ADAM THIRLWELL'S second book is a mixture of ruminations on what makes a novel and whether style can be translated, titbits from authors' lives, and connections between a select crew of writers spread across the globe. Oh, and it's interspersed with drawings, photographs and rounded off with an upside-down translation of an excerpt from Nabokov.

Confused? I am. I sat down to read Miss Herbert enthusiastically. And then I sat down again. And again. And each time the long-winded sentences bogged me down, leaving me wondering whether I was simply not up to the intellectual challenge or whether the book was unnecessarily confusing.

The idea is gimmicky. Taking its name from a governess to the Flaubert family who translated Madame Bovary into English (her translation is now lost), Miss Herbert has three central concerns. First, how the novel has developed over time; secondly, how fundamental a novel's style is relative to its content; and thirdly, whether translation can faithfully preserve the novel in the light of this relationship.

To discuss and illustrate these issues, Thirlwell selects a niche group of writers and their fictional creations, from the well-known (James Joyce and Ulysses's Leopold Bloom) to the less so (Polish author Witold Gombrowicz). He interweaves their stories, spanning several cities and effectively creating a romantically small literary world.

There is a wealth of interesting information in this book. It could be a companion to Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read; a guide to authors' lives and a brief introduction to literary criticism. Had it been edited down, it would have been more likely to sustain the reader's attention. Instead the lengthy word count gives room for the downfalls of the book — which is essentially a non-fiction work, but billed as an “inside-out novel”.

Much of what Thirlwell writes is frustratingly abstract. When discussing Samuel Johnson and the pros and cons of literal versus more freestyle translation, Thirlwell writes: “These then are the two opposing views. And these are not just 18th-century problems; they are for ever. London is universal. It is also, for instance, Buenos Aires.”

Even comprehensible ideas are jazzed up: “Real life does not exist — not abstractly. It exists only when it has been given a particular form, when it has been defined by the technical quirks and physiological constraints of a style.”

The sentences are also overly repetitive (though I suspect this may be on purpose): “To make sure the reader has noticed the novel's reticence. Too much reticence could go unnoticed.”

This might be tolerable, but Thirlwell's slightly precocious voice — signs of which were evident in his debut, Politics — begins to grate. “At this point I need a small digression.” And, on Gombrowicz: “I am not sure what to make of him, this odd writer... I am not sure if these experiments quite worked. And this worries me.”

Thirlwell begins to read like the intellectual equivalent of a precocious American beauty pageant contestant. Perhaps part of the problem — and not Thirlwell's fault — is the way he has been hyped since the publication of Politics in 2003. Becoming a Granta Best British Novelist Under 40 on the basis of one book can have the Zadie Smith effect of not giving a new author the room to turn out imperfect books.

The book is not a failure, but neither is it a compelling read for anyone other than the most determined and knowledge-hungry reader. But it does have some appeal as the “bedside travel book” it is described as in the jacket.

Miss Herbert by Adam Thirlwell
Cape, £25; 592pp

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