Book Review: "An Infamous Army" by Georgette Heyer

[hrj]

I'm an enormous fan of Heyer's romance novels. I enjoy her mysteries, although not at the same fan-girl squee level. Her "straight historicals" bore me to tears. I never managed to make it through My Lord John despite several tries. Unfortunately, An Infamous Army falls solidly into the "bore me to tears" category, despite the reprise of some very enjoyable characters previously appearing in Devil's Cub and Regency Buck. But the personal interactions of old friends and new, and the veneer of what might have been an enjoyable romance-at-cross-purposes are a thin and all too shaky framework for a ponderous text, bloated with a fatal case of researcher's disease, that provides a blow-by-blow catalog of the personnel, movements, correspondence, actions, and idiosyncrasies of Wellington's "infamous army" and the battle of Waterloo.

Heyer had an astounding talent for creating witty characters dodging their way through tangled and improbable adventures to win well-deserved true loves. I'm not entirely sure whether she simply had no similar talent for making actual history come to life in an engrossing fashion or whether I'm doing her a disservice by attempting to read history as if it were romance. But as An Infamous Army purports to be both, I have the right to judge it a failure by at least one of those measures. A pity, as I'm coming towards the end of my unread Heyer and would love to discover another story or two that stand with my favorites.

Comments

[countess-e.livejournal.com]

Funny thing--I completely agree about An Infamous Army being tedious in print, but I took a long road trip recently and took a chance on an audiobook version. And who would have thought? It was *much* more interesting and engaging. YMMV, of course.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'd believe it -- I've previously had the experience of finding the audio version of a book more enjoyable than the written version. (Given some other activity that I'd doing while listening to it, that is.) I rather doubt that I'd have made it all the way through The Count of Monte Christo in print but rather enjoyed the Librivox audio version (despite the lack of talent of some of the volunteer readers).

[lapioggia.livejournal.com]

can't disagree. I do re-read it occassionaly when I miss those characters enough, but I do so by skimming/skipping large sections of prose to get the the good bits...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I liked it, but I've developed a knack for skimming the over-researched historical bits I find dull. Without that knack, I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it less.