Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard.
Where anything goes.
-//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7
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Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard. Where anything goes. -//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7 |
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Saturday, July 03, 2004 Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott! Basically, a testosterone-filled romance ("romance" as in "Romantic") about brave knights slicing each other to pieces and behaving in oddly strange ways, so it seems now, to the ladies, from a non-analytical perspective. As far as history and sociology is concerned, it's utter hogwash with the truths few and far between. Linguistically, however, it's a marvel as far as we believe that people living in medieval times actually spoke the way authors claimed they did. And, graphically and dramatically, a masterpiece beyond anything ... well, anything headed "Oxford World Classics", that I have ever read. I once commented that I would never read a book to savour the use of language alone, but Sir Walter Scott has proved me wrong. Um, that comment happens to be both complimentary and critical, by the way. Since many people out there have not read Ivanhoe, few having the patience to last through the long novel, and not many more even knowing anything about Ivanhoe, and in a majority of cases actually believing him to be a real historical figure, I guess I'll provide a short description for your benefit. Basically, it's a story about conflicts ... well, which story isn't? The thing is that all characters are so opposite to each other in particular ways that opportunities are rife for concocting clashes between the characters. Conflicts such as race (Saxons and Normans), religion (Christians and Jews), gender (you know what), class (nobles and commoners), ideals (tradition and realism) and personality (all kinds!) mean that there is never a dull moment when one character confronts another. Scott was a master of characterisation in creating all manner of diverse and various characters to bring the medieval romance to life. The problem with having such different characters, offering so many opportunities, is that the creator of the story can often get carried away, and that is precisely the trap which Scott falls for which detracts from his otherwise excellent piece. The plot is continuous but lacks a central motive or direction. Ivanhoe, the main character, far less than directing events or at least being in the forefront of events blunders through situations like a paramecium on a wave, and oftentimes is more a secondary concern than anything else. Not to say, of course, that narrative fiction ought to be hero-centric (oh, lard, I loathe that kind of third-person writing), but Ivanhoe comes across more as some kind of pseudo-historical narrative, merely describing characters floating in and out of events, rather than coming up with any truly engaging plotline. Needless to say, this is bound to turn most fiction readers off, those who must be hooked into the plot by the first few chapters before they lose interest completely. But for a pseudo-historical narrative, Scott floods it with such a beautiful and robust flow of language both thought and curiosity provoking that I, as someone bearing interest in anything medieval, am quickly reeled in. Add too that I profess myself to be a lover of history, and one with command enough in it to know how to separate fiction (and blatantly obvious fiction at that) from fact. A summary of the plot, for those people who can't be bothered to read the book. I won't blame you, unless you have that same interest in medieval culture as me, in which case you would be missing out on a lot. Basically melding images of the chivalrous knight-errant with the legend of Robin Hood, the story, and the interest, basically begins at a jousting tournament at a place called Ashby-de-la-Zouche (note the French names ... those bloody Norman invaders) organised by Prince John. You know, that Prince John. A gathering of the greatest, and coincidentally very much French knights in the land is singlehandedly defeated by a mysterious knight-errant, as chivalrous as he is redoubtable. The next day, the same knight holds his own to defeat the opposition in "the general melee" (which must be read to be believed), though this time with the aid of a mysterious rotund yet taciturn fellow knight. However, despite his victory, the good knight is wounded and, in his moment of both triumph and greatest weakness he is revealed as Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the disinherited Saxon knight. In his pain, he is aided by a rather quirky Jew lady ("Jewess" just sounds weird ...) as a kind recompense for defeating those nasty Norman aristocrats whom, you know, like to steal from the rich Jews and give to the, well, rich-if-only-they-knew-how-to-save Norman barons. Ivanhoe's Saxon relatives and friends are invited to a Norman victory banquet, but, as always with two races who utterly despise each other, the celebration turns into humiliation and Ivanhoe's cohort leaves the banquet in disgust. On the way, they are ambushed by greedy Norman barons, one of whom was responsible for Ivanhoe being disinherited, and locked up in custody (together with the Jewish family, who were unfortunate enough not to escape) in one of their keeps. While the Jewish father roasts on a spit in an effort to torture more riches out of him, and Ivanhoe's father is held to ransom by the nasty Normans, Ivanhoe himself is locked up securely, and somehow totally unrecognised by his rival Normans who would have put him to death in an instant. And, in one of the most perverse, but not vulgar scenes I have ever read as depicted in text, Scott paints the picture of a simultaneous near-rape of two divine and virtuous (when their numbers are in single digits, they almost inevitably end up being so) ladies, one a Jew and the other a Saxon, accosted and threatened in radically different manners by two Norman knights with differing attitudes and codes of conduct. Luckily, through some machinations, the Saxon servants liase with Robin Hood's merry men in the forest, and together with that mysterious large-sized knight mentioned not too long ago, manage to take the keep and raze it to the ground, rescuing every prisoner save the Jewish girl who is abducted by one of the knights, the main antagonist of the story (and a rather perverse desperado with megalomaniac tendencies at that). Ivanhoe barely recovers enough to move about when he hears of the plight of the Jewish girl, who has been caught by the religious authorities in the not-too-loving arms of a Christian knight and has been sentenced to burn at the stake for witchcraft. Hastily, despite his injuries, he returns to confront a religion simultaneously tainted with corruption and blinded by zeal, and challenges the villain in a final joust to the death to defend the honour of the Jew girl. Of course you know who wins that fight. But if you want to know how he won it, and what happened to him in the end, you will have to read the story. And, as with the case in any story where the number of non-male characters can be counted on a single hand, if you want to find out who Ivanhoe married in the end, you've got to read it to. If you want to know what Robin Hood and his merry men did, and what happened to evil Prince John in the end ... read something else, because that's been done to death a thousand times. As you can see, plotwise, it's contiguous, but far from a thriller that will keep you on your toes. And similarly, a run-through the main characters in the story. The protagonist, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a Saxon knight who has been disinherited by his father (presumably for not sharing his father's belief that it is the Saxon duty to bring down the Norman conquerers) and his fief seized by greedy evil Norman lords. He doesn't talk much, but he's basically your good knight-errant, behaving modestly and chivalrously, and ever ready to stand up against evil and oppression. The antagonist, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a member of the Knights Templar who abuses his religious authority and his strength as a powerful knight to oppress those around him, and eventually to fulfil his carnal passions by dragging a helpless maiden off against her will. The Jewish damsel in distress, Rebecca, the daughter of a rich moneylender who shares little of her father's greed, yet all of the tenacity and endurance of a race which has been persistently persecuted, and all of the resolve and grit too often absent from the slightest mention of any girl in any medieval context. Other main characters include Cedric, Ivanhoe's hot-tempered and raging father who constantly plots the overthrow of the Norman conquerers, Gurth, a goatherd who eventually earns his freedom and becomes Ivanhoe's squire, Wamba, a jester with all the funniness of the Fool in King Lear (um, if you haven't read King Lear, never mind), Rowena, a Saxon princess of some sort whose strikingly demure and austere ways (remind you of someone?) render her but a foil to the more passionate and driven Rebecca, Isaac, the Jewish usurer whose only deviation from the standard stock character is to have a kind and generous daughter who also loves her father, Reginald Front-de-Beuf, a massive, oversized giant of a man who is somehow also an incredibly powerful knight, who tortures, oppresses, abuses, seizes, and commits all manner of atrocities known to the Dark Ages beyond licentious behaviour and a whole other host of lively and varied characters from all walks of life. Of course, there's also the characters from the fable of Robin Hood, such as master marksman good old Robin of Locksley and the jovial Friar Tuck (Little John gets a mention but never appears, not even a sniff of Maid Miriam or the Sheriff of Nottingham), as well as bad Prince John and good King Richard. Well, I don't subscribe to the myth of 'Bad Prince John and Good King Richard' so the text isn't particularly endearing on that part, but for those who wish to persist in viewing history through the eyes of ignorance they are there and their attributes amplified in every detail. But what really endears Ivanhoe to me, and so much so that I'm willing to forgive the mangling of what could well have been a stunning vendetta set in medieval times, is Sir Walter Scott's masterful use of language in describing and depicting every aspect of the medieval world. I would compare him with J.R.R. Tolkien in this aspect ... just that Tolkien wrote a far better, if similarly gender-lopsided story. The description of everything is superb, for individuals he goes right down to the smallest detail to accurately portray their status and their nature, for locations he depicts things with such vividity that it is no difficulty at all in imagining the similar location, and placing the character/s concerned within. This is the way I want to write. This is the style which I want to emulate. This is a man from whom I need to learn. I already mentioned in an earlier post (ages ago now, it seems) of how he was able to depict beauty without sounding perverse, and how to depict perversity in beautiful terms, a skill most modern authors sorely lack. An area in which I find myself persistently failing to produce the effect satisfactory to my standards would be in the description of action scenes, always getting away with describing every move and every reflex as if providing a commentary on a (heavily slowed) animated picture ... and in the consequence seriously boring myself (If I like it, it's good enough to be written ... stuff what you think!) to pieces. Instead, Scott, like Tolkien, has the ability to describe battles in a single blow, literally speaking. The sum of conflict, or simply action, is wrapped up in a single description, concise and vivid, and easily palatable. And it provides more room for the reader's imagination and discourages them from viewing the author as a self-obsessed nit (I ducked to the left, I rolled to the right, I jumped, leapt, dodged, etc.). I cannot describe the beauty of his language in more satisfactory terms. It must be read to be appreciated. Finally, you can blast Scott for his overly stereotypical Romantic characters, for his disjointed, lengthy and at times deliriously boring plot, for murdering history and deluding generations of English youths with myths of national greatness, but, if for nothing else, read the book for its language. As far as I know, no one else puts together so perfect a blend of period language and modern English (narration almost serving like a translation for the less knowledgeable). Chaucer wrote entirely in Middle English, while the Victorian era and the defeat of the Gothic style not long after Scott's publishing put it to rest. Consider that, and pick your choice of a medieval setting, unique characters or beautiful descriptions and put them together, and you already have a novel worthy of your perusal in your hands, and as one who treasures all of these merits of Scott the novel was enjoyment from the first to its last, and no one else will ever write a medieval masterpiece founded off the Romanticism of both Chaucer and Shakespeare but written in prose rather than as poetry or in a play. Ivanhoe is a masterful piece of work that should, and probably will be treasured for all time. Remember, I will never write a review of a book I do not intend to thoroughly encourage others to read so despite the disproportional number of complaints compared to compliments about anything in the end I still have a positive evaluation of everything. Needless to say, it must be in my nature to place more emphasis on criticism rather than commendation ... and it happens likewise both for giving and receiving such comments. Well, cheerio, and enjoy your adventures in reading. posted by Charlotte | 4:20 pm (0) comments Tuesday, June 29, 2004 This post nearly did not exist this day. It might not have existed for two counts, firstly, that it would not have described anything interesting in the slightest and thus have been consequently deleted, and secondly, upon the occurence of said interesting event, it might not have been possible to actually post this message and thus bring the note of the delightful occurence of something interesting to the attention of my faithful readers, however few there may be. Oh come on, if you live in Singapore, you should know what I mean. Because if you don't, you've probably missed out on an experience of a lifetime, in that there is a significant probability that it will happen at least once in your lifetime and trust me, you don't want to have it happen more than once. Imagine my surprise when the lights dropped from around me, rendering the book I had in hand unreadable while my other chopstick-wielding hand gripped tightly around the indispensable pair of eating apparatus. I express a degree of thanks that I was in the midst of something rather commonplace, and something not very easily inhibited which is the process of eating, rather than being engaged in something else more delicate such as playing computer games, taking a bath, or (horrors!) typing out an addition to my story. As such, I lost relatively little immediately apart from my concentration and, after surveying the immediate neighbourhood and seeing not a glimmer of light in sight (and watching those lucky sods down at Marine Parade happily lighting up the sky with their house lamps), my nerve as well. Sigh. So all I did was nonchalantly go back to my room, retrieve a battery-powered torchlight, wander back down, flick it on, and go back to what I was doing previously, simply eating and reading. Not that I would have particularly minded the darkness, being a very nocturnal creature due to the extreme photosensitivity I seem to have acquired in my illness. The lights were out for close to an hour or so. Remembering the criticism over the media coverage of that last massive blackout in Woodlands (Charlotte : "Who cares about Woodlands?" Woodlandser : "Who cares about Marine Parade?") I anticipated the media circle which was to ensue. Just our district? Or perhaps a wider area? Or maybe even the whole of Singapore (which later turned out to be the case)? Was it some kind of mechanical fault, a disastrous case of human error, or maybe the terrorists who have finally found that chink in Singapore's defence? It wasn't that I hated the darkness, but just sitting there, considering and reconsidering all these issues concerning the blackout without the slightest hint of information regarding them, infuriated me with its impotency. My father brought out an old, very old transistor radio, but it looked like he didn't have a clue on how to program it, while the neighbours were happily listening away to 93.3 played at full blast. He finally got some sound out of it, only to promptly lose the transmission when he placed it at the nearest convenient resting place. The rest of my family went about their business with the least of fuss (not to mention the least of lighting), my mother doing paperwork, my little sister doing her homework, and the maid was serenely asleep. And I was sitting out in the open air under the moon, with a loaded torchlight in one hand while the other caressed my furrowed forehead. The lights came on slightly less than an hour after the ordeal first began, and flicking on the television it was reported that the blackout was due to an interruption in the supply of gas from Indonesia, which powered many districts in Singapore, and was not just localised but islandwide. And it was back to life as normal, if it was not for the undue amount of battery-powered equipment scattered about the place like a low-tech bazaar. You mean gas is continuously being piped in and burnt at the power plant to churn out power for Singapore all of twenty-four hours? Well, it must be a darn huge pipeline, it must be under incredibly high pressure for the gas to make its way here, and if Indonesia should ever decide to invade Singapore they certainly have a good idea of how to instantly cripple the miserable country. I guess it was lucky that the blackout was over with quickly, I wanting to take a bath and all, while I heard that the last major blackout lasted for over several hours. But still, it's something you don't want to experience in life any more often than is necessary. posted by Charlotte | 4:36 pm (0) comments Disclaimer : The Slayers and Filia Ul Copt and all images thereof are the property of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own any of them, although if I had a choice I would want Filia ... ~//n_n\\7 |
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