The Alexandria Link: A Novel
by Steve Berry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Steve BerryEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-27
ISBN: 0345485769
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780345485762
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Alexandria Link: A Novel
Book Review: Unreadable
Summary: 1 Stars
There is a type of book which I like to call an "Indiana Jones Book", or an "Airplane Book". A page turner - a book where one does not expect so much in the way of literary graces, as a good read, a book where one can suspend disbelief, and snuggle in for a good read. This is what I hade hoped for with Steve Berry's The Alexandria Link.
Alas, no such thing was possible, and the book joins that happily small pile of books that are classified as simply unreadable. Whether it is headed for the local second-hand book store, where I can recoup some of the almost ten dollars it cost, or to the fireplace, if conscience gets the better of me and I decide not to inflict it on another innocent buyer, is an open question.
It's not the plot - there seems to be a very good, Indiana Jones sort of adventure going here. The problem, at last as far as I got (50-odd pages) lies in the characters and the writing.
To call the characters two-dimensional would be to exaggerate their complexity. Wooden is a word which comes to mind, along with the possibility of a related word, fossilized - though whether the characters are fossilized into a sort of museum-case of sub-literary mummies, or whether the reader's brain is in danger of fossilizing, may be open to debate. But these puppets are utterly predictable, except for the suspicion that they just might do something genuinely human, a suspicion which seems to be continually dashed.
The language is equally distressing. grammar errors aside (no one cares about grammar these days, so why should we?), there two of the rules of good writing being betrayed here: that words should be appropriate to what they are supposed to convey, and that the author's job, like the mail, is to keep things moving and not distract us.
Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between the lightning and lightning bug. We might add that the difference between almost the right word and the wrong word is like the difference between the lightning bug and something on the windshield of your car: it gets in the way, and it's deeply annoying. Such a word is "scamper". Can anyone attach any negative or even serious meaning to the word? Surely it implies fun, lightness, perhaps the children in their pajamas, scampering up the stairs to bed. And yet Mr. Berry twice in the first 50 pages uses it to describe the hero first fleeing across a bullet-laced courtyard from his rare-book shop which the bad guys have just blown up with rockets, and an equally dire situation where an associate has just been shot in cold blood in the castle at Elsinore, after which, we learn, "They scampered through more rooms." No pajamas of course, possibly because there's no time to put them on - but perhaps the're looking for a convenient bed where they can hide under the covers. (For those who can't wait to find out, they hide in an old wardrobe. No, not that wardrobe!)
Unhappily, this kind of jarring misuse of words breaks the second rule mentioned above, and that is that a write must not distract the reader. The moment the reader stops to think ("No, he can't be saying "scamper"!), he will also stop to think about what he is reading - and while in some cases this may be just what the author intends, here the reader simply thinks, and what he thinks is what a silly book this is - and the spell, if spell there was, is broken.
Great writers have a way of letting us feel, hear and smell the scenes they are painting. It is not a question of using words like that sound like the scene in question, or even words that describe the action, but rather putting the reader so much into the scene, that he smells and hears it. Kipling was a master at this: in Kim, for example, though you may never have been in a Madras bazaar or traveled the Great North Road, you are, simply there - not scampering around avoiding rockets, bullets, terrorists and squeeky wardrobe doors - but simply there. This is what an author ought to be doing. But it's not what Mr. Berry does, and every page, almost, contains some jarring infelicity that leaps out and catches the reader off guard, distracting him from the action while he tries to reason out why such a wrong word might have been used in the first place. Or perhaps it's just a way of distracting us from the one-dimensionality of the characters, whose goings-on and dialog would make a moderately competent comic-book writer blush.
There is also the issue of historical authenticity. Please: 1848 Victorian society was not the least interested in turning a run-down Jacobean house into a museum, far less would Queen Victoria have been on hand to open it. The Victorians (who by the way appreciated both good writing and good history) were eagerly tearing down such antiquated piles and putting in something modern. Another of those moments when the mail simply doesn't arrive.
We don't expect a page-turner to be a Literary Masterpiece. But we have every right to expect it to deliver a good story without scampering about opening impossible museums.
Mr. Berry has some wonderful plot ideas. If he would learn to write, I'd be very happy to spend my next long flight or relaxed weekend with one of his books. But the one under consideration would drive me to watching the in-flight movie, or perhaps getting around to cleaning the kitchen shelves.
Summary of The Alexandria Link: A Novel
Cotton Malone retired from the high-risk world of elite operatives for the U.S. Justice Department to lead the low-key life of a rare-book dealer. But his quiet existence is shattered when he receives an anonymous e-mail: ?You have something I want. You?re the only person on earth who knows where to find it. Go get it. You have 72 hours. If I don?t hear from you, you will be childless.? His horrified ex-wife confirms that the threat is real: Their teenage son has been kidnapped. When Malone?s Copenhagen bookshop is burned to the ground, it becomes brutally clear that those responsible will stop at nothing to get what they want. And what they want is nothing less than the lost Library of Alexandria.A cradle of ideas?historical, philosophical, literary, scientific, and religious?the Library of Alexandria was unparalleled in the world. But fifteen hundred years ago, it vanished into the mists of myth and legend?its vast bounty of wisdom coveted ever since by scholars, fortune hunters, and those who believe its untold secrets hold the key to ultimate power.
Now a cartel of wealthy international moguls, bent on altering the course of history, is desperate to breach the library?s hallowed halls?and only Malone possesses the information they need to succeed. At stake is an explosive ancient document with the potential not only to change the destiny of the Middle East but to shake the world?s three major religions to their very foundations.
Pursued by a lethal mercenary, Malone crosses the globe in search of answers. His quest will lead him to England and Portugal, even to the highest levels of American government?and the shattering outcome, deep in the Sinai desert, will have worldwide repercussions.
From the Hardcover edition.
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