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Jun. 17th, 2010 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
polutropeI was going to do a whole long post on Edward Rutherford's London, but really it's not worth it. Basically, it's very long (1100 pages) and not very good. There are a couple of reasons: the prose, for instance, is at best mediocre and at worse awkward: "She was the widow of a knight, the daughter of a knight, and looked it" & "Could it be that Lady Whatshername was preparing for a sexual encounter?" The first is grammatically bad: "and looked it" or whatever the exact phrasing was is not parallel to the first two parts of the sentence. The second is a tone-killer. Lady Whatshername, in 18th century London, would not have thought of it as a "sexual encounter." (Really, does anyone?) And after a long and meticulous description of her toilette, in decent 18th century terms, the clinical, blatantly 20th century term is just terrible.
Another reason it's not great is because of the structure. The book ~spans 2000 years of London's history~, which means that Rutherford hits the high points of English history with Rutherford's bland interconnected families forced in. At one point, Chaucer, who is, incidentally, the godfather of one of the families' child, Chaucer casually mentions that he's going to write a story about a bunch of pilgrims! O M G! Further, as stated before, he can't draw a character to save his life. No, two repeated adjectives do not a personality make.
And the most important reason, I think, that it's not very good, is that Rutherford seems to have some scorn for historical people. I've read things that have less than stellar prose* and enjoyed them - my favorite historical series is Alan Gordon's Jester books, which are wonderful, but have a few stylistic quirks that get on my nerves quite a bit. But Gordon doesn't seem to be smirking up his sleeve at medieval people. Rutherford mocks medieval medical attitudes; treatment of women*; and 16th century medical knowledge. The problem with this is that it creates distance and threatens the immersion; and also, it's hard to like characters that the author looks down on. Presumably you write historical fiction because you like, at least a little bit, the past, and can deal with its imperfections in ways other than directly commenting on them.
So anyway, I only read it because it was long and I didn't have much other choice*, weight limits on airplanes being what they are, and I don't suggest that you read it, unless you're in a similar situation.
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*you kind of have to, given the lack of stellar prose
*treatment of women in the middle ages was awful. The way to deal with that in your novel is not saying "treatment of women in the middle ages was awful."
*and ugh, I picked the worst books to bring. I have disliked 3 of 6 that I read, and then Parzival fell apart.
Another reason it's not great is because of the structure. The book ~spans 2000 years of London's history~, which means that Rutherford hits the high points of English history with Rutherford's bland interconnected families forced in. At one point, Chaucer, who is, incidentally, the godfather of one of the families' child, Chaucer casually mentions that he's going to write a story about a bunch of pilgrims! O M G! Further, as stated before, he can't draw a character to save his life. No, two repeated adjectives do not a personality make.
And the most important reason, I think, that it's not very good, is that Rutherford seems to have some scorn for historical people. I've read things that have less than stellar prose* and enjoyed them - my favorite historical series is Alan Gordon's Jester books, which are wonderful, but have a few stylistic quirks that get on my nerves quite a bit. But Gordon doesn't seem to be smirking up his sleeve at medieval people. Rutherford mocks medieval medical attitudes; treatment of women*; and 16th century medical knowledge. The problem with this is that it creates distance and threatens the immersion; and also, it's hard to like characters that the author looks down on. Presumably you write historical fiction because you like, at least a little bit, the past, and can deal with its imperfections in ways other than directly commenting on them.
So anyway, I only read it because it was long and I didn't have much other choice*, weight limits on airplanes being what they are, and I don't suggest that you read it, unless you're in a similar situation.
---
*you kind of have to, given the lack of stellar prose
*treatment of women in the middle ages was awful. The way to deal with that in your novel is not saying "treatment of women in the middle ages was awful."
*and ugh, I picked the worst books to bring. I have disliked 3 of 6 that I read, and then Parzival fell apart.
