When the book is too long

Since it was a work day I didn't read much more of House of Saud than I have already. I did locate some reviews.

And, er... I found the whole book. Google hid this in the third page of its results. I swear I wasn't looking for it - why would I; I have the green thing in my possession. But if you want to follow along, dig in.

It may be that it's worth about that much. I find this review to be a fair one. The tome is, indeed, "undigested" - or, for Simpsons viewers, it is just a bunch of stuff that happened. There are themes that run through the narrative - family being important - but the book doesn't structure itself around them. All this makes the book, at times, a chore to read.

House of Saud is one of those manuscripts one finds here and there - like Suliman Bashear's Arabs and Others - which flat aren't finished as of the time of publication. In Holden's case, I get the impression he'd compiled a Silmarillion which could have spawned the real book, or even books, when he had the time and a patient editor. In Johns, Holden's MS ended up with a flustered editor.

What this book's topics (not to say, "subjects") deserve is a book about Ibn Saud, and then another book about the Saudide family.