Reviews

The Brass Bowl by Louis Joseph Vance

readrillslow's review against another edition

2.0

Hmm. I don't know that I'd read Vance again. I have some complaints about his writing style. For exposition, he doesn't seem to vary his sentence lengths, which causes fatigue. And he almost seems to write with a thesaurus at his elbow, choosing formal or archaic words when simple ones would be more effective. The attempts to convey dialects are ambitious but slow the reader down.

In his favor, he does action well. When things are moving quickly, this is quite a page-turner.

samiam10's review

5.0

It is difficult to set a catagory for this book. It belongs to a time with social mores and customs which are so foreign to todays readers that it would require an interpreter for most. The hero was a wealthy dilettanti, bored with his life who was swept up in circumstances somewhat unbelieveable, but exciting, and a love interest who was a rapidly changing and challenging mystery for much of the book. The novel was well written and characterizations were so well done that one feels that sense of disconnectedness at times due to self immersion in the plot. I highly recommend this and all other similar books, they are fun, and the style of writing should not be lost to current readers.