Review: The Book of Kings by James Thackara

Twelve years old, but still one of the most cutting reviews I’ve ever read:

“What sets Thackara apart is quite a simple fact. He can’t write. After a while, the incredulous reader starts to play a game: to open the book at random and try and find a tolerable sentence. Save your effort - you will never win. Thackara is always ahead of you, with his uncanny knack for the not-quite-right word and the yer-what turn of phrase. “You could not see his parents’ intricate cultivation, nor that the ball was in the Palazzo Farnese, just after the war.” “Justin’s friend was not in the courtyard, but the fountain was.” “The Hanoverian battery commander, Egbert, was as delighted as a music conductor to show off for his guests behind the embankment wall.” These examples are taken entirely at random. It is all at least as bad as this, and some of it is worse to an unspeakable degree.”

UPDATE: If you want to know what he thinks of himself, his own website and clearly self-authored Wikipedia page are quite absurdly terrible.

  1. pootling posted this