The Unbroken Spine: An Analysis

Famous film director and entrepreneur George Lucas once said, “technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want”. Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, contradicts Lucas’s opinion by organizing a plot that involves a secret “bibliophile cult” (113), the Unbroken Spine, and their quest to solve the Founder’s Puzzle. Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Unbroken Spine, composed the Codex Vitae without the use of technology, but with the help of Griffo Gerritszoon and his handmade typeface. When decoded, the Codex Vitae will hold the key to eternal life for all members of the Unbroken Spine. When Clay Jannon gets a job at Penumbra’s bookstore, he is intrigued
by the works of this cult and the secrets they hold. With the help of technology, Clay’s new approach to solving the Founder’s Puzzle underscores the efficiency computers and technology have on solving a problem. In order to solve a problem, one must have a procedure that it both efficient and rewarding. Both the Unbroken Spine and Clay Jannon value different components of solving the Founder’s Puzzle. For the Unbroken Spine, the solution to eternal life has been a primary concern for many years, and a major reason why they pursue Manutius’s Codex Vitae. On the other hand, Clay Jannon and his friends value technology and their method in solving the Founder’s Puzzle more than the actual answer. Corvina, Penumbra’s boss and member of the Unbroken Spine, holds a narrow minded approach to finding the solution to eternal life. He believes that the only way to solve the Founder’s Puzzle is by carefully reading all of the books. Since “Manutius never had any bright screens or virtual machines”(226), Corvina does not trust the use of technology when examining the books. When he discovers that Clay and Mr. Penumbra have been using technology to solve the puzzle, he becomes frustrated. Corvina believes that, “nobody should ever try anything new and risky” (219), further portraying his distrust. Therefore, he remains headstrong on the key to eternal life, rather than the method of solving it. For Kat Potente, Mr. Penumbra and the rest of Clay’s technologically optimistic friends, how the solution was achieved exhibited itself as a more rewarding sense than the actual solution. By using computers and cameras, Clay is capable of making copies of books from within “The Reading Room”, including Manutius’s Codex Vitae. As well as using the computers to copy the books, he uses them to locate Griffo Gerritzoon’s typeface punches. By observing the punches, he notices distinct notches that form a code. Gerritzoon’s code leads Clay to decode Manutius’s Codex Vitae, along with the question to reaching eternal life. When clay reveals the message to eternity, “Thank you, Teobaldo. You are my greatest friend. This has been the key to everything.”(277), members of the unbroken spine, including Corvina, do not show any enthusiasm to having the Founder’s Puzzle solved. On the other hand, Clay and Mr. Penumbra express joy in having solved the puzzle, even if it was not what they expected it to be. When Clay asks Penumbra if he is disappointed with the outcome, Penumbra responds with “Disapointed? Impossible. It is not what I expected, but what did I expect? What did any of us expect?”(279). Mr. Penumbra’s response emphasizes how he is not concerned with what the solution to eternity is, but rather their success in how they were able to decode it. In my opinion, I believe that ones approach to solving a problem is more beneficial to them than actually possessing the answer. By attacking a problem with a defined plan, it allows the person to learn more than if they were given the resolution. Personally, in order to learn something, I need to work out the problem multiple times. Often times this includes broadening my views on how to solve something, in order to reach an answer. For Clay and his friends, expanding their use of resources and combining the use of technology and books allowed them to reach the solution faster. Even though it is commonly heard that technology is killing books and publishing, many of us are guilty of overlooking the power that books hold. Much of the digital knowledge that exists online, is found in books: encyclopedias and dictionaries. While we rely on computers for news, research and social reasons, books will always carry the same information but in tangible form. Instead of seeing it on a screen, you can hold it and know that unlike technology, these books are not going to “crash” and lose everything. They hold the raw knowledge that we use to translate into digital form. In order for Clay to digitize the Codex Vitae, he needed the hard copy of the book. However, the power of technology can make access to information faster. Having vast amounts of data at our fingertips allows us to find this information very quickly, similar to how Clay found the Gerritszoon punches. When thinking about how he was going to locate them, he humorously asked a first grader, “How would you find a needle in a haystack?”(249). The first grader responds with, “I would ask the hay to find it”(249). Clay quickly puts the information of punches into the computers, and searches the database to locate where they are. His ability to quickly pinpoint where the Gerritszoon punches are from the computer represents the power that technology holds. While many people still sympathize for Corvina and are hesitant to trust today’s growing age of technology, I believe it holds more positive influences than negative.
Technology is allowing us to understand and learn concepts that we never thought were possible. Medical breakthroughs, higher education and increased energy efficiency account for a small fraction of the impact that increased technology has on our society. For Clay, the use of technology allowed him to notice references in Clark Moffat’s, The Dragon Song Chronicles: Volume III, that he never noticed before. While listening to the audio tape of the book, Clay realizes that Moffat indirectly references Mr. Penumbra and the Unbroken Spine in his writing. As a result, Clay admits that “It took me hearing them to get it”(265), substantiating technologies role in helping Clay Understand Moffat’s message. Audio tapes is not the only way that technology can help a person understand something. I find pictures, video clips and audio tapes all assist me in understanding different material. Especially within the classroom, I can grasp the learning material better when a visual presentation is exhibited. In science classes, having the ability to watch video’s makes the topics being discussed more coherent for me. Technology’s impact on society is allowing us to comprehend information in a more efficient and faster
way. Through Sloan’s, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, the combination of technology and books contributes to the decoding of a hundred year old puzzle. While technology continues to grow, so does the number of answers that are being discovered to our questions. With the exponential growth in technology, computers may solve all global problems before we know it.