Sharpe’s Tiger

Title: Sharpe’s Tiger [amazon]
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (August 1, 1999)
Pages: 400
Book Number: 15

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

After being forced to ignore this book for a little bit due to school obligations, I was able to wrap it up yesterday. It was the first historical fiction novel I’d ever read, and I was curious to see whether I ended up loving it or hating it. All in all, I loved it. The plot, about the British army besieging the city of Seringapatam and Richard Sharpe’s subsequent actions during that siege, was enjoyable, riveting even. The book moved like a good war movie, and many of the battle scenes were excellently done. I could clearly see in my mind the siege weapons battering down the western wall of the city, and the following assault on the breach. I ended up really enjoying Sharpe’s character, and I know I’ll be continuing with the Sharpe series. (If you click that link, you’ll also get to see that Sean Bean, of Boromir fame, plays Richard Sharpe in the television series.)

There were a few things that bugged me about the book, but nothing that ruined the reading experience. I already wrote about the overuse of “sir”, at least in the first half of the book. There were other slightly irritating bits of writing throughout it. One of the things that really struck me was that Cornwell tried really hard (too hard, in my opinion) to find replacement words for “said” in sections of dialogue. Growled (from the stereotypical Scottish character), opined, added, remarked, etc. were sprinkled throughout the text. Using these occasionally is fine, but such verbs were used constantly in the dialogue, and instead of adding to it, they detracted from it. Another thing that I noticed was that Cornwell was incapable of mentioning smoke of any kind without using the modifier “boiling.” A minor thing for sure, but it did keep popping out at me, pulling me out of the story.

Despite the few writing quirks that Cornwell has which bugged me, it was a good book. The story was great and kept me interested, barring the bits already mentioned. The explosion of the mine between the inner and outer walls was spectacular, and I could easily see the confusion that it brought on. The only other downfall of the book that I can think of is that Sergeant Hakeswill didn’t end up being tiger food. I hope that in one of the future books, Sharpe offs that sneaky bastard for good.