in babylon

-- was, in the end, a meaty book: large bites of story that hung together in a tenuous but (ultimately) very satisfying way. Chalk this up as the second novel about clockmakers that I've found praiseworthy.

I probably sped through it a little bit too fast (mostly because I was enjoying it); because of that I feel that I missed some of the superstructure that Moring built into the novel, and that might have taken something away from the reading. (In general, I find it harder to pay attention when reading now than in my JC days. Not sure why; perhaps it's amyloid plaque in the brain already). The translation (I read the Flamingo edition) was, as far as I could tell, quite well done -- it hardly resembled a translated work, in fact. Something to do with the fact that it was written in Dutch? Certain languages seem to survive translation to English better than others.

Loved: Uncle Herman, the picking-through-the-haunted-house bits, the fairy tales, all the descriptions of food, and the last chapter. Especially the fairy tales (I'm a sucker for stories within stories.)

(Minz: it's a book that really merits a fuller review; suffice it to say that I
think you'll like it.)