Lempriere's Dictionary - Lawrence Norfolk

"Lempriere's Dictionary" is in many ways an astonishingly clever novel. The plot concerns John Lempriere, a day-dreaming fan of the Greek and Roman classics, who finds himself in London to sort out his late father's affairs and inadvertently discovers that he may own a ninth share of the fabulously wealthy East India Company. In so doing, he finds himself at the centre of a powerful conspiracy. Norfolk has clearly done a lot of research, and the ...
...to the plot), European history, sailing, weather systems, Norfolk has become an expert on the lot and wants us to know it. Sometimes this erudition is just tiresome. My biggest problem with the book is that it can't decide its genre. Two of the elements that the story turns on are fantasy; but Norfolk doesn't begin to introduce them until halfway through, when he has already presented his story as a realistic one. Nonetheless I would recommend ...

NeilHudson 09.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Lempriere's Dictionary - Lawrence Norfolk