Ladies and Gentlemen, il Romanzo Storico è servito!

Sir Walter Scott è universalmente noto per aver inventato il romanzo storico moderno (e per questo da due secoli frotte di lettori gli cantano lodi sempiterne); fra le sue tante opere, la più celebre di tutte è senza dubbio Ivanhoe, il cui folgorante successo internazionale ne determinò una subitanea trasposizione in opera lirica musicata da Gioacchino Rossini, l’equivalente ottocentesco dell'odierno blockbuster hollywoodiano diretto da Steven Spielberg.

Eppure, è cosa nota, quando si vuole lanciare una nuova moda, il rischio di fare un buco nell'acqua è dietro l'angolo; lo capì fin troppo presto Isabella Gilbert, inventrice della pratica museruola-crea-fossette-sulle-guance, e dovette temere il peggio anche il nostro Walterone che, infatti, pensò bene di piazzare prima dell'inizio vero e proprio del romanzo una fittizia lettera dedicatoria indirizzata al Rev. Dott. Dryasdust, una dichiarazione d’intenti ad uso e consumo dei lettori più puntigliosi, una sorta d'excusatio non petita in cui spiegava con altrettanto puntiglio come fosse giunto a concepire e a realizzare questa straordinaria novità, una narrazione al contempo storica e romanzesca, in cui verità e finzione coesistono, il romanzo storico, per l'appunto; ossimoro letterario usato per esporre tematiche contemporanee traslandole in un'epoca passata, nel caso specifico, la lotta fra unionisti e indipendentisti scozzesi trasformata nel confronto fra Sassoni e Normanni nell'Inghilterra medievale.
Letta oggi, dopo oltre duecento anni di sovrabbondante proliferare indiscriminato di romanzi storici d'ogni fatta, questa lettera in cui l'Inventore illustra le sue fonti e tenta di giustificare le molte licenze alla Storia che troveremo lungo il percorso suscita quasi commozione nel suo essere così ingenua e, a paragone della quale, l’audace escamotage narrativo dell'Anonimo seicentesco trasforma istantaneamente Alessandro Manzoni nel Christopher Nolan dei romanzieri.

Come ognun se n'avvede, infatti, dobbiamo sempre a Scott anche l'esistenza de I Promessi Sposi (e per questo da altrettanti secoli frotte di studenti gli lanciano maledizioni altrettanto sempiterne). Sandrone copiò Walterone e, come lui, fecero prima Victor Hugo e poi Alexandre Dumas in Francia. La lista dei figli e figliastri di Scott sarebbe così lunga da arrivare sino ai giorni nostri (gli deve tantissimo anche Tolkien), ma noi ci fermeremo a questi tre ingombranti soggetti, bastano e avanzano.

Ognuno di loro, bisogna riconoscerlo, seppe interpretare con una buona dose d'originalità la lezione di Scott: Hugo ne esaltò la componente storica, arrivando a sfornare trattati sul passato mascherati da romanzi; Manzoni ne ricalcò solo l’impostazione generale, l'idea, sostituendone l'aspetto più avventuroso e dilettevole con precetti pedagogico-moralizzanti; Dumas più di tutti ne colse le potenzialità romanzesche e le portò alle massime vette mai toccate da scrittore.
Lo stile di Scott, in certa misura, li ricorda e racchiude tutti e tre, possiamo dire che Ivanhoe è l'opera seminale di un filone che ancor oggi gode di chiara fama, seppur ormai spogliato di ogni suo intento primigenio; raramente, infatti, gli autori dei romanzi storici odierni adoperano la Storia per riflettere sulla contemporaneità, come invece fecero magistralmente quei quattro signori là.


Piccola postilla finale

Vi sarete accorti che ho taciuto ogni informazione sulla trama, l'ho fatto in parte perché ritengo che questo sia un romanzo ricchissimo che merita d'essere scoperto durante la lettura, ma principalmente perché non volevo entrare in competizione con la mia pessima insegnante d'inglese, che così mi presentò i quattro libri d’epoca Regency fra i quali io e i miei compagni avremmo dovuto trovare la nostra prossima lettura, a seguito della mia spaesata richiesta di lumi per orientarmi nella scelta: "Se ami le storie d'amore romantiche che partono male ma finiscono bene, leggi Orgoglio e Pregiudizio; se ami le storie d'amore tenebrose che partono male ma finiscono malissimo, leggi Cime tempestose; se ami le storie complicate che poi si complicano ancora di più, leggi Ivanhoe; se vuoi ridere a crepapelle fino alle lacrime, leggi Northanger Abbey, uhuhuhuh! scusami, ma rido al solo pensiero, uhuhuhuh!"

Purtroppo scoprii a mie spese che la mia pessima professoressa d’inglese aveva anche un pessimo sense of humor.
Oggi, dopo oltre vent'anni da quel lontano giorno, possiamo certificare senza tema di smentite che era pessima anche nel presentare le trame dei romanzi.
Ah, se solo mi avesse detto: "Se ami i castelli, i cavalieri e Robin Hood…", non mi sarei privato così a lungo di questa meravigliosa storia complicata che poi si complica ancora di più.

The fact that every single person has at least one alternate title or identity means I never for a second had a clue who was doing what. fighting for my life

Ivanhoe. Seriously?! Could there be a more arbitrary title to any famous book in the English language? It would be like naming Lost "Benjamin Linus," or naming the original Dragonlance Chronicles "Caramon Majere." This isn't a book about Ivanhoe, it's a book with Ivanhoe in it.

Sir Walter Scott must have been sitting around his room with his D&D dice to come up with Ivanhoe.

Random Title List for Unnamed Book I Just Finished Writing About King Richard's Return From the Crusades and the Defeat of His Slightly Crazy Brother Prince John
Roll 1d20

1. Lady Rowena
2. Brian de Bois-Guilbert
3. Front de Boeuf
4. Friar Tuck
5. Isaac the Jew
6. The Black Knight
7. Cedric
8. Ivanhoe
9. Richard Coeur-de-Lion
10. Prince John
11. Athelstane
12. Wamba
13. Rebecca
14. Albert Malvoisin
15. Waldemar Fitzurse
16. Gurth
17. Maurice de Bracy
18. Locksley
19. Ulrica
20. Me

And by the way...I liked it. It was fun.

A historical fiction of King Richard Lionheart, Robin Hood and a little bit of Wilfried of Ivanhoe with a lot of "dost, thou, thy and whence". The wordiness killed any sentiment I held for the heros of my youth.

I'm a very critical reader of historical novels: they usually fall short when it comes to historical accuracy. Also this one does: it's clearly written with a presentist - early 19th century - agenda (English nationalism, defense of the integration of jews into society, anticlerical accents...), and lots of details are anachronistic. But nevertheless, this is an enticing read! Clearly, Walter Scott (a very solid historian) didn't write this as a reconstruction of the Medieval world, but as a novel of romance and suspense. With this he stands firmly in line with Victor Hugo (or vice versa?). See also my general review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

I read this for a college literature course, and I remember being one of the few people in the class who liked it. I remember my professor even admitted to not liking it very well.

I found it delightful, in the same way Robin Hood and King Arthur tales are delightful. You have to have an appreciation for the whimsical, though, and not take anything too seriously.

It's probably no coincidence that I liked this novel and I also still read YA fiction at my advanced age.

UPDATE: I just watched the A & E movie version, which refreshed my memory of the book a little. They made the ending of the movie a little happier than the book. They also made more of the romantic attraction between Ivanhoe and Rebecca. There was some of that in the book, but the two did a better job of resisting temptation in the book, which made them more likeable characters, although the movie characters may have been more realistic.

Yes, I know I just listened to this book. But I figure if Harriet Beecher Stowe could read Ivanhoe seven times in one month, then I can reread it right away. Am enjoying it immensely - again!

=========

I'm reading this for my book club (the adult equivalent of a high school reading assignment when it is for a book you've managed to avoid for years).

Consequently I listened to B.J. Harrison's excellent narration to help me get into the book. And it worked. I initially enjoyed it it on the level of adventure novel, a la Treasure Island (the adventure novel I listened to just before this).

I was surprised at the inventive plot twists, the laugh-out-loud humor, and most of all at Rebecca. Here is someone who is female, from a despised group, and who is only valued by most for her beauty. Yet, she is articulate, quick witted, and will not allow herself to be used as a pawn or allow others to get away with facile explanations for their own evil actions. What a role model!

Overall, Ivanhoe was a reminder not to avoid a classic just because the first chapter seems a little difficult or because one thinks the plot is hackneyed. Highly recommended.

I can see now, after having read Ivanhoe, where most of our notions of the medieval ways and of Robin Hood originated. It seemed at once both familiar and foreign jumping into this book. I could see the beginnings of certain conventions — and the glaring lack, as well. It reminded me both of the Canterbury tales and of old Hollywood movies; it was actually kind of weird.

It begins with two minor characters, for instance, and not the main character, Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe is actually introduced somewhat late, and he's mostly incognito in his first appearance, so you're kind of thrown into the story with little or no ties to anyone in particular. It's hard to care about the characters or the story that way, so I didn't have much emotion invested into the story and got easily bored. After a few chapters, I found myself watching the 1952 movie adaptation to get me jump started, the one starring Robert Taylor, which, notably, didn't start with the minor characters at all but started with Ivanhoe's back story, him coming back from the crusades, on a mission to raise enough money to free King Richard.

This is what the book lacked in the beginning. It lacked that motor, that thing that gives readers a reason to read through all the descriptive chapters in which nothing really happens just yet. As a result, the book seems a bit aimless and happenstance, and it's hard to figure out who to even care for, until you get deeper into the book and discover some of the whys and wherefores of the situations.

For instance, Ivanhoe and Rowena are childhood sweethearts, and you're supposed to root for them as a couple, but they are apart for most of the book, and you barely see them express their love for each other. There is, in fact, very little that happens in the span of the book that would lead anyone to think that Ivanhoe is better off with Rowena than with any other woman. And there IS another woman, Rebecca, in the book who through her actions seems a more deserving character than Rowena. There's another man as well, for Rowena, but the point is Rebecca is the one the reader would rather root for to win the heart of Ivanhoe. Rebecca actually, genuinely cares for Ivanhoe, not just in an emotional sense, partly out of gratitude for Ivanhoe's kind treatment of her father, but in a medical sense, when Ivanhoe gets mortally wounded in a tournament. She's the one who looks after him and with her exceptional healing skills helps him to get better. She's the one who generously funds him, too, using the jewelry she has inherited from her mother. Not only that, but when Rebecca needs saving, it's Ivanhoe alone who saves her. So Rebecca seems a more likely heroine than Rowena — at least in my eyes. The story revolves more around her than around Rowena.

But Rebecca is Jewish, and I guess that and the fact that Ivanhoe and Rowena were childhood sweethearts, make any relationship between Ivanhoe and Rebecca impossible. The way the book is written, it absolutely makes no sense to a modern reader of romance. If there was more interaction between Ivanhoe and Rowena, or if more of their back story was revealed, then I think it would have made more sense and been more gratifying to have them come together in the end; as it was, you have only the author's word that Ivanhoe and Rowena were already an item before any of the events in the book happened.

So for me, that romance story arc needed more of the usual conventions to make it work.

The action-adventure story, similarly, needed more of the usual conventions, or at least a proper back story to give it more reason to exist. I couldn't figure out, for instance, why Ivanhoe needed to enter the tournament at all. In the movie version, it was because he needed the prize money for King Richard's ransom, but the reason in the book is actually not that clear, and the tournament turns out to be a very big part of the story. The later two parts of the action-adventure makes a little more sense; there seems to be a clear mission, rescue the hostages from within the castle, and later, save Rebecca from a death sentence by being her champion and winning a fight. So I could more easily accept the plotting in those areas. The first third, though, seemed a bit senseless to me.

The language seems appropriate for the time, yet easy enough to read. The characters were nicely drawn, and some of them were actually very engaging. For a main character, though, Ivanhoe appeared only partly drawn — the other characters were better developed and more likable than he was. Also, as he was injured for much of the book, he was absent from a lot of the action and so seemed more like a prop than a main character.

Nutshell ... I can see why some people might laud this book, if it was one of the first of its kind, but at the same time it was kind of baffling and boring by the standards of today. I imagine books in this genre have come a long, long, LONG way since this first came out, and if this book were rewritten today, it would be a very, very different book indeed.

I wasn't wowed, but it wasn't TOO bad.

Finished reading March 25, 2011.

Be prepared. Sir Walter Scott will take you to an era with great detail and adventure. Ivanhoe contains a fascinating portrayal of the Saxon and Norman cultures and it has it all: magnificent battles, corrupt priests and abbots, estranged fathers and sons, Robin Hood, Richard the Lionhearted, Knights Templar... I love this book so much.

Honestly I found this nearly unreadable. 400+ pages of antisemitism, an experience that to me was like being smacked in the face again and again and again. To be clear, Scott seems to (mostly) be saying that antisemitism is bad, but no Jewish character can be on page or referenced without someone calling them "accursed" or otherwise throwing a stereotype or a slur at them. It's exhausting. Scott seems to view Jews as prey animals -- which, I know Maus plays with the same thing, but it's very different from the perspective of a Jew -- reviled and persecuted by all. Every single character they come across has something nasty to say about them (us), including the supposed heroes.

Ivanhoe himself, meanwhile, is bland as can be; I was waiting and waiting for his famous battle for Rebecca's life and honor and he doesn't even do anything in it! Yet Scott is appalled at the mere thought of him having romantic feelings for the "Jewess" who nurses him back to health, and at the end, the happiest ending he can conceive of for Rebecca is her leaving England, because it's implied that she just doesn't belong there. As the product of Jews and Scots who banged, let me just say a hearty: fuck you!

Two stars for all the best bits, which feature Robin Hood and -- forgive my ignorance until recently for not knowing this -- form the basis of the parts of the legend so gloriously displayed in The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. I recommend watching that: it's much more entertaining and no one talks shit about Jews even once.

n  «Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe, side by side we’re proud to ride with Ivanhoe …»n
Inghilterra, 1194. Il principe Giovanni, approfittando della prigionia in Austria del fratello, Riccardo Cuor di Leone, si è impossessato della corona e governa con durezza e perfidia sull’Inghilterra. Sullo sfondo, la aspra contrapposizione tra Sassoni e Normanni. Sir Wilfred di Ivanhoe, cavaliere coraggioso e valente, lotterà a sprezzo della vita per restituire il trono a Riccardo e la libertà alla bella e orgogliosa Rebecca.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvz-...
Tra palazzi nobiliari, lizze e tornei, assedi di castelli e agguati nella foresta, si muovono personaggi leggendari: Robin Hood di Locksley, fuorilegge amante della giustizia e l’enigmatico … Cavaliere del Lucchetto ...
«Ecco la mia mano» disse Locksley; «e la considero la mano di un vero inglese sebbene attualmente bandito.»
«Ed ecco la mia,»disse il cavaliere «ed io la ritengo onorata di stringere la vostra. Perché chi fa del bene avendo illimitato potere di fare del male merita lode non solo per il bene che fa ma anche per il male che impedisce. Addio, prode bandito.» Così si separarono in buona amicizia; e il Cavaliere dal Lucchetto, montato sul suo robusto cavallo da combattimento, si allontanò al galoppo nella foresta.
E poi Lady Rowena, fanciulla sassone di straordinaria bellezza; il ricco ebreo Isaac di York e la sua leggiadra figlia Rebecca ...
«Non so se la bella Rowena sarebbe stata molto soddisfatta della commozione con cui il suo devoto cavaliere aveva guardato fino allora i bei lineamenti, le vaghe forme e gli occhi brillanti della leggiadra Rebecca; occhi il cui fulgore era adombrato e quasi mitigato dalla frangia delle lunghe sopracciglia di seta, e che un menestrello avrebbe paragonato alla stella della sera raggiante attraverso un pergolato di gelsomini.»
E ancora, Giovanni Senzaterra; Fra’ Tuck; Cedric di Rotherwood, detto il Sassone; Riccardo Cuor di Leone; il Templare Brian de Bois Guilbert e ancora tanti altri personaggi, tutti tratteggiati magnificamente.
Narrazione che parte con lentezza e si conclude in crescèndo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hPes...
Dedicato a tutti coloro che almeno una volta nella vita hanno costruito per sé o per i propri figli una spada di legno e a tutte le donzelle che almeno una volta si sono punte con l’ago da ricamo … senza cadere addormentate …

Like most, I first read this in high school, but understood nothing of the tense realities underlying the history. I won't bother repeating the plot. It's well-known and is the basis of all adventure romances: knight rescues maiden. repeat as necessary.

The religious and ecclesial questions, whose larger overtones even to which Scott himself is unaware, are staggering. The Church of Papal Normandy is different from the Church of Old Saxon England. Yet Old Saxon England has bishops, monks, and prayers to the saints, so the "hero" church isn't Scott's Protestantism. So who is it? Let the reader understand...

One must also tie this story in with Norman Cantor's narrative about Norman historiography in Inventing the Middle Ages. First of all, the history professors who research the Norman invasion are CIA spies (Cantor documents this) and believe the Norman invasion of England and the destruction of Old English culture is both good and necessary. Draw your own conclusions about today's geopolitics.

This book is borderline perfect. Scott, contrary to the shrill denunciations from critics of the Romantic Nationalists, is actually quite tame and balanced in his conclusions. The true hero avoids the excesses of both extremes: not all nationalists are correct (thought most are), but nor are the Oprah-multiculturalists and their evangelical pastors correct.
t
t tIt's everything one ever wanted in an adventure book. The neo-lib media elites at TIME magazine boasted of reading and re-reading postmodern trash this year. I shall reread Shakespeare and Scott. Indeed, living well is the best revenge.
t
tNow that I understand more on the Papal Norman invasion of Old England, and the religous and heroic resistance of Old English Nationalism, I appreciate and enjoy this story even more on the third reading. I don't think Scott even fully understands how true his writing is in this regard. His narrative, better than any history or work of theology, opens new religious questions concerning medieval england.