Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Mr. Penumbra is the enigmatic bookstore owner who employs Clay at the beginning of the novel. While he is a member of the Unbroken Spine and clearly loves books, he is not as rigidly opposed to new technology as is his former friend, Corvina. This is made clear when Clay finds a stash of old computer equipment in Penumbra’s office and learns that a number of Penumbra’s novices were once involved in the computer industry. In this way, he is quite similar to Clay: positioned somewhere between his love of old books and his interest in new technology. Penumbra is a fatherly figure, a teacher and a mentor to both his students and to Clay, who he encourages to solve the mystery of Manutius’s book. By stepping aside and allowing Clay to take on the mystery he has worked most of his life to solve, Penumbra is acknowledging the need to let a new generation take the lead and accepting the need for change.

This is not the same thing as giving up entirely, however, and the business he starts with Clay bears his name: Penumbra. Significantly, the word penumbra can mean an area of partial shadow; his name, then, is both reflective of his intermediate position between old technologies and new and suggestive of the mysterious organization with which he is involved. When considered in relation to his and Clay’s new business, a small consultancy firm “for companies operating at the intersection of books and technology” (285), the name suggests that this “intersection” remains in shadow and needs to have light shed on it. 

Kat is Clay’s love interest in the novel, but she is also the technological “wizard” in his quest’s party and provides the group with access to Google’s immense resources. Other than the members of the Unbroken Spine, Kat is the novel’s keenest advocate for the idea of immortality. Fiercely intelligent, Kat is frustrated by the idea of her own—and others’—intelligence being limited by the biological inevitability of death. She thinks that extending the lifespan of human beings or eradicating death altogether would vastly increase their potential for progress. However, Kat’s singular focus on and interest in all things digital means that she can conceive of progress only in terms of technological advancement. This is particularly evident when she compares Shakespeare’s contribution to society to that of a software upgrade. Kat and Clay’s relationship and their conversations provide Sloan with an opportunity to challenge some of the limitations of Kat’s perspective. Despite her disappointment that Manutius’s book cannot reveal the secret to immortality, Kat’s continued friendship with Clay and the other members of the “quest” suggest that she might gradually come around to the idea that immortality can take the form of a legacy, and that it cannot be achieved without the help of your friends.

Corvina is the head of the secret organization, the Unbroken Spine, and is, in many ways, the novel’s villain. Formerly Penumbra’s closest friend, Corvina is now his polar opposite. Where Penumbra welcomes change, Corvina advocates tradition. Corvina’s desire for things to stay the same is a desire for control. As the head of the Unbroken Spine and the CEO of the Festina Lente Company, Corvina is a very powerful man. While the Unbroken Spine continue to use traditional methods of analysis, there seems little chance that Manutius’s codex vitae will be decoded and so Corvina’s power is safe. However, if Penumbra were to successfully use new technologies to decode the book, it is unclear what would happen to the Unbroken Spine or to Corvina. Thus, his claims that he has Penumbra’s best interests at heart when he tries to persuade Clay not to try and decode the book seem unlikely. In fact, when Clay reveals that he has decoded Manutius’s book in the novel’s final section, Corvina doesn’t wait to hear what it says—he simply leaves the room. His failure to embrace change ultimately leads to what he most feared his removal as the head of the Unbroken Spine and the end of his power. 

Mat is Clay’s roommate and a special effects artist. Working in the movie industry, he is necessarily involved to some extent with modern technology; however, he prefers to use manual techniques rather than computer graphics to create his effects. In this respect, he provides a useful counterpoint to the novel’s interest in technological progress by highlighting the continued value and pleasure of older ways of doing things and the beauty they can produce. In particular, the processes by which Mat creates a replica of one of the bookstore’s logbooks draws attention to the fact that books are, to some degree, also technological objects and that printed books were themselves once the product of incredible innovation.