makemo

I enjoyed this book; it's in a similar vein to Andrea Barrett's wonderful novels, in that it combines 18th-century science and real historical characters with fiction. It's essentially two parallel tales -- the story of naturalist Joseph Banks and his mysterious lover Miss B, and modern-day taxidermist Fitz and his lodger Katya -- linked by a mysterious missing stuffed bird. [return][return]The problem I had with it was that the 18th-century parts were much more compelling than the 20th century ones; I loved the way he'd used real historical evidence to construct a plausible story about Banks and his nameless lover, and the development of their story was touching. The modern characters never really came alive in the same way -- they were all a bit wooden -- and the "mystery" of the bird and the various people looking for it never really built up enough suspense to be thrilling; it was pretty obvious that eventually Fitz would find it, and I guessed the "twist" in the d

2022-10-01 09:10