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A review by veniasum
Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey
4.0
For the first three chapters, I had serious doubts:
1. Taken as history, this reads as...dated. Also, no footnotes. Few quotations.
2. The pacing at the very beginning seemed off, both too quick and too slow.
HOWEVER. I shifted to thinking of this more as historical fiction that majors on the historical and minors on the fiction (novelistic history?), rather like "I Claudius," which is, I think, a more fitting genre judgment. Also, I didn't have any idea what was actually going to happen (I'm weak on the Elizabethans, apparently), and so the suspense built dramatically and the ending was a very effective punch in the gut.
In the end, surprising myself, I highly recommend it. I would like to read something on the topic more academic, which is a good sign.
1. Taken as history, this reads as...dated. Also, no footnotes. Few quotations.
2. The pacing at the very beginning seemed off, both too quick and too slow.
HOWEVER. I shifted to thinking of this more as historical fiction that majors on the historical and minors on the fiction (novelistic history?), rather like "I Claudius," which is, I think, a more fitting genre judgment. Also, I didn't have any idea what was actually going to happen (I'm weak on the Elizabethans, apparently), and so the suspense built dramatically and the ending was a very effective punch in the gut.
In the end, surprising myself, I highly recommend it. I would like to read something on the topic more academic, which is a good sign.