The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
213 pages
Published 2004
Read November 25
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
The other day I was looking through Ursula K. Le Guin's Wikipedia page to pick out which of her books I should read next. Some editor noted that The Eye of the Heron was one of her "minor novels." For whatever reason I've become taken with that phrase. I can't resist thinking The Lambs of London qualifies as a "minor novel" for Ackroyd. It lacks the thematic elegance of Chatterton's layers of forgery and illusion, offering only a single nod in that direction during an enigmatic encounter with a handbill hawker who, after the climactic performance of Vortigern, declares, "Ah, sir, it may be real and yet unreal" -- a summation, if I've ever seen one, of Ackroyd's enduring preoccupation. It differs from Chatterton again in its simplicity, downplaying Ackroyd's penchant for minutely observed eccentrics, resulting in a slim volume that, if anything, errs in the other direction, toward efficiency and lack of affect. It's disappointingly straightforward, in fact. In some ways Lambs reads like Ackroyd going through the motions, presenting a dramatization of a historical curiosity without the gusto of his major efforts. Even First Light, in my opinion Ackroyd's most disappointing novel, tells its tale with more verve and ambition.
While enjoyable on its own terms, Lambs is by no means an essential addition to Ackroyd's tapestry of London.
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