I've been reading Walter Scott's 1820 novel Ivanhoe again lately. I read about half of it a year ago and got distracted reading other things so I started it again. I'm enjoying it much more, which I partially attribute to reading it in paperback instead of on my Kindle. The physical paper and ink somehow suits the dignity of the novel better. That dignity is certainly integral and part of the reason I found it difficult to read before.
Scott is clearly in love with The Canterbury Tales and The Faerie Queene among many other medieval and romantic works. Sometimes it prevents Ivanhoe from breathing its own life and even when I'm enjoying it it's certainly on a more nostalgic, distant level than I enjoy the more red-blooded Shakespeare plays Scott quotes from. Nonetheless, the jousting tournament Scott describes has many thrilling, even cinematic, moments.
The trumpets had no sooner given the signal, than the champions vanished from their posts with the speed of lightning, and closed in the centre of the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt. The lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and it seemed at the moment that both knights had fallen, for the shock had made each horse recoil backwards upon its haunches. The address of the riders recovered their steeds by use of the bridle and spur; and having glared on each other for an instant with eyes which seemed to flash fire through the bars of their visors, each made a demi-volte, and, retiring to the extremity of the lists, received a fresh lance from the attendants.
And I do share Scott's sentiment in moments where he drags the action to a halt just to muse on the things that have come and gone.
At length the barriers were opened, and five knights, chosen by lot, advanced slowly into the area; a single champion riding in front, and the other four following in pairs. All were splendidly armed, and my Saxon authority (in the Wardour Manuscript) records at great length their devices, their colours, and the embroidery of their horse trappings. It is unnecessary to be particular on these subjects. To borrow lines from a contemporary poet, who has written but too little:
“The knights are dust,
And their good swords are rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust.”
[Scott quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge]
Their escutcheons have long mouldered from the walls of their castles. Their castles themselves are but green mounds and shattered ruins—the place that once knew them, knows them no more—nay, many a race since theirs has died out and been forgotten in the very land which they occupied, with all the authority of feudal proprietors and feudal lords. What, then, would it avail the reader to know their names, or the evanescent symbols of their martial rank!
I also appreciate some of the extensive detail he goes into when describing clothing and faces, particularly in the early chapters. If you slow down and really work with him, you'll find he conjures some really vivid pictures. And some of it really conveys a unique sense of medieval places. I particularly liked this bit:
No fewer than four silver candelabras, holding great waxen torches, served to illuminate this apartment. Yet let not modern beauty envy the magnificence of a Saxon princess. The walls of the apartment were so ill finished and so full of crevices, that the rich hangings shook in the night blast, and, in despite of a sort of screen intended to protect them from the wind, the flame of the torches streamed sideways into the air, like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain. Magnificence there was, with some rude attempt at taste; but of comfort there was little, and, being unknown, it was unmissed.
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