Just an update on my progress through Laurie R. King’s Holmes and Russell series. So far, I have made up through books four and five, The Moor, and O Jerusalem. One of the things that really struck me during this read through was how integral the setting seemed to the story. I know that the setting is rarely just a background, a place for the characters to act out the plot, but honestly, for many books, the setting is just that. However, in these two books, I was constantly made aware of the setting.
The Moor takes place primarily in Dartmoor, in Devon. And O Jerusalem takes place in Palestine. As I was reading these books, it struck me how hard it must be for a writer to describe a setting without bogging down the story. Writing about place (good writing about a place) must be a little like drawing, you have to use minimal lines that suggest the setting; you have to rely, somewhat, on your readers to do the rest of the work. When I read, it often seems like I have a little movie running in my head. A few well-chosen sentences can cause my mind’s eye to see whole streets and shops and forests and so on.
Since what really draws me into a book is the plot and the characters, I don’t usually notice the setting unless it’s really important or it’s described very poorly or very well. In these two books I have to say, King did a great job and I felt like I was right there with the characters, freezing my ass off on Dartmoor and sweating in the underground tunnels in Jerusalem.