Bruce's Reviews > Thames: The Biography

I wish I knew what went wrong with this book. I thought it would be one that I would really enjoy, the kind of quirky history that focuses on one element, and then ties everything together around that element. Also, I am a huge fan of Peter Ackroyd. He is an elegant and entertaining writer. Beginning with fiction (Chatterton, Hawksmoor, Milton in America, etc.) and then extending into history and biography (Dickens, Pound, Chaucer, London the City...) he has created a bookshelf full of well written, entertaining and informative work.

But somehow, he seems to have lost himself in this one. This book feels as though he spent ten years doing research, and filling out thousands of little note cards, then organized them together by topic and period, and then just dumped the damn things into his word processor. The sense one gets is of list after list after list, ad infinitum; followed by little story after little story, with no unifying theme at all. Ironically, his comment on John Leland's work Itinerary, describes his own book perfectly. "His was an anecdotal and perambulatory style, a collection of notes rather than a coherent narrative."