Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012) is a thrilling dive into the fanciful and mysterious world of an age-old literary controversy in the light of technology. The text presents a classical collision between technology savvy characters and ancient mystery, through which the author communicates varied topics of interest. The old versus the new, curiosity and adventure, the interface technology and books, and the quest for immortality comes across as the book's most profound themes. However, contemporary issues such as love equally find a place in the book.
The book's convoluted plot immensely enriches the fiction in the well-choreographed conflict between ancient esoteric wisdom hidden in coded books and the modernist technology that seeks to unravel the dark mysteries. Clay Jannon, an unemployed School of Arts graduate with a technology background, lands a lowly job in a clumsy bookstore in San Francisco. The store belongs to Mr. Penumbra, but rather seems strange since the shelves are filled with archaic books, and the clients are algorithmically infrequent, and those that pass by. Driven by curiosity, Clay breaks the law to open the secretive books only to discover a mystery of cryptographic information and a code-breaking society behind it. Clay mobilizes his peers and acquaintances to leverage on technology to attempt to decipher the secrets. In doing so, the book brings home the notion of the anxiety of obsolescence, the phenomenon by which new technological tools promise to dismantle the fortresses what seemed impossible in the past.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Right from Clay's expression that "All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight," Sloan makes it clear that the book conceptualizes the fact that technology is the invincible tool to explore the universe (Sloan, 2012). The book subtly paints technology as the ideal conduit between the present and the past – the rightmost avenue between human desire and achievement. What is even more conspicuous in the book is how technology is so entwined in our lives that it threatens to have more potency than anyone ever imagined. Every time the protagonist tries to make sense of the secret code-breaking society's weird operations, the book illustrates the quest for something meaningful humankind has always professed. Ideally, the secret societies, computers, old printing presses, and sinister theories form an intuitive overlapping to illustrate the axiom's essential truth that all secrets are hiding in straightforward reality.
While the book dramatizes numerous technology topics such as the cloud, data visualization, and distributed computing, it means a lot beyond technology lovers and enthusiasts. Ideally, by adding a nuance of fantasy to the computing concepts, Sloan intends to depict a more profound meaning – to illustrate the possibility of technology as a problem solver in the new age. Furthermore, Sloan wants to demonstrate that technology can be fine-tuned to overcome the limitations of the human mind, as was the case of "The Unbroken Spine" before Clay's intrigue. The futuristic tinge in technological tools also illustrates the value of creativity in solving society's problems, as it occurs for Clay when he opens the new business – Penumbra.
As with other contemporary fantasy books, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is rich in adventure and explores the beauty of exploring mystery, secrets, and adventure. As we follow along Clay's ambitious plans to break the books' secret codes, we often get drawn to the 'accidental' achievements that lie on the way of seeking to achieve higher goals. For instance, Clay inadvertently solves the founder's puzzle, tempting Penumbra to apply modernist techniques to Manutius' book. However, Corvina, the Unbroken Spine leader, won't allow it since he is a traditionalist. Besides, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a love story. We encounter the author's philosophical ruminations on love and romance through the book, especially in the opening chapters. At some point, Clay admits, " This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends… and the highest compliment I can pay." The quote illustrates that even in the protagonist's busy schedule, love still finds a place in his mind. It also serves the overarching duty of demonstrating that the book is a love letter for bibliophiles beyond adventure and mystery.
Above all, Sloan seeks to demonstrate the value of friendship and cooperation in chasing universal goals. In the book, we encounter numerous characters, each serving unique roles to solve the encrypted books' mystery. For example, Clay seeks Deckle, a member of the Unbroken Spine, for help, who, in turn, asks for the Gerritszoon Punches to be retrieved. Neel, the millionaire, and Mat at BOOBS also play vital roles in bringing the fantasy home. Clay mobilizes some friends and managers to get the Gerritszoon Punches and runs into Clark Moffat, who then helps him make sense of Manutius's book's ciphered text.
The book resonated quite well with my daily experiences and interests. For instance, I find the element of futility at the end of the story very familiar. Having been extremely curious in my teenage years, I would love to follow up on what I thought were mysteries of the universe and tried to crack them. However, I only ended up with seemingly tasteless conclusions that the universe holds no special secrets, as was with Clay when he realized that Manutius's text was simply a memoir and held no secret to immortality. I also tightly relate with the idea since fate is also evident with many controversy-hunters I have seen fall back to nihilism after realizing that even well-christened controversies yield no valuable secrets to humankind.
In conclusion, the book Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a charming masterpiece and presents an intriguing exploration into the depths of the secrets of the Unbroken Spine, a secret society. It is deceptively simple, yet it covers a swooping range of topics that relate exceptionally well with modern life. Many young adults will find the book suiting due to the intriguing explorations and vivid descriptions of the quest for knowledge. I found Clay an ingenious character at a personal level since, despite the challenging situations he fell into, he always found a way out by mobilizing the skills he and his fellow explorers had.
Reference
Sloan, R. (2012). Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore . Atlantic Books Ltd.
