The House of Doctor Dee
Peter Ackroyd
277 pages
Published in 1993

This, I'm sorry to say, was a disappointment. I quite liked Peter Ackroyd's non fiction book on London, London the Biography and Sandra had recommended another of his novels, Hawksmoor, so I had good hopes for The House of Doctor Dee. Alas, it was not to be. This is a minor novel with the pretentions of being a major work of art, to which it does not live up. It's to me the classical example of the stereotype loved by a certain breed of science fiction fan, the pretentious mainstream literary novel, all surface, no depth and little interesting happening.

Which is a shame, cause so much could have been done with the premise. Matthew Palmer inherits an old house in Clerkenwell from his father, which in due time turns out to be the house in which Doctor Dee, famed Elizabethan alchemist-scientist and rumoured parctisioner of magic, used to live. In alternating chapters, we see the adventures of Doctor Dee and Matthew, revolving around the house they share in space if not in time. Both have to deal with mysterious occurences, which might be caused by some sort of sympathetic magic or might just be coincidences or fraud. they become aware of each other and finally meet up, sort of.

Both of them are not engaging characters. Matthew is a cypher while Doctor Dee is both pompous and naive in the ways of the world and not very sympathetic. Nor is the plot strong enough to have kept my interest and neither is there solance to be found in the writing itself, which is bleak and functional but no more then that. Even with only 277 pages, the story drags itself to its tepid ending.

The underlying philospohy of the book doesn't make things better, shopworn as it is. Dee's and Matthew's endless search for truth is presented as futile and irrelevant and both should learn to simply trust to love. Yuk.

Not recommended. A shame more wasn't done with Doctor Dee, who certainly was interesting enough in real life. Hopefully Terry Pratchett will manage better, as he used the good doctor in his Science of Discworld II.