PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThere are a couple of starts to this collection of 12 stories. A brilliant preamble that has much in common with Henri Lefebvre’s The Missing Pieces details things that disappeared — and others that were discovered — while the author was working on this book ... What follow are stories that deal with \'the diverse phenomena of decomposition and destruction,\' linking the concept of the archive with that of \'its prototype, the ark,\' namely our futile compulsion to gather and preserve everything in a finite space ... Schalansky’s texts, ably translated from the German by Jackie Smith, sometimes directly animate historical accounts, using a technique like ventriloquism. This can come together to impressive effect, especially in stories that feature the narrator wandering through natural landscapes ... I found myself longing for more of a mosaic, for more connections and atmospheric frisson between the stories, fulfilling the elegiac promise of the opening essays, although there is much to admire here in the richness of historical research and the intelligence and eloquence of thought.
