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A review by sssnoo
California Gold by John Jakes
3.0
This is the last of several California historical fiction books I’ve read, and my least favorite. I think some readers may enjoy it more than me so I’ll just list the pros and cons and let the reader decide.
Pro:
California Gold covers the gilded age (Post gold rush and post civil war) into the first decades of the 20th century. This era of CA history is rarely covered in fiction so this is the best on the subject I found.
The book covers multiple regions in CA, including San Francisco, LA, the central valley and others.
Con:
The pros are actually also part of the reason I didn’t care for the book as much as others. This is a saga. It tries to cover too much with one main character. It is basically a poor guy gets rich story but the wealth is used to found or contribute to every major industry in CA: ferries, RR, oil, water, citrus, ranches, other farms, publishing, movies. Everything. That got to be too much.
The book os over 700 pp long and filled with long sections describing things I had little interest in reading about for entire chapters: The play by play moves of an entire polo match, an early auto race, boxing matches. Too much for me.
The romance section and sex bits were just not realistic at all but seemed more to play to some fantasy driven super-virility.
The novel covers a lot of the diversity in CA including Chinese, Japanese and “Hindoostani” immigrants plus the various white ethnicities but is totally devoid of indigenous and black characters which is a huge fail, from my perspective, for a book purporting to be an all encompassing historical novel.
I researched some bits and words that were off to me, like the use of santan instead of santana or Santa Anna to describe the desert winds. I can find no origin of the phrase going back to santan so that bugged me (a minor thing for sure).
When it stormed the author usually described thunder, but if you live in coastal southern CA you know thunder and lightening is very rare - so rare we all stop and watch and listen and marvel.
There were a lot of typos in the kindle version: m was often replacing the so me for the.
This book was written in 1989 by an author known for long epic sagas and it is true to the genre. It was just too formulaic for me. I appreciated the histroy aspect and learned a great deal of regional history I was unaware of so I do recommend the novel. It may read it but it may be a good Audible read if you are driving around between San Francisco and LA
Pro:
California Gold covers the gilded age (Post gold rush and post civil war) into the first decades of the 20th century. This era of CA history is rarely covered in fiction so this is the best on the subject I found.
The book covers multiple regions in CA, including San Francisco, LA, the central valley and others.
Con:
The pros are actually also part of the reason I didn’t care for the book as much as others. This is a saga. It tries to cover too much with one main character. It is basically a poor guy gets rich story but the wealth is used to found or contribute to every major industry in CA: ferries, RR, oil, water, citrus, ranches, other farms, publishing, movies. Everything. That got to be too much.
The book os over 700 pp long and filled with long sections describing things I had little interest in reading about for entire chapters: The play by play moves of an entire polo match, an early auto race, boxing matches. Too much for me.
The romance section and sex bits were just not realistic at all but seemed more to play to some fantasy driven super-virility.
The novel covers a lot of the diversity in CA including Chinese, Japanese and “Hindoostani” immigrants plus the various white ethnicities but is totally devoid of indigenous and black characters which is a huge fail, from my perspective, for a book purporting to be an all encompassing historical novel.
I researched some bits and words that were off to me, like the use of santan instead of santana or Santa Anna to describe the desert winds. I can find no origin of the phrase going back to santan so that bugged me (a minor thing for sure).
When it stormed the author usually described thunder, but if you live in coastal southern CA you know thunder and lightening is very rare - so rare we all stop and watch and listen and marvel.
There were a lot of typos in the kindle version: m was often replacing the so me for the.
This book was written in 1989 by an author known for long epic sagas and it is true to the genre. It was just too formulaic for me. I appreciated the histroy aspect and learned a great deal of regional history I was unaware of so I do recommend the novel. It may read it but it may be a good Audible read if you are driving around between San Francisco and LA