Joseph Zizza
I found the first entries in this series very entertaining, but the formula is tired and the “mystery” has little to recommend it. The focus on the grim unpleasantness of life in 1543 is not much fun, and the only pleasure is reminding one of how much better things are now. Neither the story, the characters nor the historical background are enough to sustain interest over 600 pages, and once the novelty of the setting has worn off, it's not much fun. My initial infatuation with the series has worn off, and after three novels, Sansom's shortcomings as a writer, plotter and storyteller have made themselves very visible. I won't be reading any more of this series.
Entertaining, enlightening, if somewhat repetitive book which illustrates quite conclusively that most of us live with a very outdated view of the world, reinforced by media desperate to get our attention by dramatizing and sensationalizing stories that distort the slow steady improvement in key areas. One eye-opening example: that the number of people in the world in extreme poverty is now down to 800 million. The book is full of such facts, and it isn't a rose-tinted view. The authors don't ignore the negative, they just balance it against the inescapable positives of slowly improving circumstances. Recommended.
Very disappointing. AS others have mentioned, this book promises something it doesn't even attempt to deliver. The idea of “unlived life” is not discussed at all, but instead we get essays about psychology viewed through the lens of literature. That might have been interesting, but I didn't think it was here. I was mostly bored and felt like I was listening to a boring classmate from my university days. I know others found this book fascinating, but I found it a waste of my time.
This book surprised me. I didn't expect a story so completely absorbed in the emotions and thoughts of its characters. It spends the vast majority of its 579 pages inside the head of one or another of its many characters: the middle-aged Latin teacher, the deranged mystic, the young arrival from Guernsey, the passionate fisherman, and several others. Powys never seems to put a foot wrong in his exploration of their thinking and it doesn't ring a false note. But, like his idol Thomas Hardy, Powys does have the tendency to go off on a tangent and spend paragraphs, even pages, declaiming his mystical views. This is sometimes absorbing, sometimes dull, very occasionally cringe-worthy. But in the end, I read it with an absorption and at a pace I've rarely experienced. Not for all tastes, but a significant accomplishment.
Entertaining and meandering second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. The adventures of Kvothe range far and wide, and leave him with more questions than answers. Funny, exciting, and always full of the unexpected, this volume will not disappoint lovers of The Name of the Wind. I am very much looking forward to the final volume, which is due sometime before the end of the decade.
There's a great 500-600 page novel in these 900-plus pages. I enjoyed parts of it very much, but in his zeal to mimic the Victorian writers Faber commits the same mistake many of them made in going on and on endlessly. And Faber doesn't have the excuse of getting paid by the word. Pity, because much of this is excellent, but it wears out its welcome, hammering its themes home with relentless, verbose repetitiveness. It could have been great, but falls short due to its author's inability to just stop.
Weak later Carr, when the tricks are showing and there is little substance. The murder is clever and well-explained, but there is far too much “atmosphere” around such a slight story. There are far better Carr novels, even among the later ones, but this isn't a strong example of the Carr mastery. Dark of the Moon (immediately after this one) and House at Satan's Elbow (immediately before) are both better. And, of course, the earlier novels–particularly those from the 1930's–are the real standouts.
How does this novel have such a good reputation? Contrived, dull, with no character development and unlikable people doing foolish and stupid things, screwing up their own and other people's lives. Pretentious and pompous pontifications from a benighted fool of an author. Several hours of my life I will never get back. Rubbish.
I've rarely read anything that covered such personal topics that was as superficial and hollow as this novel. The only character who is even remotely believable as a real human being is the younger daughter, Hannah. Everyone else–from the robotic father James to the dissatisfied mother Marilyn, from the dead daughter Lydia to the invisible son Nath–is a cardboard cut out of a TV-movie cliche person. The book has no depth, no felt emotion, no events that even feel anything other than contrived for the purposes of making the reader feel this is a moving story. It isn't. It's a mish-mosh of adolescent angst, feminist frustration and second hand resentment of bigotry towards Chinese people in the US. The author was born three years after the latest event in the story, so everything about it is second hand, and feels it. I have her second novel, but I will not read it. This was a huge disappointment.
