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I read this last year - or rather, I ended up listening to the audiobook, on the tram to and from work. This was October-ish time, so just before I quit to go freelance. I think it'll probably always be associated with that for me.
It really wasn't the book I was expecting to read. Nothing to do with Scotland, for a start, and when they say Walter Scott pretty much introduced romantic chivalry to the British literary what-have-you, this is what they're talking about. Jousts. Favours from ladies. Rubbish disguises. Disinherited sons coming back from the Crusades. First (I believe?) recorded reference to Robin Hood as "Robin of Locksley". And of course, Evil King John in command and Good King Richard in disguise, loitering around Sheffield-sort-of-way getting drunk with the clergy. It's all rollicking good fun.
I had a few problems with Ivanhoe, some of which come from the fact that it's a genre forerunner, and therefore comparatively inept (see also: Dracula. Another genre that benefits from having previous iterations to improve on. And oh my, doesn't it just), and some of which come from being written in the 1810s which I'm going to call a Less Enlightened Era.
Problem the first: there's less substance than I wanted. I'm so used to Age Of Chivalry stories now, so I want to look at them a bit more critically. Walter Scott wasn't used to them, I can only assume, and that sort-of accounts for the fact that while fun is had by all, that's as far as it goes. There are several periods in English history - Lionheart era, the English Civil War, the Wars of the Roses, that sort of thing - where everyone just seems to be completely allergic to challenging the established narrative about who was the good guys, don't we all want the king back, valiant rebels are totally a thing that happened, etc. I just want to think about them a bit harder, these days. The fact that, where Richard the Lionheart is concerned, Ivanhoe is literally where we get the established narrative from these days - that's fascinating, of course, but let's not pretend that hooray-the-reds-boo-the-blues thinking was the only narrative that had been invented in 1819. I guess, with something so seminal, I wanted/expected something a bit more nuanced. But then, when I started, I didn't realise it wasn't set in Scotland. So possibly I should have done my research a bit better.
Problem the second: and I'm not quite sure how to approach this, is the astonishing anti-Semitism. I genuinely couldn't tell, a lot of the time, whether Scott is critical of it or not. Rebecca, who let's face it is the protagonist and hero of Ivanhoe (on the basis that Ivanhoe himself spends half the book abroad, asleep or flailing uselessly) is a damned good hero: resourceful, clever, compassionate, interesting. She gets a lot of strength from her religion, and uses it to excellent effect. She puts one over on the villains, and stays true to her own beliefs. Her father, Isaac of York, is a hook-nosed moneylender. Swing and a miss.
The trouble with listening to this on audiobook is that I can't go back and read a bit harder, and go over bits again to try and spot the nuance, without losing my place. So that for the time being is lost.
I wish I'd been able to let go of that, because then we'd have been up another star no problem, and I'd be reading Waverley RIGHT NOW. As it is, I had fun with this book, but it'll forever be associated for me with a period of change, leaving my job, and trying to present difficult dilemmas as things I'm cast-iron sure about.
It really wasn't the book I was expecting to read. Nothing to do with Scotland, for a start, and when they say Walter Scott pretty much introduced romantic chivalry to the British literary what-have-you, this is what they're talking about. Jousts. Favours from ladies. Rubbish disguises. Disinherited sons coming back from the Crusades. First (I believe?) recorded reference to Robin Hood as "Robin of Locksley". And of course, Evil King John in command and Good King Richard in disguise, loitering around Sheffield-sort-of-way getting drunk with the clergy. It's all rollicking good fun.
I had a few problems with Ivanhoe, some of which come from the fact that it's a genre forerunner, and therefore comparatively inept (see also: Dracula. Another genre that benefits from having previous iterations to improve on. And oh my, doesn't it just), and some of which come from being written in the 1810s which I'm going to call a Less Enlightened Era.
Problem the first: there's less substance than I wanted. I'm so used to Age Of Chivalry stories now, so I want to look at them a bit more critically. Walter Scott wasn't used to them, I can only assume, and that sort-of accounts for the fact that while fun is had by all, that's as far as it goes. There are several periods in English history - Lionheart era, the English Civil War, the Wars of the Roses, that sort of thing - where everyone just seems to be completely allergic to challenging the established narrative about who was the good guys, don't we all want the king back, valiant rebels are totally a thing that happened, etc. I just want to think about them a bit harder, these days. The fact that, where Richard the Lionheart is concerned, Ivanhoe is literally where we get the established narrative from these days - that's fascinating, of course, but let's not pretend that hooray-the-reds-boo-the-blues thinking was the only narrative that had been invented in 1819. I guess, with something so seminal, I wanted/expected something a bit more nuanced. But then, when I started, I didn't realise it wasn't set in Scotland. So possibly I should have done my research a bit better.
Problem the second: and I'm not quite sure how to approach this, is the astonishing anti-Semitism. I genuinely couldn't tell, a lot of the time, whether Scott is critical of it or not. Rebecca, who let's face it is the protagonist and hero of Ivanhoe (on the basis that Ivanhoe himself spends half the book abroad, asleep or flailing uselessly) is a damned good hero: resourceful, clever, compassionate, interesting. She gets a lot of strength from her religion, and uses it to excellent effect. She puts one over on the villains, and stays true to her own beliefs. Her father, Isaac of York, is a hook-nosed moneylender. Swing and a miss.
The trouble with listening to this on audiobook is that I can't go back and read a bit harder, and go over bits again to try and spot the nuance, without losing my place. So that for the time being is lost.
I wish I'd been able to let go of that, because then we'd have been up another star no problem, and I'd be reading Waverley RIGHT NOW. As it is, I had fun with this book, but it'll forever be associated for me with a period of change, leaving my job, and trying to present difficult dilemmas as things I'm cast-iron sure about.