Title: A distenting opinion
Product review: Everyone LOVES this series.... but me. Yes, it's a fine ambition to "bring characters to life" but Schama does so without enough chronological context. His prose is florid in the extreme and as a screen presence I'm sorry to say I found him terribly annoying. His melodramtic delivery is so full of gulping pauses and overwraught phrasing it's maddening. Since the bulk of the series covers a period well before photography we are subjected to animal imagery ad nausim. When Schama tells us Eleanor of Aquitaine spoon fed her feelings to her children, we see a bird regurgitating into the mouths of its young. (And he never mentions she was queen of France before queen of England?) I realize I'm in the minority, but I found this set a great dissapointment. (I do hope Mr. Schama doesn't read this-- but there you are.)
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