(Drivebycuriosity) - Some books stay in my memory for years and I need to reread them after a decade or more. "Lempiere`s Dictionary" by Lawrence Norfolk belongs to them (amazon). I was once fascinated by Norfolk´s eloquent style, the baroque cornucopia of ideas and the mystical plot. Maybe I was also impressed by the stylish cover of the paper version. And the book got the Somerset Maugham Prize.
Recently I reread the novel on Kindle. This time it didn`t work for me. I still indulged in his style, Norfolk commands an universe of words and he is generous with them.
But most of the book is just overgrown with word salads and tedious to read, maybe the author tried to copy James Joyce - or did he want to mock his Irish colleague?
This time I found the over-complex plot just confusing. It seems to follow a conspiracy stretching over 2 centuries integrated in an alternate history about the once powerful East Indian Company, there is a secret society, there are bizarre murders, a sub-terrain command center, pan-European weather situations, robots, Greek & Roman mythology, Turkish invaders, pirates, incest, vendetta and much much more. I lost track of it.
The book has way too many random ingredients, which makes it inedible, stylish or not.
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