This book had me flying through pages at certain points and absolutely fuming at characters at others. I have never hated a fictional character like I hate William Hamleigh, but I felt fury at lots of the male characters which probably lends credibility to the story's faithfulness to the time period more than anything else. I also had such a respect for Aliena as a heroine, mostly because of her growth throughout the novel. Watching Aliena go from spoiled to destitute to an independent businesswoman was fantastic, and sweetened all the more by William's incessant attempts to destroy her. The characters in the novel are distinct and compelling and I had a great time rooting for their success or demise. I didn't dreamcast most of this but on god Philip would be played by Martin Freeman and the bishop of Canterbury would be Cary Grant and that's all I have on that.
The book's obvious main struggle is with conciseness. I think it's highly impressive when a book can say what it wants to say, make important points, and drive a plot along within a reasonable page count. This book does not do that. It makes important points and has a great plot but it has to spend 976 pages doing so. It would have been much more compelling if the story could have been whittled down to 500-600 pages. Along with that, the plot points became a bit repetitive at a certain point. I knew what to expect by the 2/3 point. Waleran and Hamleigh would cause some reason to hurt Kingsbridge, then Philip would come up with a clever way around it and/or hurt Hamleigh/Shiring in return. It was still entertaining but it became predictable. Also, the ending with the murder of the bishop was very unexpected, so that was definitely an exception to the rule.
Final verdict: The characters and story are compelling, but they would have been better served with a more concise book.
The book's obvious main struggle is with conciseness. I think it's highly impressive when a book can say what it wants to say, make important points, and drive a plot along within a reasonable page count. This book does not do that. It makes important points and has a great plot but it has to spend 976 pages doing so. It would have been much more compelling if the story could have been whittled down to 500-600 pages. Along with that, the plot points became a bit repetitive at a certain point. I knew what to expect by the 2/3 point. Waleran and Hamleigh would cause some reason to hurt Kingsbridge, then Philip would come up with a clever way around it and/or hurt Hamleigh/Shiring in return. It was still entertaining but it became predictable. Also, the ending with the murder of the bishop was very unexpected, so that was definitely an exception to the rule.
Final verdict: The characters and story are compelling, but they would have been better served with a more concise book.
No comments:
Post a Comment