clew's reviews: a book log

Extravagance, Gary Krist

Nice conceit; the same plot - names, events, conversations - happens in London in 1690 and in New York in the 1990's. Instead of showing each event in each century, Krist tells it as a single linear story with flickering back ground and dress.

Not a perfect trick. The 1690s speech was neither quite florid nor quite earthy enough, compared to Oronooko, e.g. I think the religious and political background of the late 17th century would have been more present to even a callow young man.

ISBN: 0-7679-1330-2 So wrote clew in Fiction (20th c.).