A vast epic of a historical novel told by a superb storyteller.
It is set in the days of the Anarchy, when King Stephen and Empress Maud battled for the English throne, a time of rebellions leading to a full-blown civil war, the entire period lasting for seventeen years during which time parts of England were controlled, an terrorised, by the local warlord. Against this background is set the story of Prior Philip who wants to improve his monastery and a builder who wants to work on a cathedral. The baddies include the local bishop and a wannabe earl; the goodies, beside the prior and the builder include the daughter of the earl who is defeated, usurped and killed, and the talented bastard son of a witch and a hanged jongleur.
There's plenty of action to keep the reader turning the more than a thousand pages. Conflict rules, whether it be a disputed election of a prior, a mob of outlaws attacking a town, an army of soldiers destroying a castle, rape, murder, cursing witches, plenty of sex ... this is a story that has everything. And at this length, there is even time to develop the characters. True, most of them have little nuance. William the bad earl and Waleran the bad bishop are villains through and through with no redeeming features whatsoever: they are figures straight from mystery plays or melodramas. But the goodies have a degree of complexity which allows the author to keep posing problems for them which they solve but not entirely so that the solutions can return to haunt them. In the end, this reader hoped and hoped that, despite moments or peril and jeopardy, despite impossible odds, his favourites would survive and prosper till the end. Read on, read on!
If you want a page-turner, you cannot fault this novel. It begins with the line: "The small boys came early to the hanging." which is an incredible hook. After that, a paragraph setting the scene is perfectly in order. The few pages of this Prologue ground the reader thoroughly in the setting but are also full of action so it becomes impossible not to read on.
After this there is plenty to get your teeth into. There's plenty of description telling me more about this period, and cathedral building, than I have learned in many standard history books. But the key to the readability is that you are never more than a few pages away from yet another confrontation. The Battle of Lincoln. The murder of Thomas a Beckett. The collapse of a cathedral. It might be a thousand pages plus, but the pace never flags.
And each of these set pieces, from sex to battle, from court room scene to cathedral killing, is perfectly written.
A whirlwind of a read.
Selected quotes:
- "He seemed fond of Philip but wary of him, like a father whose son has been away to war and has come home with a sword in hius belt and a slightly dangerous look in his eye." (1.4.1)
- "Pray for miracles, but plant cabbages." (3.12.1)
- "The ducks swallow the worms, and the foxes kill the ducks, and the men shoot the foxes, and the devil hunts the men." (5.16.1)
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