[books 2013] Peter Ackroyd
Aug. 23rd, 2013 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro48. Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd
This month's Bibliogoths selection, though I won't now be able to make the meeting.
Anyway, I've read this one before. I've read a few of Ackroyd's novels, and found them all frustrating. They're well written, and there's the kernel of a good plot, but there's always something major that jars or just doesn't work for me. As opposed to his London: The Biography, which is just a wonderful masterwork.
I remembered this as being the least frustrating of the lot, and indeed it is, but I liked it less this time round. There's still something missing from it, and I remembered it as being a lot more suspenseful than it actually is. Which begs the question, what novel is it that has a lot of chasing around backstage at music halls to find a killer in a really scary way? Or is that just in my head?
I do love his playing with the fact that so many influential characters (to us, and at the time who are now forgotten) were hanging around the Reading Room of the British Museum in the 1880s. Somewhere in there is a wonderful quote about the museum/library environment attracting occultists.
Worth it, as there is really not much to it.
This month's Bibliogoths selection, though I won't now be able to make the meeting.
Anyway, I've read this one before. I've read a few of Ackroyd's novels, and found them all frustrating. They're well written, and there's the kernel of a good plot, but there's always something major that jars or just doesn't work for me. As opposed to his London: The Biography, which is just a wonderful masterwork.
I remembered this as being the least frustrating of the lot, and indeed it is, but I liked it less this time round. There's still something missing from it, and I remembered it as being a lot more suspenseful than it actually is. Which begs the question, what novel is it that has a lot of chasing around backstage at music halls to find a killer in a really scary way? Or is that just in my head?
I do love his playing with the fact that so many influential characters (to us, and at the time who are now forgotten) were hanging around the Reading Room of the British Museum in the 1880s. Somewhere in there is a wonderful quote about the museum/library environment attracting occultists.
Worth it, as there is really not much to it.
