dsmohamedibrahim

This book is really, really, really long. Seriously overwritten. It could have been done in half the pages, but then where would all the Victorian melodrama fit in? A little gothic and overwrought for my taste, but at the bottom of it all, under all the description and atmosphere (oh, the atmosphere), is a decent suspense novel. I thought it was too predictable -- I kept predicting what was going to happen, anyway -- only to find out that the author clearly thought that was the predictable outcome as well, because he wrote exactly what I said would happen, then debunked it. Over and over again. And in the end, I was surprised by a couple of plot twists. So much for predictability. I can see why this is a classic. It's very much a product of its time, and the fact that it was published initially in serialized form in a magazine shows in the complete book. There are obvious stopping points, completed story arcs that make the book feel much longer than it should. What this book needs most is a good editor to cut the excess and tighten up the prose.

2020-08-08 19:57