I still don't know what happened in this book.
It was boring.
It is not worth reading in my opinion.

The majority of this book is written in Scottish and other languages such as French which made it impossible for me to retain anything or even understand anything.

Well that was a slog. I really hate giving any classic literature low stars but I struggled with this one. It could be because my general lack of knowledge of 18th century Scotland but I also really disliked the main character. Ivanhoe was so good so I had high hopes for Waverley but alas…

I must say that this was not an easy book to read. It was first published in 1814 and primarily written a dozen or so years previous to that, which means that the language is very formal and includes quite a few words that are now considered archaic. It also includes liberal offerings of Latin, French, Italian and a generous supply of highland slang.

However, I enjoy this type of book and the opportunities to learn (if even for a short time) a new word. Having recently traveled to Scotland, it was my honor to read a bit of its history. This particular story covers the time of the Jacobite rebellion--when loyal Scottish subjects attempted to oust their English oppressors and put a Stewart back on the Scottish throne.

If you approach it with a bit of patience and dedication, it is well worth the effort!

From the books of this great writer I had read so far only Ivanhoe at a young age in a Greek edition made for children. These two elements obviously made me unable to appreciate him as I should, but now that at a mature age I decided to read more, aspiring to read all the Waverley novels, finishing the first of them I think I can to understand why these books have such a place in the history of literature and why their writer is considered so important. Apart from this "academic" recognition, however, which may not be so important, I can say it is a book I really enjoyed.

The author is taking us to Scotland of 1745, just before the outbreak of the Jacobite uprising of that year. There, a young English gentleman, a little frivolous and very romantic, visits the area to reach in the end to the Highlands, where he is admiring the wild natural landscape, meet the proud inhabitants, sinks into the region's rich culture and falls in love. With him the reader follows this road and with the very beautiful descriptions given to him by the writer's pen, it is very difficult not to fall in love with this enchanting place where brave warriors roam and beautiful women singing touching lyrics from the long tradition of the region.

But this is the backdrop for the political upheaval that existed in Britain and was about the struggle for which family was entitled to sit on the throne. The exiled successor arrives in Scotland, his supporters are preparing to rise and our hero witnesses these preparations. All the beautiful things I described and the fact that his family are supporters of the exiled Stuart dynasty makes him friendly to this cause and so he starts his biggest adventures and drifts into the river of history. The writer, through the look of our hero, shows us a part of these events, with fascinating descriptions and is deepening in the feelings of the protagonists and the purposes they served. Finally, we understand the consequences of the rebellion, both in Scotland and the Highlands, as well as in our hero.

That's how the author ends his story, without putting his name, creating what is considered the first historical novel. The last claim I do not know if it is true but certainly this book is a model for the genre, having all these elements that make up an important historical novel as we know it. There is the story of the old, the existence of real and imaginary characters involved in important events, the thorough investigation of the conditions of the time manifested by the reporting of many details and in general a combination of a fictional story with the historical truth that makes us not only to know the story but also to somehow live it. All this is done by the author in the best possible way by creating a masterpiece and I can do nothing but to put the top rate and to bow on this wonderful ability of the writer.

Από τα βιβλία αυτού του μεγάλου συγγραφέα είχα διαβάσει ως τώρα μόνο τον Ιβανόη σε νεαρή ηλικία σε μια ελληνική έκδοση για παιδιά. Αυτά τα δύο στοιχεία προφανώς με έκαναν να να μην μπορώ να τον εκτιμήσω όπως θα έπρεπε, τώρα, όμως, που σε μία ώριμη ηλικία αποφάσισα να διαβάσω περισσότερα, φιλοδοξώντας να διαβάσω όλα τα λεγόμενα μυθιστορήματα του Waverley, τελειώνοντας το πρώτο από αυτά νομίζω ότι μπορώ να καταλάβω γιατί έχουν αυτά τα βιβλία μία τέτοια θέση στην ιστορία της λογοτεχνίας και γιατί ο συγγραφέας που θεωρείται τόσο σπουδαίος. Πέρα από αυτήν την "ακαδημαϊκή" αναγνώριση, όμως, που ίσως δεν έχει τόση σημασία, μπορώ να πω ότι είναι ένα βιβλίο που πραγματικά το απόλαυσα.

Ο συγγραφέας μας μεταφέρει στην Σκωτία του 1745, λίγο πριν από το ξέσπασμα της εξέγερσης των Ιακωβιτών εκείνη την χρονιά. Εκεί ένας νεαρός Άγγλος ευγενής, λίγο επιπόλαιος και πολύ ρομαντικός, επισκέπτεται την περιοχή για να καταλήξει τελικά στα Highlands, ο οποίος θαυμάζει το άγριο φυσικό τοπίο, γνωρίζει τους περήφανους κατοίκους, βυθίζεται στην κουλτούρα της περιοχής και ερωτεύεται. Μαζί του και ο αναγνώστης ακολουθεί αυτόν τον δρόμο και με τις πολύ ωραίες περιγραφές που μας χαρίζει η πένα του συγγραφέα είναι πολύ δύσκολο να μην ερωτευτεί αυτό το μαγευτικό μέρος που περιφέρονται γενναίοι πολεμιστές και όμορφες γυναίκες που τραγουδάνε συγκινητικούς στίχους από τη μακρά παράδοση της περιοχής.

Αυτό είναι όμως το φόντο για τις πολιτικές αναταραχές που υπήρχαν στην Βρετανία και είχαν ως αφορμή την διαμάχη για το ποια οικογένεια δικαιούταν να κάθεται στο θρόνο. Ο εξόριστος διάδοχος φτάνει στη Σκωτία και οι υποστηρικτές του ετοιμάζομαι να ξεσηκωθούν και ο ήρωας μας γίνεται μάρτυρας αυ��ών των προετοιμασιών. Όλα τα όμορφα πράγματα που περιέγραψα αλλά και το γεγονός ότι η οικογένειά του είναι υποστηρικτές της εξόριστης δυναστείας των Στιούαρτ τον κάνει να είναι φιλικός σε αυτόν τον σκοπό και έτσι ξεκινάνε οι μεγαλύτερες περιπέτειες του και παρασύρεται από το ποτάμι της ιστορίας. Ο συγγραφέας μέσα από τη ματιά του ήρωα μας μας δείχνει ένα μέρος από αυτά τα γεγονότα, με συναρπαστικές περιγραφές και εμβάθυνση στα συναισθήματα των πρωταγωνιστούν και στους σκοπούς που υπηρετούσαν. Στο τέλος καταλαβαίνουμε και τις συνέπειες της εξέγερσης, τόσο στην Σκωτία και τον πολιτισμό των Highlands, όσο και στον ήρωά μας.

Κάπως έτσι τελειώνει ο συγγραφέας την ιστορία του, χωρίς στο τέλος να βάζει το όνομά του, δημιουργώντας έτσι αυτό που θεωρείται το πρώτο ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα. Ο τελευταίος ισχυρισμός δεν ξέρω αν ισχύει αλλά σίγουρα αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ένα πρότυπο για το είδος, έχοντας όλα αυτά τα στοιχεία που συγκροτούν ένα σημαντικό ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα όπως το γνωρίζουμε. Υπάρχει η ιστορία από τα παλιά, η ύπαρξη πραγματικών και φανταστικών χαρακτήρων που εμπλέκονται σε σημαντικά γεγονότα, η ενδελεχής έρευνα για τις συνθήκες της εποχής που εκδηλώνεται με την αναφορά πολλών λεπτομερειών και γενικότερα ένας συνδυασμός μιας φανταστικής ιστορίας με την ιστορική αλήθεια που μας κάνει όχι μόνο να γνωρίζουμε την ιστορία αλλά και με κάποιον τρόπο να τη ζούμε. Όλα αυτά τα κάνει ο συγγραφέας με τον καλύτερο δυνατό τρόπο δημιουργώντας ένα αριστούργημα και εγώ δεν μπορώ να κάνω τίποτα άλλο από το να βάλω την άριστη βαθμολογία και να υποκλιθώ σε αυτήν την θαυμαστή ικανότητα του συγγραφέα.

Waverley was a marvelously surprising introduction to Walter Scott! It had to happen someday, Scott’s Victorian legacy being what it was*, and I even had a few contemporary recommendations, but I was half-prepared to buckle down for tedious historical detail and inaccessible archaism, almost expecting a text that demanded historical awareness alongside creative engagement. I was pleasantly mistaken! Scott refers to events that would have been doubtlessly more familiar circa 1814, when Waverley appeared after presumably six years of interrupted composition (although Scott pointedly “fix[es] the date of my story Sixty Years before this present 1st November, 1805” in the first chapter – on which, more soon), but today’s average reader could easily digest the historical references despite the urgency of Scott’s throwbacks to “Sixty Years since.” Indeed, Scott recycles his subtitle like a catchphrase and insists that his audience keep 1745 clearly in mind – this, despite his promised emphasis on “those passions common to men in all stages of society,” also in the bracing introductory chapter. However contradictory its sentiments in the long run, Waverley’s whimsical opening rather sets the tone for the novel: intermittently metafictional, temporally shifty, cleverly intertextual, and discursively layered. Erudite and entertaining, in other words! The closer you read, too, the more apparent it becomes that Waverley’s weaknesses are ruses – such that the Baron’s pedantic verbiage produces character, caricature, and charisma, and Scott’s periphrastic interventions manipulate diegetic time and narrative pace. On the subject of speed, I didn’t exactly fly through Waverley’s three volumes (if that were ever a way to treat a good book), but neither was I hampered by excessive or dry prose (which I’ll reiterate, having been wounded by some of the reviews up here). Stylist that he is, in my opinion, Scott writes beautiful Augustan sentences leavened with timely one-liners and episodes (many episodes!) of comic relief; it’s a combination of sophisticated antiquarianism and witty brio. The biggest downside was the heartsickness incurred in Googling the Highlands and the Tweed!

*The Waverley novels started a genre, and everybody read Scott for a long time into the nineteenth century. His staggering output of poetry (initially) and fiction (and non-) make him an instrumental figure in the history of popular literature, reading culture, the Scottish tradition...

It has taken me a long time to read a Walter Scott novel but it won’t take anywhere near as long before I read my second. I needed to read one. All the nineteenth century novelists who I have read and enjoyed in this country (England) and across Europe read Scott avidly and were hugely influenced by him. The influence continued into the twentieth century; much of the military and clan travelling in the remote Highlands of Scotland sets a tone that you’ll find in the Narnia novels of CS Lewis and in Tolkien.

This is a very readable adventure story of an over-Romantic hero becoming involved in the 1745 Jacobite Uprising. Easy to find fault from a modern perspective; the pace is lumbering in places and the hero is a long way from being a faultless hero which some modern readers (see other reviews) seem to have had difficulty with. He is intended to be a flawed young man capable of learning from his experiences. The same readers perhaps ought to avoid Hamlet and many other important works if they see this as a problem. The key thing about Waverley and the hugely impressive thing, is that Scott is here creating an entirely new genre; a genre that was taken up by Dickens, Tolstoy, Balzac, Hardy and Hilary Mantell, and remains today one of the dominant genres of fiction. Its a decent read in itself but its role in shaping nineteenth century fiction make five stars the minimum any reasonable reader could award it.

Maybe modern readers are put off by the fact that Scott was at first identified with the Romantic movement and expect a more revolutionary writer in the style of Shelley or Byron. In fact he was often compared with the latter (In Persuasion Anne Elliot and Captain Benwick discuss the merits of the two) and Byron was by far the more colourful personality and by some distance the greater poet. Scott was for peace and stability; a good old nineteenth century Tory and some modern readers find this unforgivable in him even though they are prepared to overlook it in, for instance, Charlotte Brontë.

My interest is in Scott from a Law and Literature perspective. Many nineteenth century novelists and poets took a close interest in trying to reform the law. My particular interest in Scott is in him being by far the most successful novelist who was also a practicing lawyer. The way property law is dealt with in Waverley is fascinating, as is the legal transition from a patriarchal clan based society to a modern state.

There are many reasons for reading Scott in this 250th anniversary year. Read it for a rattling good tale, read it for pure entertainment, read it for a perspective on important historical events, read it from a legal point of view or read it because of the enormous importance it has in the history of literature. Do not read it with the intention to prove that Scott was a poor writer. He wasn’t and any such attempt will only serve to undermine your own credibility.

It doesn't usually take me this long to read a book. But I'm glad that I did.

Though the first of the Waverley novels, this was the fourth that I read and, so far, my favorite. Perhaps because I am getting the hang of Scott's writing. The language can be cumbersome but he is a terrific storyteller. No wonder people have been reading his novels for hundreds of years!

I couldn't do it. I got 30 pages from the end and just could not take it any more. This is the most mind-numbing, monotonous, self-insistent book i have ever read. Scott's writing is so pretentious and removed from humanity that my mind glazed over the words every other page. Sorry, I tried.

Well. That took a while to read.
This book, Waverley, considered by some to be the first historical novel, is the swashbuckling tale (but apparently not the bildungsroman) of Edward Waverley, heir to his uncle’s estate. (There is an interesting dynamic here in the enmity between the father and the uncle that hints at the political climate.)
Edward, at the beginning of this lengthy book, has had charge mostly of his own education, and adores with a deep love everything “romantic” (in the true sense of the word) and then decides to seek his fortune in the world. He and his uncle decide that Waverley should join the military, so he does, and is instantly made a Major because of his rank and social status, and assigned a regiment.
Edward sallies forth to join said regiment in Scotland, takes some military training, then takes leave to stay with his uncle’s great friend, the illustrious Baron of Bradwardine at his estate. Edward is first caught in an experience with the Highland head honcho and essentially, the Mafia leader, Donald Bean Lean. Waverley then meets the belligerent and passionate Highland chief Fergus Mac-Ivor and his entrancing sister Flora, with whom, Waverley, seeing Flora as the picture-perfect idea of the romantic story, immediately falls in love with—or thinks he does, at least.
Life goes on for 200 pages, until the political climate reveals itself, going from merely tense to openly ferocious. He discovers Fergus is a follower of the Jacobite rebellion behind the “Cavalier,” the “Prince,” or the “Pretender,” which ever you want to use.
It may be noted that this is the exact opposite of the politics of Waverley’s uncle Sir Everard.
Letters arrive late at Tully-Veolan for Waverley; his relatives urging him to return home, and his regiment’s entreaties for him to join them as he has overstayed his leave. These last become more and more violent as the rumor that Waverley is associating with Fergus and the rest of the rebels spreads. Waverley is finally arrested for desertion, but he is eventually rescued by his friends, but these chapters go on in a hazy blur as he falls ill and keeps waking up in random strangers’ houses…
Then, he is taken to see the Cavalier, who really just wants to meet him, and to whom Waverley, who has struggled all this time with his allegiances, naively and immediately swears fealty. Edward then fights in a major battle, but is separated from his friends and the army. He saves Col. Talbot (from the English army) ‘s life, and Col. Talbot chastises him for his uncle that Waverley should be fighting on the wrong side.
Talbot is granted as Waverley’s “prisoner” whom Waverley releases at the news that Talbot’s wife’s health is waning.
When the Jacobite cause falls in 1746, Talbot pulls some strings to grant Waverley a pardon for treason. Edward travels to find Tully-Veolan, the ancestral home of the Bradwardines, only to find it decrepit. Waverley, seeking news of the Baron and Rose, find the mentally dodding Davie Gellatey (reminiscent at times of Wamba from Ivanhoe) who originally says that the Bradwardines are dead, but then takes Waverley to a secret hut on the grounds where the Baron are hiding. Rose is safe somewhere else. The Baron is pardoned—at loss of Tully-Veolan, to his sorrow—and Edward seeks out Flora, who plans to join a French convent.
Waverley and Talbot buy Tully-Veolan from the Baron’s doddery cousin (the new owner), restore it, and then surprise the Baron with it. Waverley, having grown up mentally by this point, seeing both the folly and the glory of the world, has a different worldview and lives happily ever after.

Overall, I liked this book and am glad that I read it. I would recommend it—the end is a reward for the beginning, which is such a project for the perseverant.
The characters are lovable and interesting, from naive and thoughtful Waverley; the proud, patriotic, and passionate Flora, who cares only for her country and for her brother; the bold and daring Fergus, who stands by his values and at the end, bravely pays the consequences of his actions; the lovable Baron, who spouts Latin tags and Gaelic vernacular in every third sentence and deeply loves his daughter and his title; the considerate Col. Talbot and his wife, Lady Emily; the quiet and intelligent Rose, who is the hidden savior of the tale; and even Davie and Janet in the little hut in the woods.

I have dnf’d this in the hope that I might pick it up in the future.

Much like Ivanhoe in Ivanhoe, the Waverley of Waverley isn't the true hero of this story. And, much like Ivanhoe did with the Crusades, this paints a picture of what life was like for the lesser knowns, the less influential but no less heroic or passionate of a failed cause. In this case it's the Jacobite Rebellion, and the Battle of Culloden. We don't actually see the battle, not really, because our narrator, our stand-in, is injured and ill and taken away from the scene. But through him we encounter major and minor players, everyone from the would-be king to his supporters and his detractors. Simple farm folk who don't know what's going on, servants who only support a cause because their master does. It's a deceptively simple slice-of-life, during a time when life was rather thrilling and tragic.

It took me 5 times of checking the Audiobook out to finish, it was definitely a chore to get through for most of it, but I’m glad I did finish. I really started to enjoy it when there were about 3 hours left to listen to. I listened to this while reading along for parts because the Scottish Dialect got to be a bit much to understand. I read this for two reasons, Charlotte Mason was know to always have a Waverley Novel going at all times, and I am counting this as my “Obscure Novel mentioned by Mr. Banks” for the Litlife Podcast Reading Challenge.