who work there.
Sometimes the language gets so richly poetic it’s almost suffocating (not unlike the sensation of wandering towards the back of the Strand basement, actually.) I think, though, that it’s good for me to read a book with such self-consciously literary language. It helps me remember to stretch my own sentences beyond the words I use too often.
The most active part of the plot, involving a rare Herman Melville manuscript, and the rivalries between avid bibliophiles, including store staff, becomes incidental to the novel’s meditative pacing. Reading “The Secret of Lost Things” is more like browsing the Strand’s shelves idly, and overhearing some of the conversations between employees and book lovers. It is more about Rosemary’s process of growing up and growing into the city (in that wise, verbose way women always seem to do as protagonists in this kind of literary novel.)
On the whole, though, I’m pleased with it. Thanks to Raphy, my Brazilian friend, for recommending it.
The meandering descriptions and rhythms of language were lovely to read, and I enjoyed the process of getting to know the cast of characters in Rosemary’s life, from her terse landlady to George, the albino store manager, to Oscar, who works in nonfiction and commands Rosemary’s infatuation for reasons I couldn’t entirely fathom.