A Burnable Book

AADL has no copies of this item

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A Burnable Book submitted by leighsprauer on August 5, 2017, 5:39pm I saw A Burnable Book while browsing, and checked it out because I generally enjoy historical fiction and particularly medieval Europe. Sadly, because it was a library book, I could not burn it when I was finished, which was my first thought. The story involves the poets John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, and a mysterious book that prophesies the death of King Richard II, which they must locate before it falls into the wrong hands. There are plot twists, and shocking developments (though none as shocking as the narrative would have you believe) as the pair figure out the (overly-) convoluted path the book as taken through Italy and London. The first off-putting element of the book was the gratuitously explicit descriptions of the lives of London's prostitutes, who are key players in the mystery of the book. It's hard to imagine what the author's purpose was in these descriptions, other than to shock the reader. Another jarring element was the occasional use of modern phrases ("that's on you" and "the threat was neutralized"); although I don't think that the author intended the language to be authentic - at least I sincerely hope not - these types of phrases were glaring misfits. In general, the voice was all over the place, and could have benefited from a better editor. It didn't help that the author used various storytelling devices: first person in the case of John Gower, third person for other characters, and interspersed with sections of a letter for another character. Although some authors might have pulled that off (Louis de Bernieres, for example), this author could not.
Part of the problem is that other medieval historical fiction books that I've read - Eco's The Name of the Rose, and Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter come to mind - are so vastly and obviously superior that this is really awful by comparison. I did give it a half a star, because I did learn a little about 14th c. England, and as a professor of medieval literature, the author seems to have a decent grasp on the time period. Unfortunately, that does not make him a good writer.