{"id":142273,"date":"2019-01-11T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T15:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=142273"},"modified":"2019-01-10T17:18:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T22:18:43","slug":"jim-reviews-tell-them-of-battles-kings-and-elephants-mathias-enard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=142273","title":{"rendered":"Jim Reviews: Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants &#8211; Mathias Enard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-142274\" src=\"http:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/4199623.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/4199623.jpg 389w, https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/4199623-195x300.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>You may remember my reading plans for my holiday vacation which I outlined in Jim\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=142197\">Long Winters Nap Book List<\/a>. As I suggested there it was an aspirational plan but one that I was somewhat successful in. <a href=\"http:\/\/evergreen.noblenet.org\/eg\/opac\/record\/4199623\"><strong>Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants<\/strong><\/a> was one of those successes.This is a short book. Only about 180 pages. The chapters are quick snapshots of events. Most of all it is a book of description. Even when the omniscient narrator isn&#8217;t in the driver&#8217;s seat and a character takes over it is still about description. Drawing a scene as if you were there watching it.<\/p>\n<p>Enard images a 1506 world in which Michelangelo, already a world renowned sculptor, is commissioned by the Sultan in Istanbul to build a bridge across the Gold Horn and accepts. The reader gets to wander through 16th century Istanbul. It is beautiful drawn. To a point where the story of his work on this bridge really becomes incidental to what the narrator describes.<\/p>\n<p>My only problem with it was that it wasn&#8217;t long enough. I wanted Michelangelo to throw over the sultan and take to the road so the description could just keep going. If you are a reader who really depends on character I&#8217;m not sure if this story will deliver. This is a book for readers who love world building and don&#8217;t get to hung up on the show don&#8217;t tell rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may remember my reading plans for my holiday vacation which I outlined in Jim\u2019s Long Winters Nap Book List. As I suggested there it was an aspirational plan but one that I was somewhat successful in. Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants was one of those successes.This is a short book. Only about&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":142274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jim-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/4199623.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6V6sR-B0J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142273"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142291,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142273\/revisions\/142291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/142274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}