Review of Dunnett’s The Ringed Castle

The Ringed Castle

Dorothy Dunnett

New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2019, second edition [originally 1971]

ISBN: 978-0-525-56528-4

631 pp.

It is the 1550s and the Empire and France are at daggers drawn. The Vatican is in an uproar as rival factions plot to get their person into the sacred hat and, in England, Queen Mary has restored Catholicism and is happily burning heretics while praying that her marriage to mostly absent husband Philip of Spain will bring about a happy issue (meanwhile, in distant China, the Daoist Emperor is setting the scene for Liu Heping’s excellent 1566 novels, reviewed elsewhere on this site). Scotland, with an infant queen and a still questionable alliance with France, waits to see how events will turn out and, therefore, learn which way to jump. To the east, among the Turks and the crusading knights on Malta, our hero Francis Lymond has brought about the end of his arch-enemy and rescued the child he spent a year searching for and has decided to accompany the mistress of the dread Dragut Rais, who is also his own mistress, to snowy Russia. He is accompanied by the members of his mercenary group and his intention is to modernize Russia by buttering up the Tsar, Ivan IV, who will come later to be known as Ivan the Terrible, and to introduce modern methods of warfare, contemporary weapons and other materials and the ideology of nationalism (this last is not stated but is an inevitable part of the subtext of European expansionism, colonization and the spread of extractive capitalism that Lymond might be considered to represent in this book).

Lymond, of course, learns to speak Russian perfectly, idiomatically, along with his many other languages and skills. He rises through the ranks, seeing off the tenacious Boyars and General Frost to become supreme chief of the military forces. He deals with Cossacks, fights the Tartars, travels to and interacts with the indigenous people of the far north and east and hunts with a golden eagle. There is intrigue and violence and oases of luxury and opulence away from the miseries of the general population. It is relentlessly cold. I sometimes think, when reading Russian literature or books about Russia that it is only the intense burning passions and aspirations within the breasts of the protagonists that keeps them from freezing to death, at least in the pre-modern era.

Having achieved his position, Lymond must sustain it by demonstrating not just his superiority to his rival like an alpha male wolf but by access to resources which the opposition cannot access. In this case, this means opening up trade with the Muscovy Company, which represents the British crown in the same way that the East India Company did in that other region. The Company sees profits ahead and that is all that matters. The Tsar sees an alternative to the Baltic merchants, whose rulers he is likely to upset a great deal as and when he attempts to retake the lands to the west which European powers have seized at pike and swordpoint (Dunnett has pikemen inside a modest conference room at one point but Homer nodded). Many people across the continent would think it a blessing were Russia to go to war with the Muslim Turks but Lymond realizes how disastrous that would be and has set his mind against it. Causes for diplomacy and statecraft are over-determined.

Back in England and Philippa Somerville, whom Lymond married to save her virtue and reputation while they were both in a Turkish brothel (I would really recommend starting with the first book of the series, otherwise this is likely to be overwhelmingly confusing) but agrees to divorce, owing to lack of consummation, is actively trying to discover Lymond’s origin, his real parents and why the villainous Lennoxes seems to hate him so much. The action goes back and froth between Britain and Russia and a full supporting cast of characters provide different perspectives on what is going on and what it all means while pursuing their own objectives and working through their own sub-plots.

What makes Dunnett’s work stand out as works of historical fiction is the application of her research and historical knowledge into the creation of intellectual hinterlands for so many of the characters. These are people who read books and attend musical performances and have conversations with others who can both educate and entertain them. Lymond is partial to a lengthy quotation in Italian or Latin or some other tongue as a means of guiding a discussion the way he wants to go or to deflect from saying something he does not want to say – yet he eventually meets his match in Philippa, who is described so often as owlish that it can scarcely be a throwaway characterization. In common with some of the other heroines of the series (but not the nasty Lennox or the historical figures), Dunnett gives the impression of writing a version of herself into the fiction in an idealized way – I could say the same thing about the figure of Lymond too, of course. In any case, this use of the world of the intellect can present a barrier to understanding. There are plenty of occasions when it suddenly becomes unclear who is saying what and why. Some readers will find it off-putting, while others might pause and apply to Uncle Google for some advice. The book itself was originally published in 1971 when neither Aunt nor Uncle Google were imaginable and when, as far as I recall from the age of seven, most people knew relatively little about anywhere beyond their immediate vicinity and holiday destination and Russia was behind the iron curtain and part of a Soviet Union that appeared to be more powerful than perhaps it really was. France and the USA seemed to be distant and exotic lands – I had a teacher in primary school who was American but I cannot remember anybody else who was. There was Hughie Green on the television but, and I mean this most sincerely, that did not really count.

The characters and locations are mysterious and enthralling. Lymond is mostly impenetrable until such time as he becomes completely transparent. The action can become a little operatic and camp but enjoy that as part of the charm. It is all a lot of fun.

John Walsh, Krirk University, March 2023

Review of Liu Heping’s The Imperial Governor

The Imperial Governor

Liu Heping

London: Sinoist Books, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-910760-61-1

381 pp.

Translated by Wen Huang

China’s bureaucratic system has become legendary. It combines extensive series of laws expected to cover every situation with considerable amounts of latitude given to the individual official to determine how to resolve situations which the laws do not cover. That the officials tended to be paid less than they think they should be – especially given societal expectations as to how they and their household members should be able to dress, what dinners they should provide and gifts they should hand out provided a constant temptation to corruption. As the leading scholar of Thai studies Craig Reynolds put it once at a conference I attended, speaking about a similar situation in Thai society, this means the best way to understand what is going on is to study the risk-taking behaviour concerned.

So it is in The Imperial Governor, the second and most excellent book in Liu Heping’s 1566 series. China is on the brink of ruin – the Mongols raid at will and Japanese pirates treat the coastline as a buffet. Natural disasters plague the people and cast doubt on whether the emperor still maintains the mandate of heaven. The emperor himself, Jiajing, China’s only Daoist ruler, now spends his time meditating and seeking esoteric knowledge and his absence from the heart of the administration has created a vacuum which court eunuchs and his chief son’s faction seek to exert their influence. That exercise of influence will ultimately lead to the gathering of resources for personal gain but it is necessary to act through the layers of bureaucracy to achieve those goals. Further, care must be taken to ensure that the ship of state does not run aground because then everyone playing the game will lose – in this case, it is about getting money and manpower to General Qi, who has been charged with holding off the pirates. If he is not able to do so, the people are likely to rise up and this presents the opportunity for dynastic change.

The shadow of events from the first book continues to weigh heavily over events in the present. A plan had been hatched to raise tax revenues by persuading farmers in Zhejiang province to give up rice farming and switch to growing mulberry trees instead. The state has signed contracts with western powers to supply a great deal of silk and it needs all the silkworms it can get. Consequently, the state guarantees that it will buy all the products the farmers can manage and they can use the money to buy the rice that they used to grow. The farmers, meanwhile, are concerned that in an age in which rice shortages have become common, they cannot eat money. The fortuitous (for those promoting the scheme) bursting of river banks encouraged the change as existing livelihoods were destroyed. From this starting point, the principal characters seek to improve their situations. Even the virtuous people – and we focus in this case on the historical figure of the magistrate Hai Rui – cannot be certain of the results of their actions because who knows who might be reading their reports to Beijing and who might not want the truth to be revealed.

Hai Rui becomes increasingly prominent in the story as he builds up his case against suspect local officials. Yet even as he works tirelessly in his attempts to bring justice, he is compromised in his own home. He lives with his devoted wife and his mother. Filial piety means he must spend as much time as possible tending the latter and regularly spends the nights watching over her even as she chides him for not producing a son to carry on the family name. Faced with competing demands, Hai Rui is doomed to failing one or the other (or both) of the women to whom he is bound by a Confucian relationship. This is all very good writing and makes for telling parallels with the main plot. However, there are some issues with the editing. Taels become teals throughout; there are other mistakes. Translator Wen Huang seems to have done well in providing a text that is legible and easy to read, even becoming quite thrilling as the climax approaches. However, the author gives us very few descriptions of the characters and they all seem to speak in the same timbre and manner. As a result, I spent quite a long time referring to the essential but uncomplete list of principal characters at the beginning of the book trying to work out who was who and what were their relationships with each other.

This novel has been published by Sinoist Books in London, which declares its intent to provide works by Chinese authors in translation which would otherwise be beyond the reach of people like me who would like to read them but do not have the language skills. I am certainly delighted with this series and once I have had chance to read all four of them, I will be happy to explore other parts of the catalogue.

John Walsh, Krirk University, March 2023

Review of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles: A Novel

Madeline Miller

London: Ecco Books, 2012

ISBN: 9780062060624

380 pp.

It is appropriate, I think, that there comes a point halfway through this excellent retelling of the legend of Achilles that the doom that had appeared to be somewhere on the landscape was suddenly looming urgently into sight and cannot be avoided. Death is sneaking around the corner with a leering rictus grin.

I am going to assume in writing this review that readers will already be aware of the events of the story and so will not concern myself with spoilers – Homer’s epic has been in the public domain for more than 2,700 years, after all. The book follows the known path of the story quite closely. The narrative centres on Patroclus and the nature of his loving relationship with the aristos achaion – the best of the Greeks. His family relationships are problematic – his mother has a learning disability and does not know him, while his father is happy to send him away after a tragic misfortune. As a minor prince, Patroclus comes across Achilles as a result of the diplomacy in which the Greeks conduct their affairs. As a would-be suitor to Helen, albeit as a distant also-ran, he vows to protect this most beautiful woman of the world from any assault on her person or her honour. It is this bond that forces him to join the war in Troy which he and Achilles would gladly have avoided. They had been sent to the friendly centaur Chiron (most centaurs are a little grumpy at best) for a kind of Hellenic finishing school. As the relationship between the young men develops, the main problem that Patroclus faces is with his mother-in-law, the nymph Thetis. She makes it clear that she considers Patroclus to be unworthy of her son and would like him to go elsewhere. She also thinks that Achilles would be better off listening to her a bit more often and their relationship is complex – it is mostly enacted during meetings between the two of them on the seashore or under the sea and, since Patroclus is not privy to these meetings, neither are we.

There are a few moments which are a little jarring, which is a result of following the original. First, although we are aware that Achilles is a superior athlete and likely to make a formidable warrior, the revelation that he is the greatest of all time comes as something of a surprise. Then there is the whole Achilles hiding as a dancing girl episode, which seems to come from another story entirely. Finally, there is the refusal to fight (loitering within tent) – yes, we all know it is going to happen and what his rationale is but even so. It is like watching King Lear asking his daughters which one loves him most and then Cordelia’s response – come on, guys, have you really thought this through? How about taking a moment to chill and then we go again? But no, he says what he says and so they all have to die.

The book is delightful on many levels – the characterization is deft without being very detailed, which is also true of the original. Perhaps the most sympathetically drawn is Briseis, who is pretty much the only human woman to have a speaking tole (another is Penthesilea and we know what is going to happen to her) – apart, that is, from the tragic princess Deidamia, one of whose dancing girls Achille had posed at being. There is enough in the language to evoke the feeling of being part of an epic without being overly poetic or obscure. The supernatural elements are present in the work on the basis that this is the way that the world is. We even learn something of what they eat (which I am always interested in finding out) and what their intellectual hinterland might hold by way of music and the shared telling of stories. It is the book that has best evoked ancient Greece for me since I read Mary Renault, many years ago (plus her own Circe, which is reviewed elsewhere on this site). I wonder what else she has written?

John Walsh, Krirk University, August 2022

Review of Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies

Bring up the Bodies

Hilary Mantel

London: Fourth Estate, 2013

ISBN: 9-780007-315109

485 pp.

Armed with great discretionary power and able to act as his own bank, drawing in and doling out favours and influence as well as money to further his own ends but threatened every day by catastrophe if the King should one day wake up in a bad mood, Thomas Cromwell lives a life of risk management. In common with all of Henry’s court, he is more than aware of the constant struggle for power and influence taking place all around him and of the precariousness of his position if he should make one false step too many. Not only his own ruin, of course but that of his whole family and household and, indeed, although this he would not have known at the time, his reputation would have been blackened forever. After all, who these days speaks of the Boleyn family without awareness of the scandal that has overshadowed what any other them might have achieved? Cromwell’s progress, like the progress of the country, may be likened to these lines of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) (who is a constant presence in this book, despite appearing in person only very briefly): “May galley charged with forgetfulness/Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass/’Tween rock and rock; and eke mine enemy, alas,/That is my lord, steereth with cruelness.”

The first book, Wolf Hall, saw Henry pass from Katherine of Aragon to Anne Boleyn; this book introduces Jane Seymour as the future third wife whose emergence betokens the inevitable demise of Anne. Yet Katherine persists into this novel, refusing to do the convenient thing and just die but to continue to profess her love for the King and of her Catholic faith. She remains popular throughout an increasingly divided land so Henry cannot simply despatch someone to put up a pillow across her face. Instead, we have to wait for her to die. And wait. I have read only a few books about the Tudors and watched a few television series and yet I feel I have been waiting for Katherine to die for half of my life. Henry had put her aside on the basis that she had once been betrothed to his older brother Arthur (would he have been crowned Arthur I or Arthur II?) and, in due course, he needs to find another pretext to put aside Anne. Thomas, of course, leads the investigation and then the prosecution. His tactics, like George Smiley, are simply to talk to people and wait for them to give themselves away. Unlike George Smiley, he begins his task knowing exactly what he is to achieve and not averse to bringing to bear any means necessary to achieve it – the threat of torture is enough for most, faced with their judge and jury, the accused cannot but help recalling some of the risks they took – a bold compliment here, the acceptance of a gift there as they sought to integrate themselves in Anne’s court in a parallel way to Thomas’ own integration into Henry’s court. There can be few readers who do not know how all of this is going to end.

As I mentioned, the Kingdom is divided and, as things stood then, no faith was openly proscribed although we know how that is going to change under Mary and Elizabeth. Prominent people can indicate their allegiance to one side or another as long as they do not go too far- even then, they are offering hostages to fortune. In the first book, Mary Boleyn, once the King’s mistress but now required to quit the public world, offers to marry Cromwell, thereby making him brother-in-law of the king but aligning himself rather too closely to the fortunes of that family. He declines, judiciously. He gets away with it all until the end of this extraordinary book but presumably he knows there is only one more volume to go. In the meantime, he may or may not have taken revenge on those who once tormented his patron Wolsey and he can enjoy a better dinner than he had done in his earlier years, when he was learning about risk management from a variety of positions of weakness. He understands the poetry and the art and culture that is around him and he does not tell us everything he knows, as a good narrator should and he shows us the world in which he lives. This evocation is exquisite and hlps make this such a good book.

John Walsh, Krirk University, May 2021

Review of Mosse’s The Burning Chambers

The Burning Chambers

Kate Mosse

London: Pan Books, 2019

ISBN: 9781509806850

XVIII + 586 pp.

There is not a great deal of literature – or at least I am not aware of a great deal of literature – dealing with the French Wars of religion (1562-98), in English anyway. It was a confusing time, with complex and contradictory motivations and changes in fortunes. Many people involved themselves with burning and terrifying other people for apparently trivial differences in religious belief. We British have burned our fair share of other people for their beliefs but then we exported most of the remaining religious maniacs to the USA and the country has rather drifted into a state of post-religion with which most people seem reasonably content. It is reasonable to go to the church (or the equivalent) for the occasional wedding or funeral and maybe some will go at Christmas or Easter but any more than that seems unBritish. We would quite like God to leave us alone and so we rather leave Him alone, so that He gets the message. There are people with stronger beliefs but they are often migrants and, apart from the times when ill-intentioned people try to stir up hatred and suspicion of migrants, they are expected more or less quickly to forget religion and watch the telly instead. That is, after all, pretty much what has happened to the Huguenots, who pay such a prominent part in Kate Mosse’s novel, which is the first in a series that will centre on this period of warfare. She has intended, based on this initial episode, to provide a message of toleration and harmony in a world in which religious violence was fed by base emotions and, even, by the initial period of the capitalist system.

We are taken to Carcassonne, in southern France today but which is a city that has had many owners, together with some surrounding areas. Our heroine, Minou Joubert, lives with her family and household in her father’s bookshop. It is the very beginning of the period of warfare and so it is still possible for some people at least to possess books appealing to both of the main sides – the Catholics and the Huguenot Protestants. That is not likely to last long and it does not need any historical knowledge to be aware of that. One of the more dispiriting aspects of religion inspired conflict in that it more or less immediately escalates into involving civilians as well as the military and the possibility of thought crimes brings torturers and other priests out of the woodwork. Like the slightly later 30 Years’ War, which is also only lightly explored in fiction in English, this quickly leads to scorched earth policies in which a wasteland replaces what once was civilisation and everyone loses.

In any case, Minou and her family are placed in harm’s way by fortune and malign people and this leads to misery and death for people who could have done without that. There is a mysterious secret, the resolution of which seems destined to be the endpoint of the series of novels, no matter how many of them there eventually will be. The book is an entertaining romp and our heroine is a spirited young woman who becomes interested in a relationship with Huguenot Piet despite coming from a Catholic family. There are as many twists and turns as anyone might wish for and bad things happen to good people and vice versa but not always permanently. I did not for one moment believe that this was how life was like four hundred odd years ago nor that the characters were residents of that time. They are small-town people from the present with little intellectual hinterland transported to the past and expected to make the most of it. However, my opinion seems to be in the minority and Mosse is a high-selling author with numerous loyal fans so good luck to her.

John Walsh, Krirk University, April 2021

Review of Kostova’s The Shadow Land

The Shadow Land

Elizabeth Kostova

New York, NY: Ballnatine Books, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-345-52787-5

487 pp.

A young American woman travels to Bulgaria, where she has a familial connection, with a view to teaching English in a private school and getting to know the capital city, Sofia. She also has some rather vague plans of looking around the countryside and overcoming the personal tragedy that partly inspired her desire to move overseas. However, she has scarcely stepped off the plane when she is, quite literally, handed the plot device that will cause her to be embroiled in an adventure that will, eventually, link the present-day Bulgaria, with its vulgar consumerism resulting from the spread of globalisation with the depressing history of the post-war past, when the spawning of Soviet-style Communism closed down so many hopes, dreams and lives. As a result, she is taken on a series of journeys in both space and time as she learns about the country in which she has arrived and the past histories of the characters with whom she has been brought into contact.

I bought this book, on what was pretty much my last family visit to Taiwan – although I would certainly be happy to have another chance to go again at some time in the future – because I had previously read Kostova’s The Historian, which was another lengthy book featuring the uncovering of the secrets of the past through documentary analysis and an eventual encounter with Dracula himself. That was a lot of fun and I had hoped for another such romp here. The Shadow Land is not so successful, at least insofar as I remember the previous book over the course of a number of years. That the principal characters are not terribly interesting or, indeed, believable is not such a big deal in my opinion – after all, I am perfectly happy to read books about aliens, supernatural creatures and people more noted for their skills with magic or armed combat and so I am just fully prepared just to follow the action. What is the problem, really, is the sense that the main plot (and there are not really any engaging subplots) involves Alexandra and her companion Bobby moving from location to location where the newly-encountered characters will deliver the new information they have to offer as if they were in a video game. Then it is the case that our duo then move on to the next location, which is generally quite well flagged, before encountering the arrival of another package of information or plot development. Along the way, Bobby drives his taxi and then some other cars up and down mountains and to and from cafes and houses where there is scenery to look at and food to eat, although without it ever appearing that our principals have actually interacted with the scenery or eaten the food, which has appearance but no taste. I could well believe that the author had visited Bulgaria for the first time but it feels like she spent the time on a coach trip or guided tour which ended every night with a return to the international hotel which has no place in the narrative. Am I being too harsh? After all, I read this book at the end of my stay in Vietnam when it was quite difficult, especially during a period of partial lockdown, to complete both the exit necessities and the only requirements to Thailand, from where I write this doing my quarantine prior to integration, it is to be hoped, into decent human society. Well, it is possible – this was, after all, easy enough to read and the story is, nevertheless, quite compelling and not without human interest, pathos, melancholy and so forth.

Overall, this is a pleasant enough story with a hinterland of misery and gloom – the eponymous Shadow Land – which might educate some readers as well as entertain them. I note that the author has established an institution for creative writing and that seems quite suitable, since this is creative writing rather than literature.

John Walsh, February 2021

Review of Mantel’s Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

London: Harper Collins, 2009

ISBN: 9-780008-126445

653 pp.

It is a measure of Hilary Mantel’s success that Thomas Cromwell has become almost as well-known a historical figure as his master, Henry VIII and has far outstripped his contemporaneous competitors such as Sir Thomas More or Thomas Cranmer (this was a time when pretty much every family had  Thomas – Queen Margaret summed it up: “I had an Edward, ‘till a Richard killed him; I had a Harry, till a Richard killed him; Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him” and so on). Indeed, some people may even be able to distinguish between Thomas and Oliver, unlike the tradition of my friend Mick who approached his English literature finals not appreciating that Ben and Samuel Jo(h)nson were separate people. As a hero for the contemporary age, Mantel’s Cromwell is learned but wears it lightly and religious but does not bother other people with it – although he is obliged to imprison and put to death those God botherers of the wrong sort who do make a fuss. More than that, he is supremely competent in management, both people management and capital management. Forced to leave home at an early age to avoid his abusive father, Tomas senior (no, it was Walter), Thomas uses his time to learn the languages, the manners and the business practices of the continent and then bring those to bear on cold, windy and backwards England (it was before the union, of course). He quickly rises to become an aide to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, then the greatest man in the kingdom outside the royal family. Subsequently, he is obliged to navigate the fall of that great man and moves to the office of Henry himself. There, he is required to wrestle with the great issue of the day: how to move the Kingdom from having a queen with no son and only a little-regarded daughter (Katherine of Aragon) to a Kingdom with a queen able to give birth to a son, with the king himself favouring a certain Anne Boleyn for this position. However, as a Catholic nation, divorce is not permitted, although it is possible that the earlier marriage may be annulled, if it can be proven that it never really was and never really should have taken place at all. Can our hero win the day? Of course, this is one of the principal issues of the historical novel, which is that we know full well what is going to happen and have been brought up with the rhyme divorced-beheaded-died-divorced-beheaded-survived to summarise the fates of the six wives. We also know, as Thomas sits in the Tower (like George Smiley waiting for the accused to incriminate herself or himself), that he too will have the chance to swap seats when fortunes change, not least because of the betrayal of Anne’s royal body and her painful son-free destiny. It is necessary, therefore, to do more than just to tell a story that is so well-known.

It is in this additional detail that Mantel triumphs, with a wide and historically accurate cast of characters re-enacting the past as they actually did, with the benefit of understanding what they are doing and why. The characters have a hinterland that may not always be revealed but clearly inform what they are doing. Cromwell’s own hinterland is allowed slowly to infuse the text, although Mantel is no Dorothy Dunnett who would have treated us to the past in its own voice and the characters defining themselves through the poetry, song and verse of the day. However, Dorothy Dunnett did not win the Booker Prize for the first two books of her trilogy and also become the bookies’ favourite to make it three out of three later this year.

So the merited success of Wolf Hall and its successors (I acknowledge that I should probably have read this book some years ago) means that is does not really matter what I think about them or what I or anyone else might write. That this is a great work of art goes without saying and Cromwell has taken his place as one of the most well-known characters in modern literature. It reads like a thriller, so sure is the writing and so compelling is the story, whether we already know it or not.

John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam, April 2020

Review of Diana Gabaldon’s Voyager

Voyager

Diana Gabaldon

New York, NY: Bantam Books, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-101-96612-9

900 pp

Voyager is the third of Diana Gabaldon’s extensive Outlander series, which began with Heroine Claire Randall somehow managing to travel in time through the mediation of ancient standing stones and unknown magical effects more than two centuries into the past. There she finds she is able to survive as a form of wise woman using the nursing skills she practiced during the Second World War (she has subsequently qualified as a surgeon back in her own time) and a useful knowledge of herbs and natural healing. She also meets and marries Jamie Fraser, who becomes the love of her life and whose feelings are fully reciprocated. However, this was an age of oppression of the Highlands by the English, culminating in the bloody massacre of Culloden. As a result, Jamie has become an outlaw and has spent years in prison and other forms of ill-treatment. This book opens as Claire searches for evidence of whether Jamie might have survived Culloden and, if so, whether she might then return to him, leaving behind her now adult daughter Brianna, who is the child of Jamie.

Gabaldon’s style is combination of historical and romance fiction, with plenty of time devoted to Claire and Jamie exploring each other’s minds and bodies. The tone becomes quite playful at times, although the darkness of sudden tragedy such as dismemberment or death is never far away. The action in this episode broadens out in both time and space as twenty years have passed between meetings and Jamie has had numerous adventures in the meantime, as might be expected. The network of relationships changes and the sudden appearance and disappearance of Calire are enough to try the patience of some. The plot calls for trips to the Caribbean and the colonies in America and these are conveyed with a bright and vivid prose that contrasts nicely with the gloom and misery that has embraced Scotland and the dullness of age and contradictions that now characterise Europe as a whole. Given the severity of the situation in Scotland that has been left behind, the action overseas almosr descends to broad comedy slapstick, which is only partly justified by the overseas adventure nature of the text. The introduction of voodoo-like elements heightens this feeling and pushes the sries further into fantastic fiction rather than the rational historical approach (readers who believe in the reality of voodoo might have other opinions).

The voodoo issue also raises the spectre of ethnic stereotyping, which was forced upon the reader’s awareness through the needless appearance of a Chinese character (who will perhaps play an important role in the future). I was not entirely comfortable that the portrayal of this character meets the standards of contemporary fiction but perhaps I am too sensitive.

The test is generally light and fast-moving and the book is easy and pleasurable to read on the whole. Having read three of these books, with the sense that the story is not going to wrap up in a conclusion any time soon and their length now reaching 900 pages a pop, I am wondering whether I really need to read any more of them, given the limited amount of time I am able to devote to reading for pleasure. I would not rule it out but there are many more that are already lined up on the shelves and giving me the gimlet eye that I should get to first.

Review of The Archer’s Tale by Bernard Cornwell

The Archer’s Tale

Bernard Cornwell

London: Harper Collins, 2005

ISBN: 10-0-06-093576-6

374 pp

In this enjoyable romp through the Hundred Years’ War, we follow the adventures of the sponymous Thomas of Hookton, who travels through France with the English army aiming to make a fortune at the expense of the unfortunate local people. Thomas has the additional goal of seeking revenge against the unknown French raiders who destroyed his home village and, also, there are some unfinished issues relating to his heritage – his father was a priest of unknown provenance and, as readers, we expect there will be gradually revealed through the course of his novel and, since the front cover presents this as the first book of the Grail Quest series, over the course of other books as well (I am going to guess it will be three altogether).

Along the way, Thomas has various adventures and the strumpet fate pushes him down and pulls him back up again. Cornwell is a veteran of the historical genre and readers may be familiar with others of his works (e.g. the Sharpe series and The Last Kingdom) which have found their way into being adapted for the screen. The characters are vivid and deployed deftly so that the villains appear when needed and the heroes have to suffer enough for us to bond with them. The language and style do not really compromise with the needs for contemporary readers to be able to understand the text without thinking much about it and there is nothing to suggest the depth of consciousness that the medieval mind might enjoy and which has been portrayed so brilliantly by Dorothy Dunnett, among others. However, as the concluding historical note observes, nearly all of the principal incidents described did in fact happen in pretty much the way that was described. These were, indeed, grim events and although the nitty-gritty of the rape and pillage is kept off the page, it is certainly there in the background.

The main theme of the book is the role of the archer, specifically the English archer – there are some Welsh archers (Pat, for example) but they have the grace to wait in the background. It seems to have been true that archers were a particularly dangerous force on the battlefield but, assuming we are not guilty of exaggerating their importance, why did other countries not seek to replicate them? Cornwell himself has no answer other than that it must have been a very difficult skill to acquire and to require very time-consuming practice and people from other countries were not up for it. There have been archery specialists in Southern Britain since Neolithic times and perhaps the yew wood was particularly helpful. Other places specialised in other forms of warfare and there are various geographic, cultural and social issues that interact with each other to produce specific forms of military practice. For example, in this book we have the well-known Genoese crossbowmen, while the French are of course busy with the flower of their chivalry. Meanwhile, I remember going to school every day past St. Mary’s Butts in Reading, at which men came to practice archery under the orders of King Edmund IV (who is featured in this book, although for some reason his vital Reading links are overlooked). It is one of the few things for which Reading is known, together with Queen Victoria’s enmity, the statue of the lion which would fall over in real life and Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment (now that the biscuit factory has closed down).

As mentioned previously, this is an enjoyable romp through history – we end up at the Battle of Crecy (spoiler alert, we English won) and there is plenty more of the story to come. There is also the Holy Grail to be found and, one suspects, some heresy and persecution to come. Fun.

Review of Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

Dragonfly in Amber
Diana Gabaldon

Dragonfly in Amber is the second in Diana Gabaldon’s popular Outlander series and I will be spoiling the first book in this review.

The central protagonist is the Englishwoman Claire Beauchamp or Fraser whom we saw in the first book disappearing through standing stones two hundred years in the past to the time just before the Jacobite rising of 1745 and manage to survive all kinds of perils and adventures, largely thanks to the interventions of her husband Jamie Fraser. This does not mean that Claire herself is a shrinking violet but rather that there were problems and situations that might occur within pre-modern Scotland that are beyond the ability of a woman to manage, mainly as a result of the overwhelming force used in the violence that was more common in daily life. As a nurse with extensive frontline experience during WWII (the first book opens just after the conclusion of the war in 1945), Claire is neither squeamish nor disempowered in the face of unanticipated events but she lives in a world in which women have influence women have influence and the ability to change the world around them mostly from erotic power and family position, albeit there are some forms of work which can lend social cachet sufficient to discourage causal mistreatment. Nevertheless, this is something of an existentialist approach to historical fiction in that it suggests that characters might indeed have, should they be able to imagine such a thing and then to act on it, the ability to affect the world as subject rather than object of the arrow of time. This, of course, is central to the concept of time travel fiction: if there is not an obvious and immediate need to change the past, then one can soon be invented by the author. In this case, there is no need for invention since Claire, whose first and future husband, so to speak, was or will be a historian and, by virtue of sharing his research activities with her, she is well aware of the forthcoming disaster for the Scottish people that the Battle of Culloden represents. Can the two manage this while also ensuring that her future husband – Frank – will still be born despite being the descendant of the vile villain Black Jack Randall? This is the principal dynamic driving the narrative through this lengthy novel.

Indeed, at more than 900 pages, one might wonder whether the novel is a little too long, especially since it is divided quite neatly into two parts, the first in France and the second in Scotland. It seems possible that the book was originally conceived of by the author as two books but, somewhere along the production line, the decision was made that two should become one. In any case, the pace of the narrative is brisk and the voice of Claire – hers is almost entirely the point of view of the book – is an interesting and entertaining companion, even if she will occasionally stray into some kind of parallel world of romantic fiction. However, she eschews prudishness and revels in adopting a practical course of action whenever this is required of her. She ages over the course of the book but she does not really change. This could be said of all the characters who only ever become more of themselves than they already are either through experience or through revelations of past events.

There are, of course, some problems with verisimilitude. There is a man in Scotland watching daytime television in 1968. The pubs seem to be open all day in contravention to the prevailing licensing laws and seem to require (this is a perennial issue with American authors) customers to pay a bill at the end of a session rather than round by round. However, if a reader is willing to accept the basic premise that it is possible to travel back and forth through time then that reader should be able to accept the occasional anachronism – after all, all of the dialogue in the past is probably best read in the spirit of a Captain Jack Sparrow pirate accent anyway.

Overall, this is an entertaining and diverting read and I would be happy more or less (given how long it takes to read 950 odd pages) to read more of the series.