Book Review: Cannonbridge
Cannonbridge, by Jonathan Barnes, is a story that combines English literature (the books and their authors), mystery, and science fiction. Matthew Cannonbridge is touted as one of the world's greatest authors, and yet no one questions his ridiculously long publication history over the majority of the 19th Century. The book jumps from the past to present day, where in the past we are privy to Cannonbridge's associations with famous authors such as Byron, the Brontë sisters, Dickens, and Wilde. In the present day, the bicentennial celebrating Cannonbridge's achievements is approaching, but Professor Toby Judd discovers that something is not quite right with Cannonbridge's work.
Unfortunately, my expectations for this story were quite different than the reality. I looked forward to a good mystery, but I thought that most of the story fell flat; once the story took too many odd turns, I became disinterested altogether. The characters were poorly developed; I never got a sense of what the characters looked like - for me, being able to picture a face is incredibly important. Instead of feature descriptions, the bulk of characterization relied on personality descriptions (Cannonbridge was charasmatic and had a commanding presence). Furthermore, character development was virtually nil -- Toby starts out as a mousey, soft-spoken, overlooked professor and he doesn't really grow as a character throughout the book as I would have expected. I won't even get in to the major plot twist that occurred in the latter third of the book, but suffice to say, I was not expecting such a strange (and yet weak) application of science fiction/paranormal.
Other difficulties I had while reading were the tone and language used throughout the book. To me, the verbiage was pompous and overstated when simpler words would have the same effect (why choose a $10 word when you can have a $5 word?). I couldn't decide whether Barnes was attempting to mimic 19th Century writing style or whether he really liked sounding smarter than most people. The writing also switched from more formal to more informal; throughout the book, Toby Judd would be called "Toby" in one part of a paragraph and "Dr. Judd" in another part of the paragraph. For me, this change in reference was distracting, akin to mixing up verb tense.
However, the most distracting and annoying aspect of the story for me was that the "mystery" component was built on nothing more than the author's decision to be vague and lead the reader on a merry chase. From the beginning, the reader is given nothing to figure out the big mystery, because the readers never are privy to any of the realizations of the characters. For instance, at one point, Dickens tells Wilde a secret and then Wilde makes a trip to visit Cannonbridge, where Wilde accuses Cannonbridge of .... something. That the reader doesn't actually know because we are left hanging. At another instance, Cannonbridge convinces Edgar Allen Poe to go out on the town, tells Poe something at a pub that leads to Poe drinking himself into a coma...from which he never wakes up. What did Cannonbridge say? We never know. The reader is led to believe that a great mystery is afoot, but what this mystery is the reader has no chance of guessing until the author reveals all. Cheap tricks by the author, in my opinion.
I usually do not mind mixtures of paranormal and science fiction with mysteries, but I was disappointed in Cannonbridge and would not recommend it.
I received a free ARC copy of this book from Net Galley in return for an honest review.