Turn Again To Life (A. Zukowski)
Mar. 26th, 2021 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fffridayThis was a really intriguing premise - a researcher sets out to discover the identity and story of two women whose frozen bodies are discovered on Mont Blanc 90 years after their disappearance. They're established quite early on to have been a couple and the narrator identifies (over-identifies?) with them and their struggle to be taken seriously in a man's world.
Unfortunately, it didn't work for me as it stood. Despite a valiant effort by the narrator, I never got far enough into the climbers' heads to be able to see their attempt - unassisted, with unconvincing preparation, and in uncertain weather - as heroic rather than foolhardy. (And that in itself made me doubt the historian's credentials...)
It also had the issue I've noticed in a few historical novels recently: a failure to mix in the (obviously thorough) research sufficiently, resulting in an unconvincing portrayal of the past which had one of the women explaining the recent developments of the suffrage movement in a love letter.
I think I'd either have preferred it twice the length, with room to dig into both couples' stories and personalities, or as a pure historical, removing the distance between Ruth and Cat and their objective. And either way, it needed a more thorough edit than it got.
Unfortunately, it didn't work for me as it stood. Despite a valiant effort by the narrator, I never got far enough into the climbers' heads to be able to see their attempt - unassisted, with unconvincing preparation, and in uncertain weather - as heroic rather than foolhardy. (And that in itself made me doubt the historian's credentials...)
It also had the issue I've noticed in a few historical novels recently: a failure to mix in the (obviously thorough) research sufficiently, resulting in an unconvincing portrayal of the past which had one of the women explaining the recent developments of the suffrage movement in a love letter.
I think I'd either have preferred it twice the length, with room to dig into both couples' stories and personalities, or as a pure historical, removing the distance between Ruth and Cat and their objective. And either way, it needed a more thorough edit than it got.
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Date: 2021-03-27 09:07 pm (UTC)Oh yes, this exactly--too often I think it's a sign of insufficient research, because, look, they know these five things and they have to shoehorn them in somehow! So the book ends up being generally ahistorical but with these weird historical infodumps, rather than having more thorough research underlie the whole narrative and style.
This sounds like a fascinating concept for a book, and I'm sorry to hear it didn't come through for you!