Complex sentence: Landon's book consists of vignettes of life at the Siamese court, interspersed with descriptions of historical events and unconnected with each other, except that the King creates most of the difficulties in the episodes, and Anna tries to resolve them.
Split into simpler sentences: Landon's book consists of episodes, showing vignettes of life at the Siamese court, interspersed with with descriptions of historical events. The episodes in the book are unconnected, except that the King creates most of the difficulties featured in the vignettes, and Anna tries to resolve them.