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The House of Doctor Dee
This novel centres on the famous 16th-century alchemist and astrologer John Dee. Reputedly a black magician, he was imprisoned by Queen Mary for allegedly attempting to kill her through sorcery. When Matthew Palmer inherits an old house in Clerkenwell, he feels that he has become part of its past.
277 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
201 books1,531 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
November 26, 2018
I’ll begin with a recommendation and warning: after reading the majority of this book in an evening, I had extremely vivid and unsettling dreams that were clearly inspired by it. There is very little fiction that genuinely manages to capture the feeling of dreaming, so this is a rare example to list with The Unconsoled and practically everything written by Mervyn Peake. The narrative is split between Doctor Dee’s life in the 16th century and that of a man named Matthew who inherits Dee’s London house in the 1990s. Their worlds overlap in a peculiar, ghostly fashion. I found the style distinctive and atmospheric. It almost endeared London to me, despite my dislike of the place. Ackroyd depicts London as a city wreathed in history and mystery, rather than one homogenised by global capital. Although it was published 25 years ago, this still seems very apposite:
‘The House of Doctor Dee’ is not a plot-led novel and meanders around ambiguously without leading to any cathartic conclusion. In that respect, it is rather like Picnic at Hanging Rock. I found it entirely engrossing and highly evocative. The 16th century chapters present the past in vivid, sensual detail. Dee is a fascinatingly flawed character, while Matthew remains enigmatic. This a novel that conjures dreams, visions, and phantasms, so it isn't really surprising that they infected my sleep. The reading experience reminded me somewhat of Imagica by Clive Barker, one of my favourite works of fantasy. As a depiction of magic 'The House of Doctor Dee' is much briefer and vaguer, yet has a similar texture and atmosphere that will make it hard to forget.
I walked more quickly here, since in the porches and doorways along the street lay the army of the night. I was afraid of them, these men and women huddled in filthy blankets, but it is not simply the vagrant or the homeless who disturb me. I know very well that I turn away from any kind of human extremity. I turn away from suffering. Now as I crossed the street and glanced towards two piles of clothes stirring uneasily in the night air, I was afraid of dirt, and of disease, but I suppose that I was most afraid of being attacked. What had they got to lose? If I were like them, I would scream against the world and burn the city. I would want to destroy everything, and everyone, that had conspired against me. I would pillage the shops that denied me entrance, and break up the restaurants which denied me food. I would even rage against the street-lamps that displayed me to the enemy. Yes, as I walked by, none of them asked me for anything, or spoke, or looked at me; I might have been part of some other world. Were they truly resigned, patient, uncomplaining - or were they waiting for something, like the Moravians who met in the Seven Stars?
No, there was this difference. The city had grown immeasurably larger and, as it expanded in every direction, its inhabitants had become more passive and docile; these people who slept upon its streets were true and faithful citizens, but vast London had by some alchemy drained away their spirit. I looked down Tottenham Court Road and, not for the first time, noticed the silence and over-brightness of the city at night. Two centuries ago these streets would have been darker, more malodorous, more treacherous, and they would have been filled with cries, and screams, and laughter. But now as I stood with the homeless around me, all I could hear was the vague hum of neon street lamps and the gusting of the wind around Centre Point. Why was it that, in a place such as this, all the natural sounds seemed fabricated and unreal, while the artificial noise seemed most natural? This city was too bright because it was celebrating its own triumph. It had grown steadily larger by encroaching upon, and subduing, the energy of its inhabitants.
‘The House of Doctor Dee’ is not a plot-led novel and meanders around ambiguously without leading to any cathartic conclusion. In that respect, it is rather like Picnic at Hanging Rock. I found it entirely engrossing and highly evocative. The 16th century chapters present the past in vivid, sensual detail. Dee is a fascinatingly flawed character, while Matthew remains enigmatic. This a novel that conjures dreams, visions, and phantasms, so it isn't really surprising that they infected my sleep. The reading experience reminded me somewhat of Imagica by Clive Barker, one of my favourite works of fantasy. As a depiction of magic 'The House of Doctor Dee' is much briefer and vaguer, yet has a similar texture and atmosphere that will make it hard to forget.
February 5, 2012
This is probably my favorite novel. I have read it several times and it feels like Ackroyd wrote it for me as a birthday present. That being said, it is a strange, hermetic story and you'll either love it or hate it. Much dialogue is taken from early texts, and if you're reading it as a bio of Dr. Dee, don't bother. It's a meditation on the nature of place and time, seen through the lens of the early modern world and one of its most interesting characters.
November 6, 2023
"True books are filled with the power of the understanding which is the inheritance of the ages: you may take up a book in time, but you read it in eternity.”
Matthew Palmer inherits a house in a hidden part of Clerkenwell, London. When Matthew moves into the house, he begins to suffer visions in an escalating derangement of mind. Matthew delves into the history of the house and discovers that it had been owned in the Tudor era by Doctor John Dee, an infamous alchemist, mathematician and philosopher who was accused by some of using black magic.
The narrative consists of two first-person accounts, one Palmer’s, the other, Dee’s. For just as Palmer sees Dee, so Dee ‘scries’ Palmer, and the narratives of two men searching the past begin to interlock. Palmer researches old documents looking for the truth of his parenthood; Dee investigates the ancient city of London he believes to be buried underground. Both investigations lead to unexpected discoveries.
This is my second novel by the author having previously read 'The Lambs of London' so in some respects I knew what to expect. Doctor Dee was a real life person so this was going to be a biography, the real world colliding with the fictitious world, it is going to be a more of the dark and gloomy London than what the tourist of today is going to see with its Tudor smells and noises. In this respect this book doesn't disappoint.
However, it also has its flaws IMHO. Ackroyd adapts Dee’s own language to make it more accessible to the modern reader whilst retaining the rich style of the original. In comparison Matthew’s language seems rather dull in comparison meaning that whilst I enjoyed the Tudor half of this novel the half that takes place some 400+ years later held little interest for me. On the whole I found it rather muddled and this was particularly true of the final chapter.
Matthew Palmer inherits a house in a hidden part of Clerkenwell, London. When Matthew moves into the house, he begins to suffer visions in an escalating derangement of mind. Matthew delves into the history of the house and discovers that it had been owned in the Tudor era by Doctor John Dee, an infamous alchemist, mathematician and philosopher who was accused by some of using black magic.
The narrative consists of two first-person accounts, one Palmer’s, the other, Dee’s. For just as Palmer sees Dee, so Dee ‘scries’ Palmer, and the narratives of two men searching the past begin to interlock. Palmer researches old documents looking for the truth of his parenthood; Dee investigates the ancient city of London he believes to be buried underground. Both investigations lead to unexpected discoveries.
This is my second novel by the author having previously read 'The Lambs of London' so in some respects I knew what to expect. Doctor Dee was a real life person so this was going to be a biography, the real world colliding with the fictitious world, it is going to be a more of the dark and gloomy London than what the tourist of today is going to see with its Tudor smells and noises. In this respect this book doesn't disappoint.
However, it also has its flaws IMHO. Ackroyd adapts Dee’s own language to make it more accessible to the modern reader whilst retaining the rich style of the original. In comparison Matthew’s language seems rather dull in comparison meaning that whilst I enjoyed the Tudor half of this novel the half that takes place some 400+ years later held little interest for me. On the whole I found it rather muddled and this was particularly true of the final chapter.
December 12, 2012
Typischer Ackroyd-Roman, der auf zwei Zeitebenen spielt, historische Figuren einbezieht und viel London-Kolorit enthält. In diesem Fall steht der Alchimist John Dee im Mittelpunkt, der um 1600 in London lebte und im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Aberglaube agierte. Er lässt sich so vergleichen mit Gestalten wie Paracelsus, Leonard Thurneysser und anderen. Dee steht in der Gegenwart ein junger Mann gegenüber, der das Haus erbt, in dem einst Dee lebte. Fortan wird er heimgesucht von Geistern, Dees Geschichte sowie seiner eigenen. Gut gefallen hat mir auch die Liebe der Protagonisten zu Büchern und Bibliotheken.
Nachtrag 14.10.2018
Und aus akutellem Anlass (Lektüre von Benjamin Blacks Alchimie einer Mordnacht) frage ich mich, ob der Aufenthalt Dees in Prag und sein Kollege Edward Kelley auch erwähnt wurde. Daran kann ich mich beim besten Willen nicht mehr erinnern.
Nachtrag 14.10.2018
Und aus akutellem Anlass (Lektüre von Benjamin Blacks Alchimie einer Mordnacht) frage ich mich, ob der Aufenthalt Dees in Prag und sein Kollege Edward Kelley auch erwähnt wurde. Daran kann ich mich beim besten Willen nicht mehr erinnern.
January 9, 2011
This is a difficult book to define - it took me a lot longer to read than I thought it would and I felt a bit disappointed by it but that's mainly because I enjoyed Hawksmoor so much. This book deals with a historic researcher (based on Ackroyd's own experiences as a researcher) and his confused relationship with his past, his present and the house which he finds himself inhabiting in Clerkenwell. The house, or at least the parts that survived, was originally owned by Dr Dee, a famous alchemist who was reputed to have practised the black arts and sexual magic with the aim of conversing with angels and creating a homunculus. The homunculus haunts the pages of the book and the theme of creating life, be it by growing a small person in a specially constructed glass jar (Dr Dee), or growing and moulding a child in your own image and interests (the narrator and his father). The homunculus is a metaphysical presence, a ghostly sprite which is always just beyond the limits of the pages and the edges of the readers vision.
The rest of the ideas adressed here; spirituality, the difference between religion and the black arts, relationships are all a little confusing. The link between the past and the present is also a blurred line here as the story frequently implies that the individuals at opposite ends of the time line can hear each other. Matthew is aware of a life other than his own within the house and Dr Dee sees images which reflect Matthews activities as he is slowly drawn into the house. This book poses a lot of questions and answers very few. I've read a few other reviews of this book and it seems there are a lot of Dr Dee enthusiasts out there, many of whom found this book to be inaccurate. I've never heard of Dee before so have no grounds for comparison, however the descriptions of medieval London seemed pretty spot on to me.
The rest of the ideas adressed here; spirituality, the difference between religion and the black arts, relationships are all a little confusing. The link between the past and the present is also a blurred line here as the story frequently implies that the individuals at opposite ends of the time line can hear each other. Matthew is aware of a life other than his own within the house and Dr Dee sees images which reflect Matthews activities as he is slowly drawn into the house. This book poses a lot of questions and answers very few. I've read a few other reviews of this book and it seems there are a lot of Dr Dee enthusiasts out there, many of whom found this book to be inaccurate. I've never heard of Dee before so have no grounds for comparison, however the descriptions of medieval London seemed pretty spot on to me.
October 2, 2010
This review contains spoilers, but I want you to read it anyway to make sure you never make the mistake of trying this horrible, horrible book.
As a history of John Dee, it gets the most basic facts wrong: for one example, it ends after the death of his first wife with his partner Kelley burning his library down and fleeing. Kelley did no such thing; they continued to work together for years after Dee remarried. They only split up after Kelley announced that the archangel Uriel had told him through a crystal ball that he and Dee should experiment with wife-swapping. (And not before they tried it. So yes, this is a book about John Dee that skips the most interesting thing about him.)
As a book on its own merits, it's equally bad. It's set up as a mystery, and mysteries tend to succeed or fail based on how well they wrap up their threads at the end. Here almost none of them are wrapped up, and those that are, unsatisfyingly. Again, just as one example: what happened to the Act III revelation that the protagonist's father sexually abused him? What was that for? He never mentions it again!
I gave The Da Vinci Code two stars because while it's terrible history, it's at least effective junk food. This book gets nothing right. It's bad history and it's bad reading. I hate it.
As a history of John Dee, it gets the most basic facts wrong: for one example, it ends after the death of his first wife with his partner Kelley burning his library down and fleeing. Kelley did no such thing; they continued to work together for years after Dee remarried. They only split up after Kelley announced that the archangel Uriel had told him through a crystal ball that he and Dee should experiment with wife-swapping. (And not before they tried it. So yes, this is a book about John Dee that skips the most interesting thing about him.)
As a book on its own merits, it's equally bad. It's set up as a mystery, and mysteries tend to succeed or fail based on how well they wrap up their threads at the end. Here almost none of them are wrapped up, and those that are, unsatisfyingly. Again, just as one example: what happened to the Act III revelation that the protagonist's father sexually abused him? What was that for? He never mentions it again!
I gave The Da Vinci Code two stars because while it's terrible history, it's at least effective junk food. This book gets nothing right. It's bad history and it's bad reading. I hate it.
July 11, 2009
Reading how the voting has gone from other reviewers, I suspect that you have to have an interest in Dee to really enjoy this work. It's pretty arcane stuff and difficult I think for anyone not familiar with Elizabethan culture to connect with a man who to this age must just seem barking. As one who has actually tried to make sense of the manuscripts of his "Conversations with Angels" first hand, I found this fiction/faction brought this strange and fascinating man to life.
September 8, 2009
i got a little bored and confused at about the 3/4 point, but up until then this book was fantastic. a lot like ackroyd's hawksmoor (and from what i can tell, all his books) in its total immersion in the history, geography, and architecture of london. half this book (alternating chapters, past and present) is told from the POV of john dee, and those parts are if anything more believable than the parts set in the present. i think if ackroyd has a weakness, it's his desire to shy away from direct conflict, to rely more on atmosphere, mystery and expectation. these make for a tremendous start, because he is an amazingly talented prose writer, but in the end things feel a little empty and off-the-mark. still, though... the amount of talent, knowledge and thought that goes into his books is mind-boggling. like, for real: mind-boggling.
August 8, 2022
I read this for a local book group by listening to it being narrated on a website called Calibre. I found it an interesting book about a man called Matthew (great name) who ends up in a house in Clerkenwell which, it turns out, was owned by the Elizabethan magician and polymath John Dee. The two stories of the two protagonists start to overlap and it turns out that they are closely related. It is an interesting book steeped in London with voluminous lists of place names and also Elizabethan history with Dee referencing all sorts of European thinkers and sages of the time. It has an interesting narrative with the Matthew character learning about his place in the world and discovering his links to Dee whilst at the same time following the peripatetic meanderings of Dee himself centuries earlier. The only slight problem was that I was listening to this at the same time as watching the woman's football Euros tournament and I kept realising that I hadn't been listening properly to the previous four minutes and was confused by which protagonist was saying what and to whom.
February 12, 2008
While this is my first book by Ackroyd, it won't be my last, especially since I have 3 or 4 more on my bookshelves! At first glance, this seems to be a ghost story: a young man, Matthew, inherits a bizarre house from his father. Neither Matthew nor his mother even knew that his dad had owned the house, so it was a complete mystery to him. It was located in Clerkenwell, somewhere Matthew never ventured, and from the moment he walks in, he feels something about the house, and soon starts noticing strange things there. It is also a look at London past, present and future, all of these terms being, of course, relevant depending on the time period in which the story is being told. There are actually two stories here, that of Matthew, who in acquiring the house begins to question his past; and that of Doctor John Dee, who had been the previous owner of the house in the 16th century, who looks to the past present and the future; as the author notes on page 132, "John Dee...had, in one way or another, belonged to every time." And time and the temporal realm is another key theme of this novel.
I don't pretend to understand the alchemical symbolism throughout the novel, but maybe by the time I read it again, with a bit of study, I can do better the next time. For now, suffice it to say, this is another one I'd rate definitely NFE (not for everyone); it was good, but I felt so ignorant reading it that I didn't really get a chance to enjoy it.
I don't pretend to understand the alchemical symbolism throughout the novel, but maybe by the time I read it again, with a bit of study, I can do better the next time. For now, suffice it to say, this is another one I'd rate definitely NFE (not for everyone); it was good, but I felt so ignorant reading it that I didn't really get a chance to enjoy it.
August 27, 2013
In this novel, Ackroyd seeks to show the importance of reception. At the heart of the novel is John Dee closing himself off from the wider human continuum, as well as the introspective life of the researcher Matthew Palmer. Both Dee and Palmer are slaves to their researches, and though they sense around them the continuity of the past in the present, and see the need to connect, it is not until they achieve a visionary status that they are welcomed into the mystical City of London, a place of reconciliation. To this end, they must overcome the distance between themselves and their families and restore these connections, although in his usual way Ackroyd subverts the familial context.
It is a book full of darkness which yet has a positive message: the darkness of London, the World without Love, is the product of its inhabitants. There is another London, the mythic city which is thehttps://www.lulu.com/account/sign-in World with Love, where we join the dance and bridges are built. If we see the vulnerability which is integral to the individual characters, we can appreciate how much they can be damaged, just as much as the city itself.
As with so much of Ackroyd's fiction, this is one of those novels where you have to ask yourself what is being said, rather than allow yourself to read it with any preconceptions. Especially important is the quest to find a truth the seeker doesn't realise he's seeking.
It is a book full of darkness which yet has a positive message: the darkness of London, the World without Love, is the product of its inhabitants. There is another London, the mythic city which is thehttps://www.lulu.com/account/sign-in World with Love, where we join the dance and bridges are built. If we see the vulnerability which is integral to the individual characters, we can appreciate how much they can be damaged, just as much as the city itself.
As with so much of Ackroyd's fiction, this is one of those novels where you have to ask yourself what is being said, rather than allow yourself to read it with any preconceptions. Especially important is the quest to find a truth the seeker doesn't realise he's seeking.
June 15, 2012
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
When Matthew Palmer inherits his father’s London house, he discovers it once belonged to 16th century magician and alchemist Dr John Dee. As Palmer investigates, the Elizabethan astrologer becomes an unsettling presence in the dwelling - and current events appear to echo incidents from the past.
When Matthew Palmer inherits his father’s London house, he discovers it once belonged to 16th century magician and alchemist Dr John Dee. As Palmer investigates, the Elizabethan astrologer becomes an unsettling presence in the dwelling - and current events appear to echo incidents from the past.
June 30, 2012
This book inspired me to visit different parts of London. Ackroyd's knowledge of London history and lore makes this spooky book outstanding. I loved reading it and will again. The past and present and the love of historical research are all tied together.
February 19, 2023
Actiunea se desfasoara pe doua planuri. In primul plan, il avem pe Matthew Palmer, ce mosteneste in 1990 o casa de la tatal sau, in Clerkenwell. Aceasta a apartinut faimosului John Dee ce era pasionat de stiintele oculte si practicant al magiei. Incercand sa afle tainele vechiului proprietar, Matthew impreuna cu prietenul sau Daniel Moore, studieaza consemnele experimentelor Doctorului Dee si reinvie forte misterioase.
In planul al doilea, il gasim pe cunoscutul matematician si astronom John Dee, ce a trait in Anglia, secolul 16. Acesta cauta cu ardoare piatra filozofala si un elixir prin care ar putea da viata unui homunculus.
Este o fictiune istorica, cu un subiect ofertant, dar scrisa intr-un mod in care pe mine nu m-a prins deloc. De multe ori am vrut sa renunt la aceasta carte, dar am tras cu speranta ca ceva o sa se schimbe. Ori la mine, ori la ea... Am ramas doar cu speranta.
In planul al doilea, il gasim pe cunoscutul matematician si astronom John Dee, ce a trait in Anglia, secolul 16. Acesta cauta cu ardoare piatra filozofala si un elixir prin care ar putea da viata unui homunculus.
Este o fictiune istorica, cu un subiect ofertant, dar scrisa intr-un mod in care pe mine nu m-a prins deloc. De multe ori am vrut sa renunt la aceasta carte, dar am tras cu speranta ca ceva o sa se schimbe. Ori la mine, ori la ea... Am ramas doar cu speranta.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2021
ხელოვნებას (ლიტერატურა იქნება ეს, კინო, მუსიკა თუ მხატვრობა) ერთი თვისება აქვს - ურთიერთკავშირი. ამ შემთხვევაშიც ამ თვისებამ მიმიყვანა პიტერ აკროიდამდე - მასთან გუსტავ მაირინკის დახმარებით მივედი და დავრწმუნდი, რომ მას "ლონდონის ექსპერტს" ტყუილად არ უწოდებენ. პიტერთან ერთად წარსულისა და აწმყოს ლონდონში (დიახ, ყურადღების ცენტრში აქაც ჯონ დია, როგორც "დასავლეთის სარკმლის ანგელოზში" და ისევ დროსა და სივრცეში ვმოგზაურობთ) გასეირნება ნამდვილად დაუვიწყარია და პირველ შეხვედრას აუცილებლად მოჰყვება გაგრძელება.
April 19, 2015
Warning: spoilers.
I have always been interested in John Dee, so picked this book up eagerly. It's an ambitious book that weaves some apocalyptic threads through some very odd scenarios, but (to me anyway) there were some gaping holes in the narrative. Matthew inherits the eponymous house from his father and discovers it used to belong to Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan philosopher/mathematician/astronomer/astrologer; he also feels some direct connection to Dr Dee via a sort of time slip where there is a form of communication between the two. Quite to what end I couldn't determine, unless it is for Dee to pass on the baton of maintaining/ensuring there is love in the world. I didn't like Matthew at all. He is dry, has little or no personal life and few emotions other than self-pity. And it's almost as if the house has come directly to Matthew from Dr Dee, via Matthew's father. Are we to assume it stood empty in the interim? Or are all the other people who lived in it over the past few centuries irrelevant? Matthew and his mother have a strained, distant relationship, until Matthew's cross-dressing friend Daniel reveals that he was Matthew's father's lover and the house was a hidey-hole for their trysts. This engenders in Matthew a belated sympathy for his mother and a reconciliation ensues. This was far too pat, sudden and convenient for me and their subsequent chumminess just didn't ring true. As odd as it sounds, considering the rave literary reviews this book has had, I didn't think Ackroyd depicted emotions convincingly at all. Following having been given a (very peculiar indeed) vision of a hellish world "without love", Dee realises he still loves his wife and nurses her tenderly through her final illness. Again, I found this swift volte-face from previous sarcastic indifference to tender concern completely unconvincing. By the last quarter of the book, Ackroyd had lost me completely. He describes at great length a journey through a bleak, frightening London (a bleakness that Dr Dee has apparently brought into being by pursuing money and fame instead of love) and a series of visions and visitations that become more complex and confusing by the minute. I found this whole section tedious, over long, and horrendously self-indulgent. On and on and on and on goes Dee on this mystical trip through London and the imagery gets more tangled and tortuous as he goes. It felt to me like the writer showing off his virtuosity - look how many dark and doom-laden visions I can conjure up! One after another! Relentless! Then he throws in a strange and pointless trip by Matthew and his mother to a lock-up garage with some stairs in it leading nowhere. By this point I was losing the will to live but I staggered on to the end thinking there was some sort of denouement, some revelation, some gaining of peace or answers. But the book just staggers on to a conclusion and I think the point is that there is a final coming-together between Matthew and Dr Dee, across the ages, with light and enlightenment abounding, each having reconciled with their loved ones and realised what is truly important. Or something.
I have always been interested in John Dee, so picked this book up eagerly. It's an ambitious book that weaves some apocalyptic threads through some very odd scenarios, but (to me anyway) there were some gaping holes in the narrative. Matthew inherits the eponymous house from his father and discovers it used to belong to Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan philosopher/mathematician/astronomer/astrologer; he also feels some direct connection to Dr Dee via a sort of time slip where there is a form of communication between the two. Quite to what end I couldn't determine, unless it is for Dee to pass on the baton of maintaining/ensuring there is love in the world. I didn't like Matthew at all. He is dry, has little or no personal life and few emotions other than self-pity. And it's almost as if the house has come directly to Matthew from Dr Dee, via Matthew's father. Are we to assume it stood empty in the interim? Or are all the other people who lived in it over the past few centuries irrelevant? Matthew and his mother have a strained, distant relationship, until Matthew's cross-dressing friend Daniel reveals that he was Matthew's father's lover and the house was a hidey-hole for their trysts. This engenders in Matthew a belated sympathy for his mother and a reconciliation ensues. This was far too pat, sudden and convenient for me and their subsequent chumminess just didn't ring true. As odd as it sounds, considering the rave literary reviews this book has had, I didn't think Ackroyd depicted emotions convincingly at all. Following having been given a (very peculiar indeed) vision of a hellish world "without love", Dee realises he still loves his wife and nurses her tenderly through her final illness. Again, I found this swift volte-face from previous sarcastic indifference to tender concern completely unconvincing. By the last quarter of the book, Ackroyd had lost me completely. He describes at great length a journey through a bleak, frightening London (a bleakness that Dr Dee has apparently brought into being by pursuing money and fame instead of love) and a series of visions and visitations that become more complex and confusing by the minute. I found this whole section tedious, over long, and horrendously self-indulgent. On and on and on and on goes Dee on this mystical trip through London and the imagery gets more tangled and tortuous as he goes. It felt to me like the writer showing off his virtuosity - look how many dark and doom-laden visions I can conjure up! One after another! Relentless! Then he throws in a strange and pointless trip by Matthew and his mother to a lock-up garage with some stairs in it leading nowhere. By this point I was losing the will to live but I staggered on to the end thinking there was some sort of denouement, some revelation, some gaining of peace or answers. But the book just staggers on to a conclusion and I think the point is that there is a final coming-together between Matthew and Dr Dee, across the ages, with light and enlightenment abounding, each having reconciled with their loved ones and realised what is truly important. Or something.
August 23, 2022
Nope. Not for me. Needlessly opaque and plot free. Ackroyd has his fans, who are buying what he's selling: historical London through the filter of historical characters like John Dee and contrasted with fictional ones like Matthew Palmer, with magical mystery going on. The palimpsest of the overlaid lives was interesting, as was the adherence to Dee's life and writings. I liked the intrigue of Matthew's origin. But the writing betrays a disdain of women, sex workers, trans people, and gay men. Not just in the 15th century, but in the 20th. And the ending was incomprehensible. I forced myself to finish and by the end was hate reading. If you like magical philosophy and history of London, don't need a solid plot, and don't mind the misogyny, this may work for you.
August 14, 2007
This was the first Peter Ackroyed I've read. I picked it up because of my interest in John Dee and was not disappointed. The narrative voice shifts between Matthew, a present day researcher who has unknowingly inherited the house of John Dee, an Elizabethan alchemist and astrologer of great renown, and Dr. Dee himself. Ackroyd very cleverly connects these two figures through time, and his portrayal of 16th century London is very well researched and convincing. On the strength of this book I bought up his more recent biography of Shakespeare.
October 6, 2026
What. Did. I. Just. Read.
Seriously.
The UK and Europe, but England most of all, always evokes in me a feeling of nostalgia for a past that seems utterly baked into the land and the buildings. The past is right there, close enough to touch. We don't have layer upon layer, though, on this side of the pond. I mean, you walk into Ford Theatre, and you say to yourself, that, right there, is where Lincoln was sitting when he was shot, but it was a mere 160 years ago. Walking around Runnymede is something else entirely. And what I've loved about Ackroyd's books (first Hawksmoor, now this) is his commitment to the notion that the past and the present are intertwined -- actually intertwined, perhaps -- and that this interweaving is baked into places.
But this book. (A quick aside to the reviewers who complain he got the history wrong . . . that this is not true to Dee's life, that this is not how Dee's relationship with Kelley ended . . . . I mean . . . So what? Some books that are labeled, by the authors, or the publishers, or by others, as "historical fiction," mean to tell the history through light fictionalization, i.e., imagining plausible conversations, and so forth. But Ackroyd wasn't pretending or professing to write such a work, so quit-yer-bitchin. "Historical fiction" is a Big Tent. And real people in history can figure in fiction without the writer having to hew to reality. Good grief.)
And . . . this is a heck of a book. He juxtaposes a period in Dee's life, written in the first person but in fairly modern prose (unlike Hawksmoor, in which the language was pitched perfectly in early 1700s cadence and vocabulary), with a story in the 20th century involving a young historian who has inherited from his father a house that turns out to have been Dee's house. Gradually the chapter swapping (one of Dee, one of Matthew, one of Dee, one of Matthew) gets a bit looser ... suddenly the one after Dee is, well, Dee again, but it took me by surprise, i.e., it took a second (because of the more modern prose, which is how we know it was a deliberate choice), and in fact the final chapter is a bit unclear (is it Matthew? is it Dee? is it Ackroyd in places?) (unclear). The veil between then and now lifts completely from time to time, with echoes of conversations in one time audible in the other time. The chapter slipping is intentional; it's not only time and place that are loose and fluid in this book; so is identity.
It's a tricky book to read, and it's pretty clear to me that it should be read twice. But it's lovely if you are entranced by nonlinear views of time and also if you love London and its history.
Seriously.
The UK and Europe, but England most of all, always evokes in me a feeling of nostalgia for a past that seems utterly baked into the land and the buildings. The past is right there, close enough to touch. We don't have layer upon layer, though, on this side of the pond. I mean, you walk into Ford Theatre, and you say to yourself, that, right there, is where Lincoln was sitting when he was shot, but it was a mere 160 years ago. Walking around Runnymede is something else entirely. And what I've loved about Ackroyd's books (first Hawksmoor, now this) is his commitment to the notion that the past and the present are intertwined -- actually intertwined, perhaps -- and that this interweaving is baked into places.
But this book. (A quick aside to the reviewers who complain he got the history wrong . . . that this is not true to Dee's life, that this is not how Dee's relationship with Kelley ended . . . . I mean . . . So what? Some books that are labeled, by the authors, or the publishers, or by others, as "historical fiction," mean to tell the history through light fictionalization, i.e., imagining plausible conversations, and so forth. But Ackroyd wasn't pretending or professing to write such a work, so quit-yer-bitchin. "Historical fiction" is a Big Tent. And real people in history can figure in fiction without the writer having to hew to reality. Good grief.)
And . . . this is a heck of a book. He juxtaposes a period in Dee's life, written in the first person but in fairly modern prose (unlike Hawksmoor, in which the language was pitched perfectly in early 1700s cadence and vocabulary), with a story in the 20th century involving a young historian who has inherited from his father a house that turns out to have been Dee's house. Gradually the chapter swapping (one of Dee, one of Matthew, one of Dee, one of Matthew) gets a bit looser ... suddenly the one after Dee is, well, Dee again, but it took me by surprise, i.e., it took a second (because of the more modern prose, which is how we know it was a deliberate choice), and in fact the final chapter is a bit unclear (is it Matthew? is it Dee? is it Ackroyd in places?) (unclear). The veil between then and now lifts completely from time to time, with echoes of conversations in one time audible in the other time. The chapter slipping is intentional; it's not only time and place that are loose and fluid in this book; so is identity.
It's a tricky book to read, and it's pretty clear to me that it should be read twice. But it's lovely if you are entranced by nonlinear views of time and also if you love London and its history.
March 9, 2019
Of the five Ackroyd books I have read, this is most similar to "Hawksmoor" since it concerns a real historical figure in Elizabethan London and a strange set of supernatural connections to some late 20th century Londoners.
In this case, a man of about 30 with a modest scholarly career finds he has inherited a house, the existence of which he did not know, from his recently deceased father. Strange things begin to happen which among other things cause him to find out a number of secrets of his own family.
The house is revealed to have belonged to John Dee, a legendary Elizabethan character - I won't quote his wikipedia entry at length but this sentence is particularly relevant to this book "viewed from a 21st century perspective, Dee's activities would seem to straddle the worlds of magic and modern science, though this distinction would have been meaningless to him."
In this case, a man of about 30 with a modest scholarly career finds he has inherited a house, the existence of which he did not know, from his recently deceased father. Strange things begin to happen which among other things cause him to find out a number of secrets of his own family.
The house is revealed to have belonged to John Dee, a legendary Elizabethan character - I won't quote his wikipedia entry at length but this sentence is particularly relevant to this book "viewed from a 21st century perspective, Dee's activities would seem to straddle the worlds of magic and modern science, though this distinction would have been meaningless to him."
May 24, 2020
Two storylines – Matthew has inherited a house from his father in the current day (book was published in the early 90s), and there is a brief mystery in figuring out whom it once belonged to. Turns it out, Doctor John Dee once lived there (during the time of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in the 16th century). No idea what the Doctor Dee storyline was all about.
This was incredibly boring, especially the Dee storyline. I have no idea what happened in that part except that (I think) his wife, Katherine, was sick. He was apparently a doctor (and possibly a “sorcerer” of some type?). Anyway, not really worth the time, in my opinion.
This was incredibly boring, especially the Dee storyline. I have no idea what happened in that part except that (I think) his wife, Katherine, was sick. He was apparently a doctor (and possibly a “sorcerer” of some type?). Anyway, not really worth the time, in my opinion.
October 5, 2010
I wanted to like this book. I really did. I wanted to know more about John Dee and I'm interested in the Elizabethan period. So why did I hate it so much?
You know what it's like when someone tells you about a dream they've had? And there's no discernible beginning and no narrative and no satisfactory conclusion? Well, Peter Ackroyd is that person. He drones on for hours and hours and tells you every tiny detail of this incomprehensible nightmare that he's been having and you just keep wondering, 'Why are you telling me this?'
When he tells you that a man has inherited an old house from his father and it turns out to have belonged to John Dee, you think this might be an interesting story, but when he wants you to believe that the house is haunted, you start to lose the will to live, and when he tries to convince you that the narrator is a homunculus conjured up by John Dee, you just think 'nutter'.
The final few pages are some sort of apology from the author about having bored you with this tedious book... But really, Peter Ackroyd, that's not good enough! You could have done us all the favour of binning the manuscript of this book before it was published and you could have kept this piece of self-indulgent nonsense in your own fevered imagination instead of letting it loose on the poor readers, like me, who have wasted a few precious hours of their lives on reading this crap.
You know what it's like when someone tells you about a dream they've had? And there's no discernible beginning and no narrative and no satisfactory conclusion? Well, Peter Ackroyd is that person. He drones on for hours and hours and tells you every tiny detail of this incomprehensible nightmare that he's been having and you just keep wondering, 'Why are you telling me this?'
When he tells you that a man has inherited an old house from his father and it turns out to have belonged to John Dee, you think this might be an interesting story, but when he wants you to believe that the house is haunted, you start to lose the will to live, and when he tries to convince you that the narrator is a homunculus conjured up by John Dee, you just think 'nutter'.
The final few pages are some sort of apology from the author about having bored you with this tedious book... But really, Peter Ackroyd, that's not good enough! You could have done us all the favour of binning the manuscript of this book before it was published and you could have kept this piece of self-indulgent nonsense in your own fevered imagination instead of letting it loose on the poor readers, like me, who have wasted a few precious hours of their lives on reading this crap.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2021
Peter Ackroyd, the author of many biographical books and the owner of a lot of information obtained in the course of research, but not included in the finished product, kills two birds with one stone: 1. finds the use of ballast and 2. writes a bestseller not limited to modeling historically unreliable situations. Most often turning the finished plot inside out ("The Great Fire of London" - "Little Dorrit" by Dickens, ""The Magazine of Victor Frankenstein" - a novel by Mary Shelley).
Although "The House of Dr. Dee" according to the first scheme: a historical semi-legendary character, a chemist and alchemist, an astronomer, an astrologer of Queen Elizabeth, a mathematician, a physicist, a cartographer. Not as famous as Michel Nostradamus, but therefore even more valuable. It is in his former house, left by the will of the father who hit his whole head on esotericism, that the young hero moves in. Faced, as usual, with frightening mysticism, like a foggy haze, visions, ghosts, delusions, hallucinations and other similar crap.
Синдром самозванца
Меня преследует один страх, одна навязчивая идея – боязнь, что любая написанная мною строка имеет какой-то иной источник, что я краду у кого-то фабулу и слова, что я использую темы и находки других романистов.
И не случайно. вы ведь, в самом деле давно занимаетесь этим, господин Акройд. Так получилось, так совпало, что завершение века и тысячелетия породило в литературе странный гибрид псевдоисторического романа с интеллектуальным и приключенческим. Героями, как правило, выступали реальные исторические фигуры: ученые, писатели, поэты. Политические деятели если и появлялись, то для создания антуража.
В большинстве случаев персонажи, в реальности бывшие кабинетными тружениками, становились в этих романах сильными смелыми ловкими харизматичными супергероями, да к тому же наделенными непобедимой сексуальностью. Принужденные всесильной авторскою волей сражаться с рептилоидами, зомби, инопланетянами, чернокнижниками, маньяками etc, они с честью выходили из испытаний, в награду получая прекрасных дев и полцарства.
От джеймсбондианы эти порождения постмодерна отличались как-бы интеллектуальной составляющей, льстившей читателю, как рост Эллочки Щукиной льстил мужчинам - любой выпускник ПТУ, читая, мог ощутить себя Светильником Разума - это же не что попало, а историческое и про науку (литературу, эзотерику, подставьте нужное).
Питер Акройд, автор многих биографических книг и обладатель массы сведений, полученных в ходе изысканий, но в готовый продукт не вошедших, убивает одним выстрелом двух зайцев: 1. находит применение балласту и 2. пишет бестселлер не ограничиваясь моделированием исторически недостоверных ситуаций. Чаще всего выворачивая наизнанку готовый сюжет ("Большой лондонский пожар" - "Крошка Доррит" Диккенса, " "Журнал Виктора Франкенштейна" - роман Мэри Шелли).
Хотя "Дом доктора Ди" по первой схеме: персонаж исторический полулегендарный, химик и алхимик, астроном, астролог королевы Елизаветы, математик, физик, картограф. Не столь известный, как Мишель Нострадамус, но оттого еще более ценный. Именно в его бывший дом оставленный по завещанию ударенным всей головой об эзотерику отцом, вселяется молодой герой. Сталкиваясь, как водится, с пугающей мистикой, вроде туманной дымки, видений, призраков, наваждений, галлюцинаций и прочей подобной хрени.
В ходе самостоятельного расследования выясняя много разных вещей, о которых предпочел бы не знать вовсе. Параллельно дню сегодняшнему, действие разворачивается в прошлом, освещая драматичный период жизни доктора Ди - смерть жены. И вот тут автору изменяет не только чувство меры, но и элементарная осторожность. Если у кого были сомнения в гомосексуальности автора,, здесь их не останется.
Снова, как в "Журнале Франкенштейна", оголтелое женоненавистничество и демонстративное пренебрежение мужа защитой здоровья и самой жизни супруги. Снова те же странные идеи создания жизни без женского участия. Если в истории Франкенштейна это был оживленный труп, то здесь гомункул (человечек из реторты). Согласно ли авторской воле или против нее, но великий алхимик предстает в романе отъявленной мразью.
Прочее тоже не доставляет радости. Стилизованный под слог XVI века язык нечитаем, диалоги чудовищны, изобильная психоделика утомляет. В целом производит впечатление неудачной компиляции. Хотя не исключаю, что найдутся и у такого поклонники.
Although "The House of Dr. Dee" according to the first scheme: a historical semi-legendary character, a chemist and alchemist, an astronomer, an astrologer of Queen Elizabeth, a mathematician, a physicist, a cartographer. Not as famous as Michel Nostradamus, but therefore even more valuable. It is in his former house, left by the will of the father who hit his whole head on esotericism, that the young hero moves in. Faced, as usual, with frightening mysticism, like a foggy haze, visions, ghosts, delusions, hallucinations and other similar crap.
Синдром самозванца
Меня преследует один страх, одна навязчивая идея – боязнь, что любая написанная мною строка имеет какой-то иной источник, что я краду у кого-то фабулу и слова, что я использую темы и находки других романистов.
И не случайно. вы ведь, в самом деле давно занимаетесь этим, господин Акройд. Так получилось, так совпало, что завершение века и тысячелетия породило в литературе странный гибрид псевдоисторического романа с интеллектуальным и приключенческим. Героями, как правило, выступали реальные исторические фигуры: ученые, писатели, поэты. Политические деятели если и появлялись, то для создания антуража.
В большинстве случаев персонажи, в реальности бывшие кабинетными тружениками, становились в этих романах сильными смелыми ловкими харизматичными супергероями, да к тому же наделенными непобедимой сексуальностью. Принужденные всесильной авторскою волей сражаться с рептилоидами, зомби, инопланетянами, чернокнижниками, маньяками etc, они с честью выходили из испытаний, в награду получая прекрасных дев и полцарства.
От джеймсбондианы эти порождения постмодерна отличались как-бы интеллектуальной составляющей, льстившей читателю, как рост Эллочки Щукиной льстил мужчинам - любой выпускник ПТУ, читая, мог ощутить себя Светильником Разума - это же не что попало, а историческое и про науку (литературу, эзотерику, подставьте нужное).
Питер Акройд, автор многих биографических книг и обладатель массы сведений, полученных в ходе изысканий, но в готовый продукт не вошедших, убивает одним выстрелом двух зайцев: 1. находит применение балласту и 2. пишет бестселлер не ограничиваясь моделированием исторически недостоверных ситуаций. Чаще всего выворачивая наизнанку готовый сюжет ("Большой лондонский пожар" - "Крошка Доррит" Диккенса, " "Журнал Виктора Франкенштейна" - роман Мэри Шелли).
Хотя "Дом доктора Ди" по первой схеме: персонаж исторический полулегендарный, химик и алхимик, астроном, астролог королевы Елизаветы, математик, физик, картограф. Не столь известный, как Мишель Нострадамус, но оттого еще более ценный. Именно в его бывший дом оставленный по завещанию ударенным всей головой об эзотерику отцом, вселяется молодой герой. Сталкиваясь, как водится, с пугающей мистикой, вроде туманной дымки, видений, призраков, наваждений, галлюцинаций и прочей подобной хрени.
В ходе самостоятельного расследования выясняя много разных вещей, о которых предпочел бы не знать вовсе. Параллельно дню сегодняшнему, действие разворачивается в прошлом, освещая драматичный период жизни доктора Ди - смерть жены. И вот тут автору изменяет не только чувство меры, но и элементарная осторожность. Если у кого были сомнения в гомосексуальности автора,, здесь их не останется.
Снова, как в "Журнале Франкенштейна", оголтелое женоненавистничество и демонстративное пренебрежение мужа защитой здоровья и самой жизни супруги. Снова те же странные идеи создания жизни без женского участия. Если в истории Франкенштейна это был оживленный труп, то здесь гомункул (человечек из реторты). Согласно ли авторской воле или против нее, но великий алхимик предстает в романе отъявленной мразью.
Прочее тоже не доставляет радости. Стилизованный под слог XVI века язык нечитаем, диалоги чудовищны, изобильная психоделика утомляет. В целом производит впечатление неудачной компиляции. Хотя не исключаю, что найдутся и у такого поклонники.
January 22, 2023
"There is a camaraderie that grows up among those who work with old books and old papers, largely, I suspect, because we understand that we are at odds with the rest of the world: we are travelling backwards, while all those around us are still moving forward. I must admit that I enjoy the sensation. One client might want me to investigate some eighteenth-century deeds, while another might need information on a nineteenth-century toolmaker, but for me the pleasure is the same; it is as if I were entering a place I had once known and then forgotten, and in the sudden light of recognition had remembered something of myself. On certain occasions this had a curious but no less pleasurable sequel: I would look up from the books or documents I was reading, and find that the immediate world around me had become both more distant and more distinct. It had become part of the continuing historical process, as mysterious and unapproachable as any other period, and I gazed around me with the same delighted attention that I would give if I suddenly found myself within a sixteenth-century scene. If my work meant that I often viewed the past as my present, so in turn the present moment became part of the past" (13).
"But there are occasions when a certain look, or gesture, plunges me back into another time; it is as if there had been some genetic surplus, because I know that I am observing a medieval or a sixteenth-century face. When the body of a neolithic traveller was recovered from an Alpine glacier, sprawled face down in the posture of death, it was considered to be an extraordinary act of historical retrieval. But the past is restored around us all the time, in the bodies we inhabit or the words we speak. And there are certain scenes or situations which, once glimpsed, seem to continue for eternity.
No, that's not the way to describe it. They are already part of a continuing history even as they occur and, as I said once before, there are times when I walk through the contemporary city and recognize it for what it is: another historical period, with all its mysterious constraints and docilities. There was a sentence which my father taught me -- 'To see eternity as part of time, and time as part of eternity' " (39).
"Books do not perish like humankind [...] True books are filled with the power of the understanding which is the inheritance of the ages: you may take up a book in time, but you read it in eternity" (66-67).
"There are some who mock and condemn me for living within the past, but they are far off the mark; like the navigator who charts his course by the aid of the glistening, fixed stars, those who understand past ages do then master the present. Like changeable silk which turned to the sun has many colors, and turned back from the light has none, so does the present day contain all the hues and shades of times long gone which are visible only to one who looks upon them correctly" (67).
"Once upon a time I was afraid of libraries. Those shelves of books formed a world which had, almost literally, turned its back upon me; the smell of dust and wood, and faded pages, induced in me a sense of melancholy loss. Yet I began to repair my life when I became a researcher and entered the past: then one book led to another book, one document to another document, one theme to another theme, and I was led down a sweet labyrinth of learning in which I could lose myself. It has been said that books talk to one another when no one is present to hear them speak, but I know better than that: they are forever engaged in an act of silent communion which, if we are fortunate, we can overhear" (129).
"'There's no such thing as history,' I said. 'History only exists in the present'" (264).
"And that at least is true--to the extent that I do not understand how much of this history is known, and how much is my own invention. And what is the past, after all? Is it that which is created in the formal act of writing, or does it have some substantial reality? Am I discovering it or inventing it? Or could it be that I am discovering it within myself, so that it bears both the authenticity of surviving evidence and the immediacy of present intuition?" (274-275).
"Why not write of your own time? Why do you fly from it? I sit because you fly from your own self?" (275).
"But there are occasions when a certain look, or gesture, plunges me back into another time; it is as if there had been some genetic surplus, because I know that I am observing a medieval or a sixteenth-century face. When the body of a neolithic traveller was recovered from an Alpine glacier, sprawled face down in the posture of death, it was considered to be an extraordinary act of historical retrieval. But the past is restored around us all the time, in the bodies we inhabit or the words we speak. And there are certain scenes or situations which, once glimpsed, seem to continue for eternity.
No, that's not the way to describe it. They are already part of a continuing history even as they occur and, as I said once before, there are times when I walk through the contemporary city and recognize it for what it is: another historical period, with all its mysterious constraints and docilities. There was a sentence which my father taught me -- 'To see eternity as part of time, and time as part of eternity' " (39).
"Books do not perish like humankind [...] True books are filled with the power of the understanding which is the inheritance of the ages: you may take up a book in time, but you read it in eternity" (66-67).
"There are some who mock and condemn me for living within the past, but they are far off the mark; like the navigator who charts his course by the aid of the glistening, fixed stars, those who understand past ages do then master the present. Like changeable silk which turned to the sun has many colors, and turned back from the light has none, so does the present day contain all the hues and shades of times long gone which are visible only to one who looks upon them correctly" (67).
"Once upon a time I was afraid of libraries. Those shelves of books formed a world which had, almost literally, turned its back upon me; the smell of dust and wood, and faded pages, induced in me a sense of melancholy loss. Yet I began to repair my life when I became a researcher and entered the past: then one book led to another book, one document to another document, one theme to another theme, and I was led down a sweet labyrinth of learning in which I could lose myself. It has been said that books talk to one another when no one is present to hear them speak, but I know better than that: they are forever engaged in an act of silent communion which, if we are fortunate, we can overhear" (129).
"'There's no such thing as history,' I said. 'History only exists in the present'" (264).
"And that at least is true--to the extent that I do not understand how much of this history is known, and how much is my own invention. And what is the past, after all? Is it that which is created in the formal act of writing, or does it have some substantial reality? Am I discovering it or inventing it? Or could it be that I am discovering it within myself, so that it bears both the authenticity of surviving evidence and the immediacy of present intuition?" (274-275).
"Why not write of your own time? Why do you fly from it? I sit because you fly from your own self?" (275).
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February 27, 2022This is a book about Dr. John Dee, magician and adviser to the court of Queen Elizabeth I who discovered the navigational measures that enabled English explorers to conquer the New World. But it is also about the homunculus, that manmade lifeform created by Dee that survives to modern times. And yet it is also a book about its own book and its author, woven through with dream states and interplay of medieval and modern speech. I suggest you read it. This reader found it worth the while.
March 28, 2018
This really bogged down in the middle. Interesting ending though.
April 28, 2026
A genteel, Heritage novel. Same structure as Hawksmoor. Powerful brothel scene. Do you like novels that end midsen
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2021
As someone who has never visited London but has only caught glimpses of its street and buildings in works such as Alan Moore’s masterpiece “From Hell”, I’ve always felt immense anticipation to eventually see, touch, feel, and experience Hawksmoor’s churches and the cobblestone alleys of Whitechapel. For me London has always been cloaked by a thick dark cloth and the more I read about it, the more reluctant my hand is to unveil it, and spoil the fun. Peter Ackroyd’s The House of Doctor Dee certainly didn’t allow me to do that, as his depiction of London is one of an arcane labyrinth, in which the past and present, and the rational and fantastical, blend into one, surprisingly coherent, albeit devoid of demarcation, historical piece of postmodern historical fiction. He has been described as “someone who uses London as the backdrop to esoteric corners of the past and present”, but I would also say that inversely, the past and present can serve as a backdrop to delve into London’s esoteric corners. Ackroyd undeniably accomplishes both, and The House of Doctor Dee serves as a glimmering and visionary bridge of his own that “tears aside of the veil” that separates the past and the present.
This being my first Ackroyd novel, I had no expectations. I’ve only heard friends praise his biographies and some of his other historical novels, so there definitely was a sense of expectation when it came to matters of historical accuracy. Regardless of him changing a few details in John Dee’s life, which can definitely be given a pass, the book uses a double plot narrative, set in the sixteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, to deliver a gripping story of mystery, which often resembles one of the Gothic genre, of discovery, reflection, and reinvention not only of the self, but of the historical novel as a whole. However, instead of relying on mere supernaturalism in order to convey the inner-workings of his characters, Ackroyd looks at things from a different temporal perspective, while also employing alchemical legends, symbols, dogmas and practices, to signify and illustrate a different aspects of obsession, and selfishness.
The first narrative follows the court mathematician, astrologist, astronomer, magician, alchemist, and occultist John Dee, and his pursuit of esoteric knowledge to uncover London’s buried secrets. Doctor Dee is a figure who, according to Frances Yates is of “great historical importance [and] disappeared in clouds of nineteenth-century ridicule, from which the scholarship of the twentieth century has begun to rescue him”. The other narrative follows Matthew Palmer, a professional researcher, who inherits a house from his dead father, and eventually finds out that it belonged to the alchemist. As Matthew digs into the house’s past, which is inexplicably tied to its previous owner’s past and practices, he also reveals more about himself and his surroundings. The further he travels back in time, the “immediate world around him” appears to be “more distant” and alien. The two protagonists converge several times. The house in question being the main place of spatial-temporality and metaphysical intersection. At times the novel seems to have an almost eternalist approach, which poses questions regarding the ontological nature and perception of time itself. Often quite reminiscent of Gull’s visions and philosophy presented in From Hell, which (un)coincidentally also takes place in London. As both characters experience two different temporal, but equally real, realities of London, they both realize the existence of a presence which has “always existed in [the] soil, [the] air, [the] stone”. Accompanied by visions, these realization often resemble what some alchemists call a “mystical experience”. Both eventually going back to the esoteric wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus of “to be myself is to be the world, to look into myself is to look into the world”. The concept of the homunculus is also given a different perspective. The idea can be traced back to Paracelsus who outlined the “recipe” for its creation. It is essentially a “little man” that lives inside a glass container or an animal’s womb. However, Ackroyd puts a different spin on it by using it to not only demonstrate the infinite relationship between London and its previous and current inhabitants, but most crucially between John Dee (the historical figure) and the writer/historian – putting the emphasis on the ability of the latter to constantly reinvent the former, as if “he has been born again”.
This being my first Ackroyd novel, I had no expectations. I’ve only heard friends praise his biographies and some of his other historical novels, so there definitely was a sense of expectation when it came to matters of historical accuracy. Regardless of him changing a few details in John Dee’s life, which can definitely be given a pass, the book uses a double plot narrative, set in the sixteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, to deliver a gripping story of mystery, which often resembles one of the Gothic genre, of discovery, reflection, and reinvention not only of the self, but of the historical novel as a whole. However, instead of relying on mere supernaturalism in order to convey the inner-workings of his characters, Ackroyd looks at things from a different temporal perspective, while also employing alchemical legends, symbols, dogmas and practices, to signify and illustrate a different aspects of obsession, and selfishness.
The first narrative follows the court mathematician, astrologist, astronomer, magician, alchemist, and occultist John Dee, and his pursuit of esoteric knowledge to uncover London’s buried secrets. Doctor Dee is a figure who, according to Frances Yates is of “great historical importance [and] disappeared in clouds of nineteenth-century ridicule, from which the scholarship of the twentieth century has begun to rescue him”. The other narrative follows Matthew Palmer, a professional researcher, who inherits a house from his dead father, and eventually finds out that it belonged to the alchemist. As Matthew digs into the house’s past, which is inexplicably tied to its previous owner’s past and practices, he also reveals more about himself and his surroundings. The further he travels back in time, the “immediate world around him” appears to be “more distant” and alien. The two protagonists converge several times. The house in question being the main place of spatial-temporality and metaphysical intersection. At times the novel seems to have an almost eternalist approach, which poses questions regarding the ontological nature and perception of time itself. Often quite reminiscent of Gull’s visions and philosophy presented in From Hell, which (un)coincidentally also takes place in London. As both characters experience two different temporal, but equally real, realities of London, they both realize the existence of a presence which has “always existed in [the] soil, [the] air, [the] stone”. Accompanied by visions, these realization often resemble what some alchemists call a “mystical experience”. Both eventually going back to the esoteric wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus of “to be myself is to be the world, to look into myself is to look into the world”. The concept of the homunculus is also given a different perspective. The idea can be traced back to Paracelsus who outlined the “recipe” for its creation. It is essentially a “little man” that lives inside a glass container or an animal’s womb. However, Ackroyd puts a different spin on it by using it to not only demonstrate the infinite relationship between London and its previous and current inhabitants, but most crucially between John Dee (the historical figure) and the writer/historian – putting the emphasis on the ability of the latter to constantly reinvent the former, as if “he has been born again”.
May 30, 2011
This is the second book I’ve read by Peter Ackroyd, the first being Hawksmoor. The story is set in the 1500’s and is a fictional account of a real historical person, John Dee. John Dee was an academic of the time, learned in the fields of math, astrology, navigation and also having an interest in the supernatural. The story is set in the current time and tells the story of Matthew who has inherited a house from his father that was a home of the famous John Dee. Then the story goes back and forth between the two periods as did Hawksmoor. This however is easier to read because it doesn’t use Middle English. The story centers on the John Dee that was interested in Hermetic philosophy. Into the fictional part of this story, the author has explores sexual activities of these men and discusses time and history. There are some great quotes to be found. Overall, this is easier reading than Hawksmoor but of a similar vein. As a mystery it is slow moving and really never comes to a clear ending.
Why I read it? I read this because it is set in the 1500s. So what did I learn? This book explores some culture of the time. It starts with a play that John Dee is setting up. He used mechanics in such a way that the populace accuse him of black magic. I checked out the author’s book Tudors which is his historical account of the time period, the Renaissance. Entertainment consisted of bear baiting (the book covers this), rich fabrics and garments (the book includes this) and dancing. Queen Elizabeth enjoyed dancing. There are lists of dancing. The time period was extravagant in its appetites.
John Dee was one of the most learned men of the times. He was a college graduate. Had a large library and proposed a public library to Queen Mary which was not taken up. He also was friends with Edward Kelley and pursued scryering (crystal ball gazing). He wrote books but his strong desire to communicate with angels led him to this friendship with Edward Kelley. The book explores that relationship and does take some license in the accuracy but it was a relationship where Kelley may have been deluding Dee and Dee was gullible.
The sexual content is minimal (thankfully) and hits upon some themes of sexual abuse of son by father, rape, and crossdressing homosexual relationships. I do not think this was necessary to the story at all. Except that later in the actual chronological history of Dee's life, Kelley does talk Dee in exchanging wives.
OPENING LINE: I inherited the house from my father.
QUOTES:
“It was prettily devised of Aesop that the fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel and said, what a dust do I raise.”
CLOSING LINE: “Then will London be redeemed, now and for ever, and all those with whom we dwell – living or dead – will become the mystical city universal.
Why I read it? I read this because it is set in the 1500s. So what did I learn? This book explores some culture of the time. It starts with a play that John Dee is setting up. He used mechanics in such a way that the populace accuse him of black magic. I checked out the author’s book Tudors which is his historical account of the time period, the Renaissance. Entertainment consisted of bear baiting (the book covers this), rich fabrics and garments (the book includes this) and dancing. Queen Elizabeth enjoyed dancing. There are lists of dancing. The time period was extravagant in its appetites.
John Dee was one of the most learned men of the times. He was a college graduate. Had a large library and proposed a public library to Queen Mary which was not taken up. He also was friends with Edward Kelley and pursued scryering (crystal ball gazing). He wrote books but his strong desire to communicate with angels led him to this friendship with Edward Kelley. The book explores that relationship and does take some license in the accuracy but it was a relationship where Kelley may have been deluding Dee and Dee was gullible.
The sexual content is minimal (thankfully) and hits upon some themes of sexual abuse of son by father, rape, and crossdressing homosexual relationships. I do not think this was necessary to the story at all. Except that later in the actual chronological history of Dee's life, Kelley does talk Dee in exchanging wives.
OPENING LINE: I inherited the house from my father.
QUOTES:
“It was prettily devised of Aesop that the fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel and said, what a dust do I raise.”
CLOSING LINE: “Then will London be redeemed, now and for ever, and all those with whom we dwell – living or dead – will become the mystical city universal.
March 24, 2018
Çok dağınık bir anlatım, bitirmek için zorluyor insan kendini. Diğer yandan, Londra’ya sokak sokak hakim olması yazarın kıskanılası...
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