Reading the 11th century chapter, I felt my heart begin to sink. The New Forest in comparison is tiny so there would/should have been greater scope to develop this. Russia is, after all, a large place and there is only so much that we can cover. It works a little better here and the novel feels stronger for it. This was the approach he took in The Forest and I don’t feel it worked there. Rarely do we see specific events, they arw referred to as external agencies. For me it remains his best work.Įarly part has a different feel – not about events but how Russia appears as the world changes around them. Of the work I have read, this approach is no better demonstrated than in Sarum. Each chapter is a set in a different time period familiarity is exercised through the descendants of those in the previous chapters so continuity is maintained through the ongoing feuds, marriages, business partnerships etc. If you have read at least one of his works, you know what go expect. This time, he has chosen to take on the geographically mighty Russia, telling its history from the second century AD through to 1990 and the end of Communism. So, onto the next mammoth book by Edward Rutherfurd who is known – perhaps uniquely – for creating a story around the history of a place and populating it with characters and their descendants as we move through history’s most memorable events.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |