Browsing the Bookshelves

'Ursula, Under' should have been an exceptional debut novel. The  premise is intriguing  - a genetic journey around the world over thousands of years, all ending in a small and very precious girl trapped down a mine shaft in North America, a threading tale of unknown ancestors and genetic dead-ends, from the consort to a Scandinavian princess, through missionaries and miners, ancient Chinese mystics and mute villagers. Yet this mammoth work, both in terms of length and scope simply fails to deliver. The prose is turgid, dull and, quite frankly, difficult to read, constantly distracting one from the flow of the story, making reading a stuttering, detached experience. The many, many characters are nicely drawn but it's hard to see why the reader should be interested in most of them. I kept reading on, waiting for a stronger connection to emerge: it never did. While Hill traces the passage of Ursula's genes down the centuries and round the world, impatience to return to the opening characters is all that keeps the reader going. And the denouncement at the end is ultimately predictable and unsatisfying. There is no element of justice, or even injustice, or salvation or redemption, or even suspense. It's just there, rather like the novel itself.