Lemprière's Dictionary

An extraordinary book in every sense - this one is a challenge both to read and to review. To start, how should we categorise it? It mixes so many genres - historical fiction, fantasy, classical allusions, grand conspiracy thriller, parody and even romance - a real postmodern mash-up.

I first heard of Norfolk several years ago when I read A.S. Byatt's book of literary criticism On Histories and Stories, in which she extolled him as one of the cleverest young writers around. This is probably the book she had most in mind, though The Pope's Rhinoceros is equally complex and ambitious.

Some of the pivotal events are real enough, the story of the East India Company, the siege of La Rochelle and the build-up to the French revolution, but the show more conceit of Norfolk's story is so outrageous that it can only be seen as a sort of self-parody. The two books it reminded me most of, for very different reasons, were Gravity's Rainbow and The Count of Monte Cristo.

The hero (or at least the pivotal character) is John Lemprière, a young scholar from Jersey whose primary interest is studying Greek and Roman classics. His story is interleaved with a grand conspiracy - in Norfolk's version of history the East India Company is almost ruined when its first expedition in 1600 comes back with a cargo of pepper which is worthless in London because the Dutch have flooded the market, and its investors are rescued by a shadowy "cabbala" of traders from the Huguenot free port of La Rochelle who are unable to trade with the East directly. Most of the action takes place in the 1780s, when their descendants draw Lemprière into their intrigues by staging reenactments of scenes from the classics, the first of which involves the grisly murder of his father by fox-hounds. They also persuade him to start writing a dictionary of classical mythology (this is also something real, as are some of Lemprière's biographical details).

The plot gets more and more complex, and veers further into the realms of fantasy, but Norfolk clearly loves the classics and has a fine command of arcane language. For all that, much of the book is quite readable and the storytelling is compulsive. show less

Nonsense and very long nonsense at that. Set in the 18th century between London and Paris, the book links the East India Company, the French Revolution and Lempriere's Classical Dictionary. However the author has developed a style which values words over meaning and erudition over storyline. Try throwing in to the mix the fact that some of the central characters are autonoma while others can fly. There are so many other books that your time would be better spent elsewhere.

Whilst I generally enjoyed the plot, reading this book was a real trudging effort. The style of writing is very reminiscent of Dickens and the immense descriptive detail Norfolk uses is really quite stunning, but at the same time incredibly annoying when you're as gripped by the plot as I was and have to wade through it all.

A long, slow, involved read, but one that entertains. Worth the effort. Just.

At over 600 pages, reading this book is a formidable undertaking.

This is the second time I've read this book, the first time being some 25 years ago. TBH I'd forgotten most of it so it was really like reading it anew.

It requires something of you, in fact it requires a lot of you, this is not an idle read.

It is the fictional re-imagining of the creation of the dictionary by John Lempriére back in the 1700s.

Centering on a young man who is the focus of an immense conspiracy. Only, he doesn't know this. Extraordinary events are staged around him, events so bizarre, and yet they mirror some of his internal visions. A mind fuck on a vast scale.

There are no easy giveaways in the story as to where it is going, in fact, huge chunks of it are show more not revealed until the very end. And yet the end is very satisfying.

It brought back the immense satisfaction of finishing an intense, enveloping story.

Would I recommend it, absolutely.
Is it for everyone? No, you need a decent attention span to get the best of this book

I've also read John Saturnall's Feast by this author, another very satisfying book indeed, and at only 400 odd pages it is more manageable than Lempriére's Dictionary show less

Normally I wouldn't appreciate it when a historical novel goes all steampunk on me right in the middle, but this novel has enough else going for it that I don't mind, and Norfolk could probably make a case for narrative necessity once he'd had a couple of pints. This book has exquisite depth, breadth, and coherence, though Norfolk sometimes goes very far afield to bring some of the depth and breadth, and he doesn't always bring his references to bear. If you haven't read a few hundred other books first, in the genre and out of it, wait until you have before you read this one.

An interesting historical/fantasy-mystery. Some outlandish and anachronistic details may be a bit much for some, but it's all good to me. One weakness is the revelation at the book's end of the true identity of one of the main characters, which is so bizarre and thematically out of step with the rest of the novel that I don't quite know what to make of it.

Lawrence Norfolk's first novel, Lemprière's Dictionary (1992) caught my eye on the paperback stacks at the shop a few weeks ago, and since my fiction "to read" pile was fairly short at that point, it soon found its way to the top of the heap. It took me a while to get through; at a dense 530 pages this is not a book that lends itself well to T-rides. When I got close to the end I felt the need to devote an evening's reading to finishing it so I didn't lose any of the twists and turns.

This is in some ways a bizarre novel, filled with anachronistic technologies, quickly shifting perspectives and enough allusions to classical mythology to bridge the River Styx (it had to be done). Its sprawl reminded me slightly of Palliser's The show more Quincunx, but there were also elements of Ian Pears, Umberto Eco, and even Charles Dickens at play here. Norfolk's writing is excellent at times and plodgy at others (that's plodding + stodgy), and most of his characters (even the human ones) offer little emotional connection. I finished the book without any sense of triumph or loss for any character at all.

Norfolk's got a few other books floating around since this one, and I suspect I'll eventually give another one of them a whirl. I didn't dislike this one (the suspense and plot-twists alone would have kept me reading), but I can't help but think it could have been better.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2006/08/book-review-lemprires-dictionary.html show less