Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Sarum : The Novel of England by Edward Rutherfurd ISBN: 0-8041-0298-8 Publisher: Ivy Books Pub. Date: 12 June, 1988 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (90 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A breathtaking novel
Comment: Sarum is an enormously ambitious work. Sarum is the ancient name for Salisbury and the author writes a fictionalized history of Salisbury that starts in pre-historical times and continues to 1987. That he succeeds in weaving such a complicated tapestry is a testament to his extraordinary research, his wonderfully firm grasp of human personality, and his fast-paced dramatic writing. Sarum is many things but it is most of all a good read.
By lacing his narrative with so much believable period detail, he makes the universals of his story immediate and fresh. The novel involves five different families as they rise and fall in fortune throughout the ages of Sarum. Especially vibrant are Rutherford's portraits of significant characters in the Mason family. The author may have a special understanding of this family because they are artisans. Nooma-ti, the physically homely founder of the family, is in charge of the construction of Stonehenge. His dedication to his craft and his personal problems with his adulterous wife are riveting.
Even more powerful, indeed the most fascinating accomplishment in his work, is the portrait of medieval architect Osmund Mason. Like his distant ancestor, Osmund is physically unprepossessing and like him, he finds relief in his art. On two of the most important occasions of his life, Osmund seizes victory from defeat by transforming frustration and humiliation into art.
As Rutherford skillfully takes Sarum into the modern era, he dramatizes the enormous changes that take place as the effect countries, families, and individuals, along with the emotional constants that characterize the human personality in any culture.
Rating: 5
Summary: Absolutely unbeatable.
Comment: This overview of English history, full of characters to love and hate, begins with the earliest settling of the Salisbury Plain by primitive hunters and farmers. As civilization develops and flourishes, so the story, evolving into a saga of five families who shape and are shaped by the events of this bit of the British historical story.
The creation of Stonehenge will invade your imagination. Christianity comes and the Salisbury Cathedral is a result. Lives and loves of men and women with their triumphs and disappointments evolve against the parade of ages -- kings and their wars and kingdoms, plagues, revolutions, until we get to Queen Victoria and an age that developed faster than ever. The reader gets the impression of a snowball rolling downhill -- time begins with few people and slower development but one bit of progress inspires 30 more and on it goes, bigger and faster ad infinitum.
Rutherford's research is thorough but it doesn't impede his story. With narrative under strict control, his style is clear, descriptive and tight. Relationships wax and wane through the generations as families grow and change with the times.
Rutherford has said about this book that he admires James Michener and deliberately set out to accomplish for England what Michener did for Hawaii, Texas and others. I think he did it better.
Rating: 5
Summary: What the last one said, plus some
Comment: I'm not giving this book 5 stars just because Rutherford managed to keep it less than 2000 pages. I'm giving it those stars because I managed to enjoy the book. Although it doesn't qualify precisely as fictionalized history throughout, it comes close overall and actually is through most of it.
Even for people who consider themselves well schooled in history there's bound to be a lot of minutia that slips by for any piece of geography. Rutherford fills in the gaps for the Salsbury plains and does it with fact where possible, speculation where not possible. And he does it with consistent panache.
I'd never given much thought to the details of the building of Salsbury Cathedral, though I certainly was awed, visiting it. Sarum carried me through generations of that immediate period and place of the building in a way that caused me to inevitably have more respect and thought for the builders. Similarly for myriad other incidents and monuments of the area over 20,000 years. Stonehenge, Roman occupation, Viking raids, early Christianity, the bloody reigns of Bloody Mary and others.
Make a career of reading this book if need be, but read it.
 |
Title: London : The Novel by EDWARD RUTHERFURD ISBN: 0449002632 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 28 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
 |
Title: Russka : The Novel of Russia by Edward Rutherfurd ISBN: 0804109729 Publisher: Ivy Books Pub. Date: 24 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
 |
Title: The Forest by EDWARD RUTHERFURD ISBN: 0345441788 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
 |
Title: The Princes of Ireland : The Dublin Saga by EDWARD RUTHERFURD ISBN: 0385502869 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
 |
Title: Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell ISBN: 0061091944 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
