London (Abridged Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Piece of Popular Fiction
Review: London is my favorite city, and I'm partial to anything even remotely connected with it. And I love history. Therefore, I did enjoy this book. "Enjoyed"--not "moved by" or "enlightened by."

It really is just a much more polished and erudite "beach read"--not a major novel by any means.

But a very enjoyable one, a good chance to while away a few weeks of spare time without having to think too much. A hamburger, not a steak--but a good hamburger.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Fun
Review: At around 1000 pages, "London" looks intimidating. It doesn't get any less intimidating when you crack open the spine and realize that this is not just the story of London, but the story of several families and how they thrive, prosper, and fail over the course of 2000 years along the Thames. A family tree takes up a couple pages and to trace your finger along it makes the task of reading about all these characters seem daunting. However, once I began the first story, I was hooked.

It is here that we are introduced to our first family, the Celtic Duckets (a trait ascribed to their webbed hands, also a neat literary trick to track the Ducket heirs). Soon we meet the Anglo-Saxon Barnikels and the Norman Silversleeves as well as a few other families. Each generation bringing new changes to London as well as to their perspective families. Together these families over the course of time fight Caesar, build the Tower of London, create the British stock exchange, and save Shakespeare's career. They live on London Bridge and converse with Henry the VIII. Some even eventually seek their fortune in the Americas. Each chapter is a new time and a new tale. Rutherfurd also has a talent for spinning witty, quick, and easy to digests historic yarns.

After so many pages and so many separate stories, I couldn't tell if I was running out of steam or maybe it was Rutherfurd. Either way I was grateful to close the cover on the book. It was great fun, but even fun has to end sometime.
(4 and a half stars)

Rating:
Summary: Great historical review, but....
Review: The great strength of this book is its historical review of the development of the city of London. You will feel saturated with details when you are finished, but it is a worthwhile and edifying experience. I was absorbed from start to finish! I particularly enjoyed the linguistic lessons-- the origins of many common English words and phrases are revealed.

However...this is an enormous book and an ambitious project, so there are bound to be weaknesses. Chiefly, the characters are not developed sufficiently to make them distinguishable from one another. Rutherfurd seems to make use of a few "stock personalities," which are then reincarnated into new characters in each successive chapter. Rutherfurd is somewhat more innovative with his storylines, but inevitably one finds "loose ends" that are not tied up satisfactorily. Details are mentioned which seem to have significance, but then they do not reappear. Characters are partially developed and then dropped. In the effort to keep marching forward through history, plot lines are brought to a close in a hurried fashion. Sometimes a single sentence or short paragraph attempts to close up a long and complicated story.

To be concise: The characters and storylines are subservient to the rendering of history. They are vehicles, or a means to an end, so if this doesn't bother you, dive in!

Rating:
Summary: A very good historical novel.
Review: I have been a voracious reader since I can remember and this is absolutely the best book I have ever read! Bear in mind that I love works that traverse family history across generations and I am a tranplanted Briton in the US, but this book is utterly brilliant. Rutherford creates such a crystal clear picture of life within this cosmopolitan city from the dawn of time to modern day. It is a substantial read and even though you won't want to put it down, you may be force to occasionally - for sleep! It took me a couple of days to read and I felt lost after I read the last line. The plot cleverly weaves characters and their families across many generations, showing how wealth and status can rise and fall easily with a twist of fate. I was fascinated and throughly engaged with the historical details included in each time period. This is a book you will never forget. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: 38 pages was my limit - BORING!!!
Review: The 800+ pages of this book did not deter me at all. I read Sarum and liked it. It was not perfect, but it was good enough for me to seek out this author again. London, however, was a different matter. I read - DRAGGED - myself through the first 38 pages and found the initial characters so completely boring that I could have cared less what became of them. My normal rule is 100+ before making a decision to close a book, and I think I've only ever closed 1 or 2. This one is now added to that short list. In fairness, it may get better - it may have turned out to be a thrilling, moving piece of literary work. Unfortunately, the beginning was SO bad that I don't even care if it gets better. I not only closed it - I donated it to the library. Maybe an nice insomniac will find it helpful.

Rating:
Summary: One complaint about a fine novel.
Review: This is an absolutely wonderful book -- as enjoyable on my current fourth reading as it was on my first. I do have one serious complaint, one which I am surprized others have not made. Even though the characters and plot lines are totally original, the structure of the novel is all Michener. I am very disappointed that Rutherford does not acknowldedge his debt to Michener in his introduction.