SOURCE: MacFarlane, Robert. “Solid but Sublime.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5042 (19 November 1999): 22.

In the following review, MacFarlane discusses the structure and language of Carson's Fishing for Amber.

Judging a book by its cover is generally agreed to be bad behaviour. But what about by its bibliography? Fishing for Amber, which is coyly subtitled A long story, carries a source list as well stocked as a second-hand bookshop. Running a finger along the titles, one discovers just what went to make up this odd and engaging volume. There are encyclopaedias, dictionaries, miscellanies, hagiologies, a shelfful of books on Vermeer and Dutch Golden Age painting, herbals, handbooks, histories of Esperanto, tobacco, submarines and microscopes, and much more besides, including a couple of works by Borges.

What sort of a book could possibly amalgamate so much disparate information? There are two answers: one short, one long. The short answer is A long...