The Days of the King: 10/16/12

The Days of the King by Filip Florian is a Romanian historical fiction that was published in translation in 2011. Joseph Strauss, a Prussian dentist and frequent client of the local brothel, follows a dragoon captain to Romania, where the captain will one day be crowned.

The brief description and the glorious cover art intrigued me. Unfortunately the "aggressively dense" writing (as described in the Literary Omnivore review) combined with reading an egalley made for a difficult and unpleasant reading experience.

There are notes at the end of the book that explain the historical and cultural context of the novel but in an ereader without a proper table of contents built in, it's damn near impossible to flip between the notes and the text. Therefore, after reading and re-reading the same passages for clarity, I started skimming. When the skimming didn't seem to hinder my understanding any, I decided to stop reading.

Days of the King is best suited for readers who have a physical copy, and patience. An understanding of Prussian and Romanian history will help too.

Read via Net Galley

Two stars

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