Mike answers “This book seems like a slow read with its...”

Fran asked this question about Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1):

This book seems like a slow read with its antiquated writing style. Is it worth the whole read?

Mike A belated answer.

While the narrator says he's writing in an 18th century style, that's not how the book reads. If you imagine a knob where 0 is 21st c…moreA belated answer.

While the narrator says he's writing in an 18th century style, that's not how the book reads. If you imagine a knob where 0 is 21st century prose, and 10 is Jonathan Swift or Laurence Sterne, or whoever: for most of the book, the knob is set at around 2. Just enough to make the language a bit distant, but not enough to make it difficult. It's a good choice, and it works well.

However, during the asides to the reader, that knob gets turned to 11. These asides are mostly short. But you also need to think about what's happening. These "dear reader" moments are, first, not anything I remember in 18th century lit. We're talking 19th century: Tony Trollope, not Larry Sterne. (And Trollope's dear readers never argue back. Mycroft's do.) [Well, I re-read Sterne, and he does a "dear reader" that's a lot like these. Sterne pushes the envelope, before there even was an envelope. But again--that is absolutely part of a very complex game the author is playing.] And these moments are written by a fictional 24th century author who is self-consciously imitating that 18th century voice. And, if you really know how 18th century English language works, they're not always correct. The knob is turned to 11, not 10, and that's not an accident. Even given that Mycroft is a brilliant polyglot, he can't always be right about everything. But what games is he playing? What games is his language playing?

If the question is simply "will the antiquated language slow me down," I'd say probably not. But there is a much bigger question: what is that language doing, and why is it doing it? Nothing in this book is accidental; it's been a long time since I've read anything this carefully written. Thinking about the problem of language in this book: that might indeed slow you down. (less)

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Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer (Goodreads Author)

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