Hippolyte's Island

Rating:
Summary: A Beautifully Made Book
Review: This is a beautifully made book. The quality of the construction, the maps and the illustrations, make it a treat to read. The story, of a man who re-discovers some islands (the Auroras) between The Falkland Is and the South Georgia Is is secondary. The first part, about the ideas of going there, and the second, the voyage, are not really all that compelling, but the third and fourth, dealing with the attempt by Hippolyte to prove the truth of his story, and Marie's disbelief, are more like a real novel. If you get a chance to buy this, do so. And savour it!

Rating:
Summary: I ran out right away.....
Review: to buy this book, as two of the author's others: The Sensualist and The Tattooed Map are two of my alltime favorite books. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed. This is the story of Hippolyte, to me an annoying, unlikeable and dirty smelly explorer type (hmmm...the heroine in The Tattooed Map was also none too clean..)who sets out to find some islands that supposedly do not exist. Sounds like a good story, right? Well, it would have been, except that the bulk of the story consists of Hippolyte trying to convince his editor that his journey was fact and not fiction, as she believes. This is done mostly through letters and notes of historical facts sent back and forth. The "finding the islands" part was way too small, and the rest of the book was sooo boring that any mystery etc. regarding these islands is overshadowed by the simple fact that I didn't want to read on. Also, there is some kind of completely unbelievable romance type thing beginning between Hippolyte and his editor Marie that begins to make the book a little bit more interesting, but it never fully develops into anything. Because I paid full price for this book, I forced myself to finish it. I must say that the illustrations did distract from the boredom of the continuous facts and figures in the book, thus raising it's rating from two to three stars. All in all, I was sorely disappointed, especially since I was so looking forward to another novel by this, one of my favorite authors.

Rating:
Summary: I ran out right away.....
Review: to buy this book, as two of the author's others: The Sensualist and The Tattooed Map are two of my alltime favorite books. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed. This is the story of Hippolyte, to me an annoying, unlikeable and dirty smelly explorer type (hmmm...the heroine in The Tattooed Map was also none too clean..)who sets out to find some islands that supposedly do not exist. Sounds like a good story, right? Well, it would have been, except that the bulk of the story consists of Hippolyte trying to convince his editor that his journey was fact and not fiction, as she believes. This is done mostly through letters and notes of historical facts sent back and forth. The "finding the islands" part was way too small, and the rest of the book was sooo boring that any mystery etc. regarding these islands is overshadowed by the simple fact that I didn't want to read on. Also, there is some kind of completely unbelievable romance type thing beginning between Hippolyte and his editor Marie that begins to make the book a little bit more interesting, but it never fully develops into anything. Because I paid full price for this book, I forced myself to finish it. I must say that the illustrations did distract from the boredom of the continuous facts and figures in the book, thus raising it's rating from two to three stars. All in all, I was sorely disappointed, especially since I was so looking forward to another novel by this, one of my favorite authors.