Saturday Review #5, a little late
Sep. 5th, 2010 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaI meant to write and post this yesterday, except a combination of factors (including but not limited to Cleaning All The Things, Only Getting To The Library This Week Instead Of Last, and Epic Meta Post of Unfinished Epicness) conspired against me. So. Um. Sorry!
THE TOMB OF ZEUS, by Barbara Cleverly.
Cover copy: With the same flawless storytelling that earned her the CWA Historical Dagger Award, Barbara Cleverly delivers a dazzling new novel. Sweeping us to the exotic island of Crete in 1928, Cleverly introduces a marvelous new heroine: whip-smart and spirited Laetitia Talbot, an aspiring archaeologist with a passion for adventure - and for the mysteries that only the keenest eyes can see.
Born into a background of British privilege, Laetitia Talbot has been raised to believe there is no field in which she may not excel. She has chosen a career in the male-dominated world of archaeology, but she approaches her first assignment in Crete the only way she knows how - with dash and enthusiasm. Until she enters the Villa Europa, where something is clearly amiss...
Her host, a charismatic archaeologist, is racing to dig up the fabled island's next great treasure - the tomb of the King of the Gods. But then a beautiful young woman is found hanged and a golden youth drives his Bugatti over a cliff. From out of the shadows come whispers of past loves, past jealousies, and ancient myths that sound an eerie discord with present events. Letty will need all her determination and knowledge to unravel the secrets beneath the Villa Europa's roof - and they will lead her into the darkest, most terrifying place of all...
Does anyone ever actually buy a book on account of the puff-bits they put at the beginning of the cover copy? I can possibly see buying a book because your favorite author has one of the pull-quotes, saying that this book is the best thing since sliced bread, but when it's the publisher, not so much. "New York Times Bestselling Author! Won [Award You Never Heard Of]!" Yeah, yeah, whatever. If I buy books for the author, I'll buy it regardless of the puff-bits, and if I buy books for the plot, then the puff-bits are a waste of space.
Anyway. This book falls into the 'guilty pleasure' slot for me. It's flawed, and I can see the flaws, but -- 1920s arcaeology! On Crete! With a strong heroine who doesn't simultaneously drive me bats!
The primary flaw is, unfortunately, the authorial voice. It's very, very strong - to the point where all the characters sound pretty much the same. She sometimes manages to have the Cretan characters sound different from the British characters, but that's not consistent (the Cretan police detective in particular sounds the same as the British). Worse, the consistency of voice isn't something that can be fobbed off as 'well, British education, you know.' It's a certain archness of tone, combined with an fondness for the exclamation point. This suits the heroine, who is after all a young woman born and brought up in the hothouse of early 20th century upperclass English society: less so her host, who's supposed to be a generation older than her.
But the author has done her research. Theodore Russell, the aforementioned host archaeologist, is trying to establish himself as equal to Arthur Evans, the not-at-all-fictional excavator of Minos's Labyrinth. The discussions of archaeological theory and practice sound real for the time period, and the historical background of English/Cretan relations rings realistically, at least to this uneducated ear. If the heroine is consistently on the more modern side of any point -- whether it be how she runs the dig, her theories about goddess worship, or her sexual mores -- it's not like that's unusual when writing about a female main character in a historical setting.
The reason why it's a guilty pleasure, as opposed to a frustration, comes down to a few instances of the most glorious of melodrama. To pick an example: early in the book, Letty is presented with a supposed Minoan goddess figure, and identifies it as a fake. Her host, and his students, immediately object that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Letty, naturally, defends herself, scientifically taking apart their counter-arguments. Only later, alone with a friend, does she admit that her initial assessment was based on (trained) instinct. It's the sort of thing that could, oh so easily, tip over into heavy-handed Mary Sue territory, wherein the heroine wins because the author has made her opponents dumb. Here, she wins both because she has been trained in recognizing fakes, and because the specific points she cites - the shape of the breasts, the details of the dress, the expression on the face - are believably the sort of thing that British Edwardian young men might brush aside as unimportant.
In conclusion: fun, but there's a reason I haven't bothered to see if there are any further books in the series.
THE TOMB OF ZEUS, by Barbara Cleverly.
Cover copy: With the same flawless storytelling that earned her the CWA Historical Dagger Award, Barbara Cleverly delivers a dazzling new novel. Sweeping us to the exotic island of Crete in 1928, Cleverly introduces a marvelous new heroine: whip-smart and spirited Laetitia Talbot, an aspiring archaeologist with a passion for adventure - and for the mysteries that only the keenest eyes can see.
Born into a background of British privilege, Laetitia Talbot has been raised to believe there is no field in which she may not excel. She has chosen a career in the male-dominated world of archaeology, but she approaches her first assignment in Crete the only way she knows how - with dash and enthusiasm. Until she enters the Villa Europa, where something is clearly amiss...
Her host, a charismatic archaeologist, is racing to dig up the fabled island's next great treasure - the tomb of the King of the Gods. But then a beautiful young woman is found hanged and a golden youth drives his Bugatti over a cliff. From out of the shadows come whispers of past loves, past jealousies, and ancient myths that sound an eerie discord with present events. Letty will need all her determination and knowledge to unravel the secrets beneath the Villa Europa's roof - and they will lead her into the darkest, most terrifying place of all...
Does anyone ever actually buy a book on account of the puff-bits they put at the beginning of the cover copy? I can possibly see buying a book because your favorite author has one of the pull-quotes, saying that this book is the best thing since sliced bread, but when it's the publisher, not so much. "New York Times Bestselling Author! Won [Award You Never Heard Of]!" Yeah, yeah, whatever. If I buy books for the author, I'll buy it regardless of the puff-bits, and if I buy books for the plot, then the puff-bits are a waste of space.
Anyway. This book falls into the 'guilty pleasure' slot for me. It's flawed, and I can see the flaws, but -- 1920s arcaeology! On Crete! With a strong heroine who doesn't simultaneously drive me bats!
The primary flaw is, unfortunately, the authorial voice. It's very, very strong - to the point where all the characters sound pretty much the same. She sometimes manages to have the Cretan characters sound different from the British characters, but that's not consistent (the Cretan police detective in particular sounds the same as the British). Worse, the consistency of voice isn't something that can be fobbed off as 'well, British education, you know.' It's a certain archness of tone, combined with an fondness for the exclamation point. This suits the heroine, who is after all a young woman born and brought up in the hothouse of early 20th century upperclass English society: less so her host, who's supposed to be a generation older than her.
But the author has done her research. Theodore Russell, the aforementioned host archaeologist, is trying to establish himself as equal to Arthur Evans, the not-at-all-fictional excavator of Minos's Labyrinth. The discussions of archaeological theory and practice sound real for the time period, and the historical background of English/Cretan relations rings realistically, at least to this uneducated ear. If the heroine is consistently on the more modern side of any point -- whether it be how she runs the dig, her theories about goddess worship, or her sexual mores -- it's not like that's unusual when writing about a female main character in a historical setting.
The reason why it's a guilty pleasure, as opposed to a frustration, comes down to a few instances of the most glorious of melodrama. To pick an example: early in the book, Letty is presented with a supposed Minoan goddess figure, and identifies it as a fake. Her host, and his students, immediately object that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Letty, naturally, defends herself, scientifically taking apart their counter-arguments. Only later, alone with a friend, does she admit that her initial assessment was based on (trained) instinct. It's the sort of thing that could, oh so easily, tip over into heavy-handed Mary Sue territory, wherein the heroine wins because the author has made her opponents dumb. Here, she wins both because she has been trained in recognizing fakes, and because the specific points she cites - the shape of the breasts, the details of the dress, the expression on the face - are believably the sort of thing that British Edwardian young men might brush aside as unimportant.
In conclusion: fun, but there's a reason I haven't bothered to see if there are any further books in the series.