One reason I don't read many modern fiction books is because they tend to leave little for me to say, and this is a perfect example. Were this book fiction, philosophy (which is cognitive fiction), or analysis, I would feel free to react to it and offer my own thoughts. But insofar as it is strictly objective fact, what could I possibly say?
And it is probably because of this attribute that I don't really feel that it stuck with me. Ostler is such a scholar, so clearly objective, that his writing style leaves something to be desired. I'm not saying that I would have preferred a narrative, but a little more attention to structure--viewing the book as an integrated whole, rather than a collection of facts--might have helped it stay with me a little more. As it is, I could not say that I left this objectively valuable and fascinating book with much more than a fuzzy idea of its contents.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment