Saturday 17 December 2016

Belgravia by Julian Fellowes

"She couldn't look at the baby for weeks, this boy who had killed her daughter"

In a post Downton Abbey  malaise, I was excited to procure a copy of its creator's latest novel and found myself a little wistful in the process. This is somewhat a pale imitation of the rather addictive television series which I may have binge watched at every opportunity.
The grand estates and questionable birth rights combined with troubled matrimonial match ups are all there, yet here it took me a good two hundred pages to even care about the characters. This novel lacked the juxtaposition of the upstairs/downstairs machinations that made the tv show such compulsive viewing.
Belgravia share's some magnificent society and grand surrounds but somewhere it lacks heart and enough exposition to hook the reader. It does so eventually, but only after perseverance.
It is the glimmers of what might have been that still guild the lily and are perhaps reflected in my estimation of it,

4 out of 5 scandals need more scandal, more servants and just a hint of more intrigue.

No comments:

Post a Comment