Lemprière's dictionary

By Lawrence Norfolk, 1991

This extraordinary tour de force kept me reading despite bogging down in a few places. The book ranges from poetic atmospheric descriptions to the gritty urban realities of 18^th century England, broken up with scenes that introduce magic realism and outright fantasy. Although occasionally it slows down in confusing sidelines, other sections run like a fast-paced thriller. Norfolk juggles multiple points of view so deftly a reader sees interrelated stories without being aware of a shifting ground for observation.

The book opens with a wonderful description of young John Lemprière’s visually impaired world where everything is fuzzy and imagined until his father gets him a set of glasses. When he sees clearly, everything becomes sharp, terrifying and ugly. Perhaps because of his horror of real life, he focuses on classical Greek and Latin literature, which brings him to connect with the beauty and the love of his life. This turns out to be the first step of a strange and complex future.

The story shifts from a realistic storyline that builds on the details of 18^th century life to fantasy elements that are described with the same kind of concreteness. It’s as easy to visualize the rainy cobbled alleys of London that John walks through as it is to imagine the mysterious caverns where the Cabala plots his fate. There’s a tension between the historical details of the story, which feel quite realistic, and the fantasy that Norfolk fits into those well constructed scenes. While the strange entertainment of the Stoneeater seems plausible, I resisted the automaton figures created to entertain wealthy guests at a party. And while the sailing ships seem real enough, I had to wonder how they could travel along a busy coast without attracting attention. Is it at all plausible that an Indian assassin would live for months in London spying without resources or even knowledge of the city?

Constantly questioning the details weakens the more realistic plot points, such as the secret deal between the English and the French traders or even the scheme to have John write his dictionary of classical characters. If these elements seem questionable, then what does one make of the whole story? Is it purely a work of imagination with tenuous links to reality? This undermines my interest in the story. By contrast, I found the equally fantastical pirates’ collective entertaining, so perhaps what I’m resisting is the notion of a powerful cabal that set in motion a plot to control someone’s fate. I’m more willing to indulge in a fantasy where people respect and support each other.

And while I admire Norfolk’s stylistic skills, I did find the complexity of the story lines and characters so dense that I often had to ask how a plot incident was related to anything or just where a character fit into the story. This, I think, is what led me to wonder at times why it was taking so long to get through a section. While everything seems to connect up in the end, and part of the story is figuring out how it all works, I couldn’t keep everything in my mind. That led me to wonder what the point is, and if I shouldn’t just skip ahead. I did persevere, but a few more signposts might have kept my mind on track.

Some of the story’s themes suggest that Norfolk wants to point to a social or political context. The story sets the rise of trading capitalism and imperialist exploitation against the deliberate sacrifice of the Rochelais and the fury of the mobs in London. The vengeful Indian assassin ends the greed and destructive manipulation of the Cabala in a completely fantastical series of events. This, however, contrasts with the idealism of the three ship’s captains who restore the gold to its resting place. There’s also the search for the truth of John’s and Juliette’s parentage while John finds comfort in compiling a dictionary of fables and legends. The book is so dense that it would take a thorough re-reading to draw these themes out and try to make sense of them. Unless these are all playful fantasies with no given meaning.

Despite my reservations, Norfolk’s imaginative scope and verbal energy made the book a rewarding, if demanding, reading experience.