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The Weight of Ink

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Introducing The Weight of Ink

T HE WEIGHT OF INK IS RACHEL KADISHS critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling book. This remarkable tale is a travel through time. There are two parallel main narratives in this novel. The backdrop of both stories in London during the 1660s and the early twenty-first century. The lives of two women are intertwined in this remarkable tale.

It begins with the story of one of the two women. She is Helen Watts, a British gentile professor and a historian who was nearing her retirement age. She was unmarried and had no children. She didnt have friends yet she was forged in iron as she fought decades in the academe. To her surprise, she received a phone call from one of her former students. It was one of the holy grail moments for scholars like Watts. Her former student was describing a collection of manuscripts and old books that were discovered during a home renovation. Helen Watts had initial doubts about the find. But these were quickly dispelled by the sight of the documents written in Hebrew and Portuguese. She found before her a trove of significant documents about the Jewish community in London during that time. The documents date as old as the seventeenth century. She enlisted the help of Aaron Levy to help her make sense of the find and translate the documents. Levy is an American Jewish graduate student in London. He was finishing his doctoral dissertation on Shakespeare. They set to work on the mystery found under the staircase. Levy was charming yet he was impatient. He was in competition with the other team of historians. Despite her ailing body, Helen Watts was taking her time as she embarks on her last yet probably the most significant project, to determine the elusive Aleph. This is the pseudonym used by the scribe whose identity is unknown.

Here enters the second woman in the novel Ester Velasquez. Velasquez was an orphan from Amsterdam. She is an immigrant in London. She is one of that most unlikely creature to set foot in early modern England an educated woman. Beyond her education, she served as the scribe for Londons most prominent rabbi. Velasquez knows how to write letters, read philosophy and fetch books from booksellers stalls or the bindery. She hones her gift of intellect. And she flirts with danger in doing so. There were protestations that a woman like her should not be tortured with philosophy nor religious thinking. Because of the status quo, Esters days as the rabbis scribe are numbered. The Portuguese Jews community in London would push her to fulfill a womans duty to marry and raise children. Many of these children will most probably die in infancy. Though she was a rare gem, she reaps grudging respect from the men around her because she was different. Ester builds an unlikely friendship with her acquaintance Mary, the daughter of the communitys most prominent family. Mary was not excited by intellectual debate nor knowledge. Both she and Ester just do what they need to in order to survive and thrive in their unhappy stations as women during the Tudor era in Europe. Mary would doll herself up and dally with fetching stage actors who only want her money. Ester would secretly read the books of the rabbi. Eventually, she would write to Spinoza and other philosophers under a male pseudonym.

As Ester continually proclaims her disinterest in romance and sex to her friend Mary and an eventual suitor. She swears she would never marry. She revealed that she can be a bit hypocritical. When the plague hits the city of London, the stability that everyone stood on gets shattered. Ester for one had to figure out how to survive in the face of death through the disease. She also needs to maintain her faith when she gets confronted by angry Londoners when they looked to the Jews as the ones to blame for the troubles in the city. In modern London, both Helen and Aaron get more engrossed with the story of Ester and her eventual triumph despite the sheer impossibility of the situation. Helen and Aaron see in Ester a reflection of their lives.

Lilith included Rachel Kadish and The Weight of Ink in "7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2017." They say that it is their top Jewish feminist literary pick. Bethanne Patrick for LitHub says among many novels who attempt a dual timeline novel, this one really delivers, tying characters and manuscripts together with deep assurance. Jerusalem Post says that Kadish achieved an impressive thing, she succeeded in getting readers to think that maybe, just maybe, a woman like Esther could have existed in the Jewish diaspora circa 1660." Megan Marshall for Radio Boston says that The Weight of Ink feel as if you're sifting through these letters yourself...a very immersive summer read."