A review by ladybookamore
The Sound of the Hours by Karen Campbell
3.0
Firstly, I convey my heartfelt thanks to Bloomsbury India for their undeterred patience and trust in my work. It was not easy for me to finish this book one month ago, hence the unfortunate delay.
To be honest, won't categorise The Sound of the Hours under historical fiction. Instead, I felt it more like contemporary fiction, set against the backdrop of the war. A moving story of survival, hope, love, and war, this book is for those who seek to know about the effects of war on small towns and hamlets. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be monotonous, and it took longer for the main storyline to develop, longer than I expected.
The first reason why I liked reading The Sound of the Hours was its detailed descriptions. While most of them were filler paragraphs to stretch the plot into a 450+ page book, they were indeed beautiful. The landscape descriptions are flawlessly depicted, as if the readers could almost visualise the scene in front of them. Such aptness and brilliance is truly commendable. Secondly, the book has a unique narrative style. With every chapter being narrated by different characters respectively, The Sound of the Hours provides the readers with multiple vantage points to look at the plot. Multiple POVs is something I very much enjoy reading, as far as modern classics and contemporary fiction is concerned. However, what I loved most is the theme it explores — warfare. The book is set against the backdrop of the Second World War, that too in a country which sided with the Axis Powers. Most importantly, the book devotes adequate attention to emphasize on the horrors of warfare, as well as the futility of materialistic quests.
However, there were a lot of glitches in The Sound of the Hours which were disappointing. Yes, I should have continued a lot more in the previous paragraph, but the faults are too overwhelming. Number one, the genre. The book proclaims to be a Historical Fiction, which it isn't. Nor can I describe it as contemporary fiction entirely. The book resides somewhere in the middle, but all in vain. The book talks less about WWII, but more about war in general. Also, the focus being on the two lovers, the "ornamental" narrative style is considered useless. Why go all the way to listen to multiple characters when the story doesn't seem to develop very little? With multiple narrators (point number two!) in the course of the novel, the plot tends to get muddled up very often. The turning points (point number three) arrive late, most of which seem predictable as well.
Yet, what stands apart is how Campbel uses language. The story may not be how you expected it to be, but the words are sheer poetry. From chapter one itself, the readers will be mesmerized by the manner in which Campbell expresses the simplest of the simple in the most extraordinary manner.
I convey my best wishes to the author for her future endeavours.
To be honest, won't categorise The Sound of the Hours under historical fiction. Instead, I felt it more like contemporary fiction, set against the backdrop of the war. A moving story of survival, hope, love, and war, this book is for those who seek to know about the effects of war on small towns and hamlets. Unfortunately, the book turned out to be monotonous, and it took longer for the main storyline to develop, longer than I expected.
The first reason why I liked reading The Sound of the Hours was its detailed descriptions. While most of them were filler paragraphs to stretch the plot into a 450+ page book, they were indeed beautiful. The landscape descriptions are flawlessly depicted, as if the readers could almost visualise the scene in front of them. Such aptness and brilliance is truly commendable. Secondly, the book has a unique narrative style. With every chapter being narrated by different characters respectively, The Sound of the Hours provides the readers with multiple vantage points to look at the plot. Multiple POVs is something I very much enjoy reading, as far as modern classics and contemporary fiction is concerned. However, what I loved most is the theme it explores — warfare. The book is set against the backdrop of the Second World War, that too in a country which sided with the Axis Powers. Most importantly, the book devotes adequate attention to emphasize on the horrors of warfare, as well as the futility of materialistic quests.
However, there were a lot of glitches in The Sound of the Hours which were disappointing. Yes, I should have continued a lot more in the previous paragraph, but the faults are too overwhelming. Number one, the genre. The book proclaims to be a Historical Fiction, which it isn't. Nor can I describe it as contemporary fiction entirely. The book resides somewhere in the middle, but all in vain. The book talks less about WWII, but more about war in general. Also, the focus being on the two lovers, the "ornamental" narrative style is considered useless. Why go all the way to listen to multiple characters when the story doesn't seem to develop very little? With multiple narrators (point number two!) in the course of the novel, the plot tends to get muddled up very often. The turning points (point number three) arrive late, most of which seem predictable as well.
Yet, what stands apart is how Campbel uses language. The story may not be how you expected it to be, but the words are sheer poetry. From chapter one itself, the readers will be mesmerized by the manner in which Campbell expresses the simplest of the simple in the most extraordinary manner.
I convey my best wishes to the author for her future endeavours.