Summary

In “Fragment,” God became bored with humanity, obsessed with a book, and divided the world into pieces. The first part of the novel, called “The Promise” began with “The Archivist” chapter. Anima was an Ark where objects were animate and the buildings seemed to take on moods of their own. The Family Archives building was in a bad mood and did not like when people visited it outside of business hours. A visitor named Ophelia entered the building through the cloakroom mirror. Ophelia went to the archivist’s quarters to find her elderly great-uncle, who was focused on reading. They spoke about Ophelia’s upcoming engagement to a man her mother found for her. He expected Ophelia to try to get out of the marriage, as she had done in the past, but Ophelia had accepted her fate. She came to ask her...