Title: A desert trek
Product review: Following Hadrian by Elizabeth Speller claims tofollow the Emperor Hadrian as he travels around his vast empire. It does in fact only cover a trip into Egypt in detail.Speller gives a good biographical sketch of Hadrian and a very compelling assessment of his character. After those chapters the book pretty much ends. Speller relies on invented diary entries by an historic poetess to fill pages and clumsy attempts at irony and endless foreshadowing to give her narrative impetus.This book is not a travelogue filled with the sights, sounds, dangers and pleasures of a lost world. For that read Tony Perrot's "Route 66 A.D." "Following Hadrian is a trek though the desert, dusty, dry and monotonous. It is an essay for a scholarly journal padded out into a book.
Would you say this review depicts the product in a flattering or unflattering light?
