Alexander L. Belikoff reviewed A Forest of Kings by Linda Schele
Review of 'A Forest of Kings' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I am officially giving up on this book at page 185. While both authors are undisputed authorities in Mayan civilization, this book has all the appeal of a research journal:
- Instead of reasonably coherent and systematic top-down treatise of the Mayan civilization, we get "lumps" of lengthy and excruciatingly boring discussions of some specific detail or event in Mayan history, what evidence there is for it, and how it is supported by the graphics discovered.
- The book is choke-full of very well done drawings of Mayan graphics that survived, but these drawings are barely annotated (the annotations that are present are of such kind an archaeologist would scribe for himself, much less for anyone else) and there is absolutely no attempt to explain it to someone who has not devoted his life to Mayan civilization research. I mean, it is great that you get an annotation like "sacrifice" …
I am officially giving up on this book at page 185. While both authors are undisputed authorities in Mayan civilization, this book has all the appeal of a research journal:
- Instead of reasonably coherent and systematic top-down treatise of the Mayan civilization, we get "lumps" of lengthy and excruciatingly boring discussions of some specific detail or event in Mayan history, what evidence there is for it, and how it is supported by the graphics discovered.
- The book is choke-full of very well done drawings of Mayan graphics that survived, but these drawings are barely annotated (the annotations that are present are of such kind an archaeologist would scribe for himself, much less for anyone else) and there is absolutely no attempt to explain it to someone who has not devoted his life to Mayan civilization research. I mean, it is great that you get an annotation like "sacrifice" pointing to an incomprehensible (to an uninitiated) jumble of lines, but that is as much explanation as you get.
Here's a good analogy from the computer world (I know, geeks here): the book is akin to being handed a grimoire on PostScript language when all you need to do is to print a couple of documents.
To summarize, if you are already well-versed in Mayan history, script, and culture, you would absolutely LOVE this book as it will greatly deepen your knowledge of specific events in Mayan history in a well supported, documented, and illustrated manner. If you are - like me - just want to learn more about Maya, their history, religion, culture, and maybe even get some very basic understanding of the principles of their writing system, this is probably not the book you are looking for.