PositiveThe Times (UK)Just like Wagner’s operas, this book sprawls. There are hundreds of characters, but many keep telling a similar story. Some of them come back again and again just when you think you’ve got rid of them. This, however, is part of Ross’s thesis: Wagner is so dominant an aesthetic presence that you can spend your whole life wrestling with him ... These multiple images of Wagner can leave your head spinning, but Ross is building a powerful argument that carries into the less diffuse second half of the book ... With rhetorical flourishes and an eye for detail Ross extols the art made by Wagnerians who were able to meet \'the Meister\' on their own terms and follow the composer’s famous injunction ... Yes, taking Wagner really seriously can be destructive. Ignoring him, however, is just stupid.
C. J. Sansom
MixedThe Times (UK)Sansom leads us around the local countryside with the same scrupulous authority that he describes Fleet Street or the City of Westminster. He’s also particularly good at writing about shit, because the streets and people are frequently covered in it. Sansom’s England smells as authentic as it looks ... If this isn’t a vintage instalment in the series, then, it’s not due to a dearth of scholarship, but to a dearth of mystery. Sansom seems to bore himself with the murder of Edith and so devotes most of the novel to the revolting peasants and their ringleader ... it’s all too predictable what is going to happen to Kett and his fellow insubordinates. Kett’s Rebellion is on Wikipedia, for one thing ... And, oof, the bleakness of Tombland is also hard at times. As well as the longest of the books, this is Sansom’s most depressing, with torture, child abuse, and rape all rife in 1540s Norfolk.
