A ripping medieval yarn, despite occasional shortfalls.
An aging troubadour recalls his young life in the service of England’s greatest knight in this riveting historic debut novel by Hamilton.
An elderly Lewellyn tells a story of his childhood, when he was ordered to ride out on a hunting party with Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine from Lusignan Castle. An orphaned scullery boy who, according to himself, is the “lowest of the low,” he’s surprised by the pleasant attention that one member of the party shows him. “Knights rarely acknowledged the existence of the serving class,” he muses. The young knight in question is Sir William Marshal, a tournament champion with an increasing reputation as a remarkable swordsman. When Baron Lusignan and his men attack the procession, Marshal shows his resilience in battle, disabling multiple opponents and allowing the queen sufficient time to flee. Finally overwhelmed by his attackers, he’s knocked out cold and awakens, wounded, in a filthy prison cell. The boy Lewellyn is also a captive, and during their imprisonment they develop a close bond. Lewellyn helps to remove a piece of chain mail lodged in the knight’s leg; later, they talk candidly of their lives. After Marshal’s ransom is paid, Lewellyn expects to return to life as a kitchen hand, but finds that the enigmatic knight has chosen him as his personal servant. As Marshal’s political reputation grows, Lewellyn finds himself in close proximity to courtly life, observing the machinations of King Henry II and those plotting against him. This is an intimate, complex first-person portrait of a respected nobleman through the eyes of a devoted aide. Llewellyn is self-effacing, yet he’s a carefully crafted, multifaceted character with a delightfully shrewd outlook. The book might have benefited from a more thorough edit, as some of the word choices are occasionally cringeworthy: “KERWHANG!!!” is the sound of knights in battle, and the dying King Henry is said to slip “in and out of conscientiousness.” Still, the story makes for compelling reading.
A ripping medieval yarn, despite occasional shortfalls.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4922-0218-9
Page Count: 380
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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