Rating: 3/5
Young Rudolf Rassendyll lived a quiet, somewhat boring life until he took heed of his sister-in-law Rose’s advice and journeyed to the (made up) country of Ruritania, looking for some kind of action. While lounging, tired and in want of food, in a garden near the town of Zenda, two of the country’s king’s attendants, Fritz von Tarlenheim and Colonel Sapt, find him there and are astonished by the shocking resemblance that Rudolf bears to the true king, also (and a little confusingly!) called Rudolf. By chance, the King was taking a stroll in the garden too, and when he saw Rudolf and his puzzled attendants, exclaimed that he and Rassendyll looked so amazingly similar that they must be distant cousins. Pleased with his discovery, the King invited the protagonist to dine with him and his assistants. Rassendyll accepted, and perhaps it was better that he did so, because no sooner had the King taken a sip from a bottle of “wine” which his younger brother had sent him, than he fell to the ground in a senseless sleep.
But what could Sapt and Fritz do? The King’s coronation was set for tomorrow! And then an idea came to their minds: perhaps they could use Rassendyll as a kind of substitute, just for one day! Extremely reluctantly (for anyone would be extremely reluctant when offered such a proposal), the young man took the ring from the King’s finger and the garments which he wore about him, and placed them on. Saving the “lack of beard”, Colonel Sapt and von Tarlenheim exclaimed that they could barely see the difference.
But would the true Rudolf V be back on the throne by the day after tomorrow? Or would an unexpected adventure take place?
I thought that it was very interesting how Ruritania didn’t need a whole new world to fit into; it just slotted in between Poland and Germany. I also thought that the mixed personalities of all the different characters really created a more realistic world: in some books, the characters’ temperaments are not very interesting and extremely similar. My favourite character was Rassendyll. His personality was the most developed: he was very funny, quite sarcastic, and definitely not the typical English gentleman of his day and age!
I thought that some parts of this book were really great, but most were just a bit boring. Sometimes there would be pages and pages without any kind of paragraph break or any sort of useful information going on in them.