Ivanhoe

One of my favorite novels in junior high. This began a life long affection for the work of Sir Walter Scott, even those whose language was difficult to read. I found the rewards to be worth the effort.

Here is a very good quote from the Goodreads description of the book: "The gripping narrative is structured by a series of conflicts: Saxon versus Norman, Christian versus Jew, men versus women, played out against Scott's unflinching moral realism."

Ivanhoe is one of Scott's best known and best loved works. Movies, TV programs, radio, etc have often been based on this novel of adventure and romance. There was even an anachronistic 1960's British TV series starring Roger Moore, the future Saint and James Bond. It is currently available on Amazon and free with Amazon Prime.

"El amor por la batalla es nuestra razón de vivir. El polvo de la melee es el aire que da sentido a nuestra vida. No vivimos ni deseamos vivir más allá de nuestras victorias y reconocimiento."

He leído por fin este súper conocido clásico de la novela histórica de Walter Scott que creo se podría resumir de forma muy somera con un "Qué malos son los templarios".
El autor nos ilustra una Inglaterra del siglo XII que aún se encuentra muy dividida por la reciente conquista de la isla por los normandos. Guillermo el Conquistador (a quien conocía por haber leído textos de historia e incluso uno sobre la Batalla de Hastings) fue el que desde Francia conquistó a la Inglaterra gobernada por los sajones. Es así que estas dos razas conviven con un gran resentimiento por parte de los sajones.
De estos su líder espiritual viene a ser Cedric quien protege al supuesto heredero de la corona inglesa el dubitativo Athelstane a quien por su linaje respeta y sueña con que reconquiste el trono de los "afrancesados" normandos. Sin embargo, respeta al rey actual que viene a ser Ricardo "Corazón de León" quien se sabe está prisionero en Austria luego de haberse teñido de gloria en las Cruzadas.
Esta situación es aprovechada por su malvado hermano, el príncipe Juan llamado "sin tierra" quien como muchas tradiciones tratan, intenta hacerse de un grupo de nobles aliados para poder gobernar en vez de su hermano. Entre ellos están Waldemar Fitzurse, Mauricio de Bracy y otros. Juan es retratado como un déspota cobarde y ambicioso que a pesar de todo "engrandece" la figura de Ricardo quien es reconocido hasta por sus enemigos como valiente y aventurero.
La introducción en sí me pareció un poco larga y creo es la parte más pesada del libro pero luego ya se cuenta la historia de forma más amena y también las acciones son más interesantes.
Hay en la historia un gran rechazo a los franceses, pues se consideran invasores en gran medida, y este rechazo está enfocado en la novela sobre todo contra los caballeros templarios. Esto podría haberme ganado la animadversión pues tengo preferencia histórica por ellos pero es una licencia que puedo aceptar sin problemas. Scott hace ver a los templarios como gente en su mayoría hipócrita y blasfema incluso. Y lo resumen en un personaje que viene a ser un gran antagonista Brian de Bois-Guilbert. Este caballero es más ateo que el peor pero ha tenido un gran desempeño en tierra santa luchando contra los sarracenos.

"¿Cuando el hálito de un templario no ha ocasionado sino crueldad a los hombres y oprobio a las mujeres?"

El grupo de buenos de la historia está liderado por Ivanhoe que viene a ser un hijo despreciado en la sociedad sajona quien luego de acompañar con entusiasmo al rey Ricardo vuelve a limpiar su honor. Tiene la misteriosa ayuda del Caballero negro cuya identidad será algo que llama mucho en la trama y me resulta muy bien manejado.
No soy de los que reclaman demasiado con "lo correcto" de nuestra época actual o algo muy evidente que quizás antes no se consideraba, pero debo decir que me sorprendió en este libro la cantidad de veces que le dan con palo a los judíos, me refiero hablando mal de ellos pero hasta por gusto.
Del lado de las mujeres destaca la hermosa y orgullosa Lady Rowena (me gusta cómo suena su nombre jaja) que pertenece a la nobleza sajona y la judía Rebecca hija del codicioso y mendaz Isaac.
Hay muchas mini historias por dentro aunque debo decir que una de las cosas que me gustó del libro fue su pequeño desarrollo. Se nos cuenta una historia simple que siempre tiene un hilo conductor y que se desarrolla en un espacio pequeño. Eso lo hace bastante llevadero y ayuda a entender la dirección. Sin embargo, hay torneos, asedios, luchas, juicios y un largo etcétera si bien es cierto estos temas no llegan a ser muy épicos porque no son tratados de manera muy profunda o grandilocuente. Encuentro artificialidad por momentos y una gran parcialidad inglesa pero como menciono la facilidad de lectura, y la historia bien llevada te hace querer y odiar a los personajes y te graba en la memoria bien los hechos lo que llegas a ver como "clásicos" o de alguna manera inolvidables.
Cada personaje cumple su función en la trama. Hasta el loco Wamba quien viene a ser un bufón del grupo de Cedric que viene a ser el contrapeso jocoso de la novela (es el primer bufón que me cae bien) y no deja de lanzar dardos a todos los personajes por más serios que sean.
Otro personaje que me sorprendió fue Robin Hood, sabía que aparecería pero no pensé que tendría un papel tan importante. No solo él sino su clásica pandilla de Sherwood entre los que está sobre todo el Ermitaño de Companhurst.
Por momentos Ivanhoe pierde terrible protagonismo y hasta podemos darle un poco más de peso al terrible Brian de Bois-Guilbert quien a pesar de todo le da el tono romántico - criminal que llega a ser más intenso que casi todos los personajes de la historia. El final no fue muy de mi gusto

"El sonido de mi voz es aterrador a mis propios oídos. Apenas sé el terreno que pisamos ni con que objeto nos han traído aquí"

Sometimes I'm in the middle of complaining to Joanne that some book, which I told Joanne before I started was probably going to be boring and stupid, is indeed boring and stupid, and I plan to complain about it being boring and stupid for the next week because it's also long, and Joanne says silly things like "Why would you even start a book that you think will be boring and stupid?" Ivanhoe is why! Sometimes I'm wrong. I thought Ivanhoe would be boring and stupid, but it's a blast.

Flesh Wounds
Here's the test for whether you'll like it: have you ever liked any story - even just one story - with a knight in it? If you're not totally immune to knights clanking about flinging gauntlets at each other, you should like Ivanhoe. It's the apotheosis of knight-bashing. There are:

- damsels in distress, and a terrific response by one of them;
- a great scheming old crone in a tower;
- a wicked prince;
- a thrilling castle siege (and note: those are usually not thrilling, it's just super hard to write large-scale battle scenes that work, but here you go!);
- mystery knights in black;
- a lusty brawling priest;
- even an outlaw bowman dressed in green. (Is his identity supposed to be a secret? Because it's not, neither is the Black Knight's.)



If none of those things sound fun to you....well, we can still read Mansfield Park together.

Apologetic Anti-Semitism
The one thing I should mention that doesn't sit perfectly with me is (sigh, here we go again) Isaac the Jew. And look, Scott's major point, which he makes again and again, is how awful bigotry towards Jews is. "Except the flying fish," he says, "there was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or the waters, who were the object of such an intermitting, general, and relentless persecution as the Jews," and you're like yeah! Good point! But then he follows that with "The obstinacy and avarice of the Jews...seemed to increase in proportion to the persecution with which they were visited," and you're like waaaaaiiiit a minute here chief. It's a sortof apologetic anti-Semitism that you run into sometimes with 1800s writers: "There was no angle left to them but to become money-lenders," they seem to say, "So of course they became greedy and wicked as well." Harriet Beecher Stowe has similar ideas about Black people in Uncle Tom's Cabin. I think they're trying, but it doesn't age well.

Walter Scott in Context
Scott is sometimes called the inventor of historical fiction. He's also sometimes called shitty; EM Forster says that "To make things happen one after another is his only serious aim." Scott can't do characters; he can't even do plots. He just presents a series of scenes. "He has the power to present the outside of a character and to work from the outside to the inside," says Pritchett. "But once inside, he discovers only what is generic." But then there's David Lodge calling Scott "the single Shakespearean talent of the English novel."

All of these things are hyperbole. It's true that characterization is not Scott's strong point - lot of archetypes here - but everyone's entertaining and memorable enough; it's okay not to be a psychologist. Scott's super fun to read, and that's great.

...and in Central Park
For some reason Central Park has a statue of him, which I went to visit as I read Ivanhoe. Here it is:



Over on the other side - in shade, so the pic I took from that side doesn't show it at all - is his dog. He looks like a nice guy, doesn't he? I like him.

Ivanhoe is a historical novel, a mix between fiction and reality, which fascinates the reader of any age and launches it into the past with incredible ease. If you read it, prepare for this effect.
The plot takes place in England at the end of 1100. The Norman king Richard "Lionheart", just returned from a Crusade, was captured in Austria, with the complicity of his brother, the greedy Giovanni Senzaterra. Giovanni Senzaterra, does the functions of regent, but wants to definitively obtain the throne and thus favors the Norman side against the Saxon one. Ivanhoe, son of Cedric, is a Saxon, but his father disinherited him because Ivanhoe fought alongside Richard in the crusades and also because he fell in love with Rowena, a Saxon noble who Cedric wanted to marry Athelstane, descendant of the last Saxon king, so as to reinvigorate the Saxon race and contrast the Norman one.
Ivanhoe returns from the Crusade in disguise, that is, under the guise of the Disinherited Knight, and goes to Cedric Castle, where he also finds Rowena and the slimy Templar knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who hates Ivanhoe because he defeated him in a duel. Ivanhoe, on the way to the country's tournament, saves the Jew Isaac from an ambush by Bois-Guilbert. During the tournament, Ivanhoe is wounded, but beats all his rivals, including Bois-Guilbert, thanks to the help of a mysterious Black Knight. However, due to the injury, Ivanhoe cannot prevent his helmet from being removed, and therefore everyone sees who he really is. At the final banquet, Giovanni Senzaterra is informed of the release of his brother Richard and the tension between Saxons and Normans grows, in particular between Ivanhoe and his father Cedric, who cannot accept Ivanhoe's decision to stay on the side of the Normans. Meanwhile, Rebecca, Isaac's beautiful daughter, falls in love with Ivanhoe, just when Bois-Guilbert and another shady figure organize a plan to kidnap Rowena and Rebecca, the two women they want. Cedric, Athelstane and Isaac are also captured in the ambush, but two servants escape and reach a gang of thieves, commanded by a certain Locksley, also joined by the mysterious Black Knight.
Here we get into the action: Locksley's gang manages to free Cedric and Rowena, but in the operation Athelstane is killed by Bois-Guilbert who flees carrying Rebecca with him. Bois-Guilbert brings Rebecca before a court, where, being Jewish and considered a witch, she is sentenced to death, unless she manages to find a Christian paladin who fights for her in a duel. The Black Knight (who we actually discover is King Richard) falls into an ambush by his brother Giovanni, who wants to get him out of the way to take the crown. Riccardo is however saved by Robin Hood's intervention (yes, him!). When Cedric and Ivanhoe arrive, we find out that Athelstane is not dead and they are all happy, because he is not against the love between Rowena and Ivanhoe. And Cedric, advised by King Richard, forgives Ivanhoe. Soon after Ivanhoe goes to save Rebecca, whom we had left in search of a paladin who fought for her; in a final fatal clash with Bois-Guilbert, Ivanhoe wins when the rival, anguished and torn between his immense love for the Jewish Rebecca and his Christian faith, dies of a heart attack. After these excited events, Ivanhoe and Rowena get married, while Rebecca and her father leave England to settle in Spain.
The characters of the story are easily framed between Good and Bad: there are the Normans (that is, in practice, the French) all amoral, unrestrained, proud opponents, so valiant as to be a great source of pride for those who defeat them, that is, the British. The British are all good, perhaps a little rough, but only because they are pure.
This is a very schematic reconstruction of the book, a sort of balance between good and bad, in which the good can triumph even using violence for good. The happy ending in this sense is blatant: the good Ivanhoe gets everything he wanted: he marries, his father forgives him, the King blesses him, he carries on the English dynasty.
These stereotypical characters are perhaps the least convincing thing about the book, which is otherwise pleasantly readable; reading is fluent, easy, the lexicon is rich; Scott goes a long way in descriptions, the images created are very lively and reading is never heavy. Medieval society is well represented and perhaps it is the true protagonist of the book: the feelings of each individual and faction, their values and their objectives are perceived.
After all Scott is Scott and Ivanhoe is a classic of English literature.

(Book 930 from 1001 books) - Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott

Ivanhoe is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1820 in three volumes and subtitled A Romance. It has proved to be one of the best known and most influential of Scott's novels.

At the time it was written it represented a shift by Scott away from fairly realistic novels set in Scotland in the comparatively recent past, to a somewhat fanciful depiction of medieval England.

Ivanhoe is the story of one of the remaining Saxon noble families at a time when the nobility in England was overwhelmingly Norman.

It follows the Saxon protagonist, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who is out of favour with his father for his allegiance to the Norman king Richard the Lionheart.

The story is set in 1194, after the failure of the Third Crusade, when many of the Crusaders were still returning to their homes in Europe.

King Richard, who had been captured by Leopold of Austria on his return journey to England, was believed to still be in captivity.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «انگلیس در هشت قرن پیش با قسمتهایی از جنگهای صلیبی»؛ «آیوانهو»؛ «آیوانهوئه»؛ نویسنده سر والتر اسکات؛ (توسن) ادبیات بریتانیا؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز دهم ماه ژوئن سال 2014میلادی

عنوان: انگلیس در هشت قرن پیش با قسمتهایی از جنگهای صلیبی؛ تالیف سروالتر اسکات؛ ترجمه و نگارش عبدالله انصاری؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، شرکت مطبوعات، 1320، مشخصات ظاهری 160ص؛ این کتاب تحت عنوان «آیوانهوئه» در سالهای مختلف با مترجمان و ناشران متفاوت چاپ گردیده است، موضوع: داستان‌های نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 19م، انگلستان - تاریخ - ریچارد اول، سال 1189میلادی - 1199م – داستان - سده 19م

عنوان: ایوانهو؛ تالیف: سروالتر اسکات؛ مترجم خسرو شایسته؛ تهران، سپیده، 1364، در 174ص؛ مصور، فروس: انتشارات سپیده دوازده، کتاب برای نخستین بار با عنوان «آیوانهو» با ترجمه عنایت الله شکیباپور توسط انتشارات توسن منتشر شده است

عنوان: ایوانهو (متن کوتاه شده)؛ تالیف: سروالتر اسکات؛ مترجم: تهمینه مظفری؛ تهران، نشر مرکز، 1386، در 298ص، شابک9789643059545؛

عنوان: ایوانهو؛ تالیف: سروالتر اسکات؛ مترجم عنایت الله شکیباپور؛ تهران، توسن، 1363، در 87ص؛ مصور، فروست انتشارات سپیده دوازده؛

عنوان: ایوانهو (متن کوتاه شده)؛ تالیف سروالتر اسکات؛ مترجم شکوفه اخوان؛ تهران، نهال نویدان، 1375، در159ص، شابک9649004653؛

عنوان: ایوانهو؛ تالیف سروالتر اسکات؛ مترجم محمدتقی دانیا؛ تهران، دبیر، 1386، در 208ص، شابک9789642621224؛

عنوان: ایوانهو؛ تالیف سروالتر اسکات؛ مترجم محمدتقی دانیا؛ تهران، دادجو دبیر، 1388، در174ص، شابک9789642621224؛

سِر والتر اسکات، رمان‌نویس، شاعر، تاریخ‌دان و زندگی‌نامه‌ نویس «اسکاتلندی»، که ایشان را پدر رمان تاریخی می‌دانند، قالبی را که ایشان برای این سبک از ادبیات داستانی، به‌ کار بسته، تا به امروز از آن قالب پیروی شده‌ است؛ اشعار، و رمان‌های معروف به «وِیورلی» ایشان، به بازگویی رخدادهای هیجان انگیز، در باره ی تاریخ میهن اش می‌پردازند، و سایر رمان‌های ایشان، به «بریتانیا»، و «فرانسه»ی دوران سده های میانه ی میلادی برمی‌گردند، که شخصیت‌های آنها را «شاهان»، «ملکه‌ ها»، «مردان سیاسی»، «مزرعه‌ داران»، «گدایان»، و «راهزنان»، شکل می‌دهند

والتر اسکات ویلفرد آیوانهو، پسر «سدریک»، یکی از اشراف «ساکسون»، به «لیدی راونا»، دختری تحت قیمومت پدرش، و از اسلاف «آلفرد شاه»، دلباخته، ولی «سدریک»، که طرفدار پر و پا قرص بازگشت نژاد «ساکسون» به سلطنت «انگلستان» است، می‌اندیشد که با دادن «راونا» به یکی «ساکسون»ها، که خون پادشان در رگهایش جاری است، به هدف خود خواهد رسید؛ او که از عشق دو جوان، به یکدیگر، بسیار خشمگین شده است، پسرش را تبعید می‌کند؛ «آیونهو» به همراه «ریچارد شیردل»، به جنگهای صلیبی می‌رود، و دیری نمی‌گذرد، که احترام و محبت «ریچارد» را به خود جلب می‌کند

پرنس جان، در غیاب برادر، در صدد برمی‌آید، که بر تخت و تاج دست یابد؛ این رخداد همانند همیشه، برای «والتر اسکات»، بهانه ی خلق رخدادهای درخشانی می‌شود؛ مسابقه ی بزرگ «آشبی دولازوش» که در آن «آیونهو»، پیشاپیش «ریچارد»، تمام شهسواران «پرنس جان»، و از جمله «سر بریاند دوبوا گیلبر»، شهسوار سرسخت پرستشگاه، و «سر رجینالد گاو پیشانی» را شکست می‌دهد، قابل توجه است؛ همچنین باید به ماجرای یورش به قلعه ی «تورکیلستون» اشاره کرد، که در آن یورش، «آیونهو» زخمی می‌شود؛ «سدریک»، «راونا»، «آتلستان»، «اسحاق یورکی یهودی»، و دختر با شهامتش «ربکا»، به دست اشراف «نورمان»، زندانی شده‌ اند؛ اما پس از نبردی سخت، گروهی از راهزنها و «ساکسون»ها، که «رابین هود لاکسلی» افسانه‌ ای، و «ریچارد شاه»، بر آنها فرمان می‌رانند، قلعه را بازپس می‌گیرند؛ «اولریش» «ساکسون» پیر، که محبوبه ی قاتل پدرش شده است، و با افشاندن بذر نفاق میان «نورمان»ها، انتقام خود را گرفته است، قلعه را آتش می‌زند؛ زندانیان آزاد می‌شوند، ولی «بواگیلبر» که دلباخته ی «ربکا» شده، او را با خود به «تمپلستو» می‌برد؛ چون دختر جوان، عشق شهسوار پرستشگاه را نمی‌پذیرد؛ مرد نیز او را به جادوگری متهم می‌کند؛ خوشبختانه «آیوانهو»، که در دوئلی با «بواگیلبر» روبرو می‌شود، دختر جوان را آزاد می‌کند

آیوانهو با «لیدی راونا» ازدواج می‌کند، و «ربکا»، چون کاری دیگر از دستش برنمی‌آید، به همراه پدر خویش «انگلستان» را ترک می‌کند؛ در میان شخصیتهای درجه دوم، باید به «رابین هود»، «برادر تاک راهب سرباز»، «وامبای دلقک»، و «اسحاق یهودی»، که به «شیلاک» «شکسپیر» شباهت دارد، و در وجودش سودای پول، و عشق ابدی، باهم در جدال هستند، اشاره کرد؛ این رمان در «اروپا» با موفقیت روبرو شد؛ «آیونهو» همراه با «کوئنتین دوروارد» منشأ موج رمان تاریخی به شمار می‌رود، که نتایج تتبع تاریخی را به زنده‌ ترین منابع تخیل پیوند می‌زند؛ تمام تردیدهایی که در مورد پژوهش تاریخی بتوان ابراز داشت، به پیروزی اثر آسیب نمی‌زند، زیرا تازگی سبک، همه‌ جا آشکار است؛ «والتر اسکات»، چنانکه خود در تقدیم‌ نامه ی اثر می‌نویسندد، تنها میخواسته، که رنگ تاریخی رمان را نگهبانی کند؛ او میخواسته چیزی جز واقعیت تاریخی، در آن راه ندهد، در گزینش جزئیات نیز مقداری آزادی برای خود برگزیده است

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 20/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 16/07/1400هجریخورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Good gravy, I've had Ivanhoe on my literary back burner for longer than I can remember. I love a romping good adventure story, but when I say that I mean things like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, The Odyssey or The Princess Bride. I like my adventure stories to have... adventure. I expected adventure in Ivanhoe since it often falls into the same category as a lot of other swashbuckling adventures, filled with excitement.

I think my copy was broken, because I didn't get much excitement out of it.

It's not that it's a bad story by any stretch of the imagination. It's the grandpappy of historical fiction - published in 1819, the story actually takes place in the early twelfth century focusing on the whole Norman/Saxon brouhaha. Wilfred of Ivanhoe is shunned by his Saxon father for his dedication to the ENEMY: Couer de Lion, aka Richard the Lion-Heart, aka Richard I of England. And then there's a lot of stuff about politics and religion, which actually was pretty interesting, if a little unbelievable for the period in which the story was to take place. Likely that Ivanhoe would have had much opportunity to really hook up with the Jewish Rebecca? About as likely as Jack, a third-class passenger on a sinking ship, would hook up with high-class Rose in that dumb movie, Titanic. But at least the discussions of religion/class actually seemed to make a point in Ivanhoe.

But there were lots of pages of talky-talk that seemed very unrealistic. Everyone in the twelfth century, according to Walter Scott, was pretty well-educated and awful liberal-minded. But it goes beyond that! There's a scene in which there is a fire, and I swear pages went by where people are talking about the fire, but no one is actually making any movement to leave. Maybe it was my imagination but that scene dragged on forever. And there's so much greenery in the twelfth century! Maybe as a 21st-century gal it's hard to imagine so much greenery, but this went beyond the woods and the hills and the dales. Everyone wore green, there was green hanging everywhere. Green, apparently, was the new black in 1194.

Pages and pages of discussion about the size of the tables, the wood the tables were made of, what was on the tables, what the people sitting at the tables looked like, why some people weren't at the table... it never seemed to end.

But people really seem to love this story, so who am I to discourage anyone else from reading it? There were some good things about this as well, like an appearance of Robin Hood. A lot of what we believe about Robin Hood actually can be traced back to Ivanhoe, so that's pretty cool. Still I consider Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood a much better adventure story than Ivanhoe, but that's probably beside the point.

I am glad to have read this, even though I learned in the Afterword that not only was Scott's writing sloppily anachronistic, but he also wrote the story to try to make some big bucks. For some reason that sort of rubbed me the wrong way, though certainly he's not the first nor the last writer to be in the writing game just for the Benjamins.

I'm mostly just relieved to be able to cross this off my list. WARNING: As with any work of historical fiction, take the story with a grain of salt.

I want someone to bring the Trysting tree back into popularity. There's something pretty neat-o about meeting under a tree to discuss really important things.

2024/14

Boring, tedious, plain, confusing, are just a few adjectives that would accurately describe this novel. To put it mildly, Ivanhoe has been my most disappointing reading experience in years, as a matter of fact, I can't remember another book at the moment that was even worse than this mess.

To begin with, it is wise to recognize one's mistakes. Mine was simple: believing that I was about to read an adventure novel, such as those written by Alexander Dumas, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle—The Lost World—H. G. Wells, and of course, Homer and his Odyssey. Little did I know that Ivanhoe wouldn't be an adventure classic by any means; rather, it is a historical book with lots of 'dialogue' that might remind you of a gathering with your pals, but where almost everyone is already drunk and starts saying nonsense. Actually, the entire book—around six hundred pages—might be divided into two sections: one, unnecessary descriptions where the author goes on and on about what each character is wearing, once and again, and again, what a random room or place looks like, food—I can't recollect how many times he mentioned it in the book, but eventually it became tiring and overwhelming—and so on, instead of depicting his characters and giving them particular roles and personality, or describing important events, facts, episodes that were important during that time, and two, monotonous conversations where you have no idea who is talking—every single character has exactly the same 'voice,' so to speak—and, most importantly, what they are talking about (for instance, the editor pointed out in the footnotes that the author came up with some characters' names, 'characters' that were not a part of the story to begin with). The constant repetition of things along with the sketchy dialogue were crucial elements that made my whole experience a nightmare.

Sometimes I thought I was in a scene from Hairspray—I mean no offense to such a sweet movie—as the characters start to sing completely out of the blue! Other times I got distracted a little—I was listening to the audiobook and following along with a copy—and as soon as I was back to the story I didn't have to bother to go back a few minutes or so, since the 'story' was still understandable. As a matter of fact, you could get rid of at least three hundred pages or more and the story wouldn't change at all. That reminds me that Scott loses focus quite a few times, and starts rambling about things that have barely anything to do with the plot.

There is more, don't worry. Towards the end of the book Scott is laughing at us, his readers, as he is doing the unthinkable fiction-wise: he writes something that doesn't make any sense, just because he can, maybe he wanted to finish the novel right away, I read he wrote it just because he needed the money from its sales as soon as possible, he needed it to purchase a commission in the army for his son, and his quill and ink allowed him to do so. I was laughing too, and not because I thought it was funny, but because it was enough. I had had enough of this piece of...literature.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:

Quality of writing [1.5/5]
Pace [0.5/5]
Plot development [1/5]
Characters [0.5/5]
Enjoyability [0.5/5]
Insightfulness [1/5]
Easy of reading [1.5/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]

Total [6.5/7] = 0.92

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.