Churchill's Secret Weapons: The Story of Hobart's Funnies Book

I'm a diachronic linguist. I love words and history. And the manner in which someone communicates an idea is important.

I picked up this book under the title of "Arcadia". My background is in Greek mythology, and anything Arcadian is an intense passion for me, having done extensive research on its origins and influences throughout history (so much so that I named my firstborn daughter Arcadia!) Sadly to say, this book's explanations of Arcadian ideals are sadly misrepresented in several examples. According to the description of the book, it's supposed to be the story of the Pembrokes' quest for an Arcadian society. However, in his writing, Nicolson seems to attempt to define (and redefine) Arcadian ideals on almost every page (especially at the beginning), and his language suggests that this is how the Arcadian ideal is universally perceived. It isn't; a terrible inaccuracy. It may be how the Pembroke's viewed Arcadia, but honestly, in his writing, he needs to explicitly weave that in. Forgive me for thinking a book entitled "Arcadia" should be accurate to its namesake.

Secondly, the writing style is just terrible. It reads like a grad student's thesis...one who is uncertain of his own writing skills and follows a very rigid, high-school-like model of a paper. Introduction. Pose a question. Discuss said question. Summarize. Conclude. His metaphors, similes, and adjectives are over-the-top. (My personal favorite is in a description of the fish in the Ebble River: "... and if you wade out barefoot into the shockingly cold water of the river, the small wild brown trout flicker away in front of you, running from your Gulliver-in-Lilliput intrusion.")

Seriously?!?

And finally, the book doesn't know what it wants to be. It doesn't gel. It's sort of a book about...a little of everything during this time period? I didn't know at the time I bought it that it had been published under different titles at least twice previously. Once as "Quarrel with the King", again as "Earls of Paradise", and finally as "Arcadia". There's a lot of information in this book, but it barely scratches the surface of each of these subjects.

So in short, whether you're wanting to read about Arcadia or the Pembrokes... choose another book. There are better ones out there.