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 Bernard
Cornwell has been awarded an OBE, sold over 20 million copies,
and at a rough count has written nearly fifty full-length novels
since 1981. It’s quite a pedigree, which puts Cornwell at the
pinnacle of his trade, and he’s best know for his Sharpe series of
novels, many of which have been turned into a long-running series of
TV films, with Sean
Bean playing the part of the swashbuckling Englishman
caught up in the battles of the Napoleonic era. But Cornwell’s
interest has wandered far from Sharpe and Europe and the eighteenth
century, and in the past he’s also penned series about the 100 Year
War, King Arthur (his self-proclaimed favourite series), the
American Civil War as well as nautical thrillers.
Cornwell’s latest interest is the 9th century, when the
various kingdoms of England were overrun by the Vikings. The last
king, Alfred, is driven into the marshes of Athelney, but makes one
of the great come-backs of history: not only rallying his troops and
defeating the Vikings, but also founding one of the most vigorous
dynasties of Medieval Europe: who went on to unite the English
speaking peoples and definitively set the boundaries of what is
still ‘England.’
Alfred – a philandering youngest son, quite unlike the saintly
figure painted in monk’s writings and in the Victorian image of him
- is remarkable in that he has attracted so few novels, when
compared with the other ‘the Great’ – Alexander - with few major
writer tackling this period since Alfred Duggan’s The King of
Athelney, in the 1960s.
Considering that Alfred was the king of Wessex, roughly the part of
England in the South and West of England, it’s surprising that
Cornwell starts his novel at the other end of the country, in
Bamburgh, capital of the High-Reeves of Bernicia, the northernmost
half of Northumbria, in the far north and east of the country. But
it allows Cornwell to trace the Viking take-over of England as they
pushed further south and west.
The narrator of the novels is ‘Earl Uhtred’ from a family of Uhtreds,
the ruling family of Bernicia in fact, who hold an almost
impregnable fort on a tidal island at Bamburgh, a short ride away
from the monastery of Lindisfarne. His childhood coincides with the
Viking take-over of Northumbria, and the violence of the times
leaves him as a slave in the hands of one of the great Vikings of
the time, Ragnar, who adopts him as a son, and he renounces
Christianity and proudly wears the Thor’s Hammer.
As part of Ragnar’s household, Uhtred joins the Viking invasion of
Mercia and East Anglia, where the East Anglian king is slain in
battle, and Burgred, of Mercia, is bought off and spends his days on
the continent, praying for his soul. Uhtred then joins the attack
on Wessex, where the inexorable tide of events is temporarily
reversed.
But the invasion also brings a personal revelation for Uhtred. When
he sees his mother’s brother, a Mercian lord, cut down in battle, he
feels his blood-ties to the English tighten and by the time of the
next Viking assault on Wessex, led by Guthrum, Uhtred is fighting on
the English side, and he is instrumental in saving Alfred’s skin at
the battle of Cynuit.
There’s a complex play of religion and politics and personal loyalty
in 9th century England, and Cornwell’s narrative cuts
clearly through this Gordian Knot with strong characters, great
action scenes and clear motivations for the various characters –
many real some imagined - to do what they do. Cornwell uses old
English spellings for place names, which gives a nice flavour to the
novel as well as giving insights into the names of places now. Some
names are very similar to the modern, Cornwalum-Cornwall; some are
names for places that no longer exist – like Dalriada a part of
modern Scotland, and some almost comic: Cornwell’s prose betraying a
note of distinct pleasure in the name of Snotengaham – ‘the Home of
Snot's people’ – which is the rather unfortunate name for modern day
Nottingham.
There are many details that can bog down a historical novel, but
Cornwell is comfortable and efficient in resurrecting the 9th
century world around his characters – with its seal-skin rigging and
longships and codes of honour and betrayal – and, like the best
historical novels, he manages to explain and illuminate the actions
and motivations of characters without sounding like a lecture on
early medieval life. His story makes it clear just how difficult it
was for English kingdoms to raise and army and defeat an enemy as
mobile as the Vikings – able to strike at will like the Huns and
Mongols - as well as the techniques and the impression of the shield
wall, and the lifestyle of the period.
Cornwell has been dubbed by the Washington Post as ‘the greatest
writer of historical adventure novels today’. ‘Adventure’ is
a key word here, which means that these books do not aspire to the
standards of the Booker or Pullizter. Character’s decisions are
sometimes over-influenced by the plotting of the story, which needs
twists and turns for momentum; the narrator overshadows Alfred, and
assigns himself a lot of the credit for Alfred’s victory’s, which
slightly defeat’s Cornwell’s self proclaimed reasons for writing the
book, which was to ‘show [why Alfred the Great] gained that
title.’ But these are small blemishes on what is otherwise an
breathless and enjoyable read.
There are three sequels to this novel, two already in print,
The Pale
Horseman and
The
Lords of the North, with
Sword Song
yet to be published. (Release date Sept 2007 in the UK, January
2008 in the USA).
Links:
Bernard
Cornwell’s Home Page
Saxon Novels Home
Interview
on Writer’s FM
Speaking
on University of California TV
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