Contemporary Literary Criticism | O'Brian, Patrick - Martin Jacques (review date 6 September 1998)

Martin Jacques (review date 6 September 1998)

SOURCE: “A Credible Shivering of Timbers,” in Observer, September 6, 1998, p. 16.

[In the following positive review, Jacques praises the writing and sense of history in The Hundred Days.]

Historical novels are an extraordinary genre. They have the ability to convey the feel, the detail, the language, the etiquette, the technology of the time like no conventional history book can ever do. While historical works are strong on explanation and fact, only historical novels can transport your soul and your senses back to the period in question. Their only rival is a good television historical drama, or its big screen equivalent, but the experience is somehow less total. The historical novel is a three-dimensional experience, four if you allow for your own imagination, while the screen is strictly two.

Of course, much depends on the quality of the telling and it is here that Patrick...

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