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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this one. My first Sharpe's book was Eagle, and I wasn't too into it. Rifles was recommended to me as a better read, and it really was. I think I may just have to read some more...
3.75/5 stars for my first foray in the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell. It took me a little while to get a sense of all the characters and become attached to Sharpe as a character, but by the end of this book, I really liked the dynamic between him and his men. I could probably have done without the romance subplot, but I did like said romantic interest’s annoying Methodist aunt and uncle. I look forward to the next book.
After not being as keen on the last entry in this series, I was delighted to really enjoy this one. I think things are heating up for Sharpe--Napoleon on the horizon, great battle scenes, compelling internal struggles as he learns to be a good leader and grow into the officer role he has acquired... all very good. Less interested in the "romance" part. Sharpe needs to quit falling for every hot woman he encounters.
Military history with a heavy emphasis on the military part, which is not really my thing.
La saga di Sharpe stava iniziando a diventare pesante, ma questo sesto capitolo (in ordine cronologico della storia) si è rivelato più scorrevole e interessante.
adventurous
fast-paced
Sharpe's Rifles, by Bernard Cornwell
If you're reading chronologically rather than in order of publication (which is not my preference, but Cornwell has stated it's his preferred approach) there's something of an odd shift in tone between the previous book (published much later) and this one. So it took a while to grow on me, but eventually I got into this story of Sharpe in Spain--his struggles to keep the stranded battalion he's inherited in line are particularly interesting, and the Spanish commander he has to work with is well-written and interesting.
At least Patrick O’Brian had the good sense to stay away from female characters for the most part. Cornwell makes the mistake of trying to write them, and the results are (so to speak) not pretty. His women are caricatures or automatons, drifting from one motivation to the next at the behest of the plot, without any sense of internal logic of their own.
I can tell this book is an early effort, because I can see myself in it. He doesn’t quite have control of his characters, which has been a bugbear of mine as well. Steele himself is a highly flawed protagonist who walks a dangerous line at the edge of the unsympathetic zone. He’s not only bit of a prig in this first book, he’s also quite dense and something of a whiner, with little honor and no sense of humor. He is redeemed because he is a highly effective soldier, capable of finding a way out of the tightest of spots, and, most of all, because he possesses a strong motivating desire – to lead his men out of the perilous Iberian peninsula and back to England. To paraphrase Jonathan Franzen’s recent article on Edith Wharton in the New Yorker, if novelist gives a character a powerful desire, the reader is helpless not to make that desire his own.
This is one key, I think, to why Sharpe’s Rifles is ultimately a successful effort. Other factors include great historical research, vivid if at times clumsily written descriptions, and wonderfully exciting action scenes, featuring continually ramped up peril and narrow escapes, which are strung together side by side like popcorn and cranberries, so the reader has no chance to get bored.
In the end, despite its flaws, this is an impressive book, a novel those interested in writing and history can learn from. I’m not sure I’ll keep reading the series, but I did enjoy the read, and that’s what counts!
I can tell this book is an early effort, because I can see myself in it. He doesn’t quite have control of his characters, which has been a bugbear of mine as well. Steele himself is a highly flawed protagonist who walks a dangerous line at the edge of the unsympathetic zone. He’s not only bit of a prig in this first book, he’s also quite dense and something of a whiner, with little honor and no sense of humor. He is redeemed because he is a highly effective soldier, capable of finding a way out of the tightest of spots, and, most of all, because he possesses a strong motivating desire – to lead his men out of the perilous Iberian peninsula and back to England. To paraphrase Jonathan Franzen’s recent article on Edith Wharton in the New Yorker, if novelist gives a character a powerful desire, the reader is helpless not to make that desire his own.
This is one key, I think, to why Sharpe’s Rifles is ultimately a successful effort. Other factors include great historical research, vivid if at times clumsily written descriptions, and wonderfully exciting action scenes, featuring continually ramped up peril and narrow escapes, which are strung together side by side like popcorn and cranberries, so the reader has no chance to get bored.
In the end, despite its flaws, this is an impressive book, a novel those interested in writing and history can learn from. I’m not sure I’ll keep reading the series, but I did enjoy the read, and that’s what counts!
This one was really kind of different from the ones I'd read/listened to before. Seemed more rambling, several plot lines... still, totally worthwhile.
The poor man's Dunnett?
Not sure how I feel about this yet. It's entertaining enough, but Sharpe is nooo Lymond.
Not sure how I feel about this yet. It's entertaining enough, but Sharpe is nooo Lymond.