Sir
Walter
Scott
IVANHOE (1819) Reviewed by Patrick Killough I. Review for http://www.barnesandnoble.com TITLE OF BOOK: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott Here is how your review will appear on the title page:* * * * * (Five Stars) REVIEWER: T. Patrick Killough (patrickkillough@charter.net), preparing a course on Walter Scott, April 25, 2006, Title of Review: Rebecca of York by herself makes the book a masterpiece Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel IVANHOE is a thoroughly enjoyable masterpiece by one of the greatest story tellers this world is ever likely to know. Hints are given as to where the story is going, making it easy to follow despite being set in long ago England. Memorable characters abound, especially the Norman Knight Templar, villainous Brian de Bois-Guibert, the Jewess Rebecca of York and a supporting cast led by Wamba the Jester and Gurth the swineherd. Throw in the thinly disguised Black Knight (King Richard the Lion-Hearted), his crafty brother Prince John, Robin Hood and his Merry Men, sullen Saxons, ruthless Normans like Front-de-Boeuf, worldly churchmen, beautiful women and the lovers Wilfred of Ivanhoe and Rowena and you have a tale hard to set down till read cover to cover. The motivations of all the characters as well as 'where they are coming from' drive their actions. The visual backdrop is lush from joust, to castle siege, to witch trial. Finally, this is a powerful study of anti-Semitism, a few generations before Jews were driven out of England. The scene in Chapter XXVIII when Ivanhoe wakes to find his wound well tended by Rebecca is unforgettable. Initially, he is grateful. But honesty compels Rebecca to say, 'your handmaiden is a poor Jewess.' And 'Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to retain the same class of feelings toward a Jewess.' Though it was hard for him to overcome the prejudices dinned into him by church and culture, in the end Ivanhoe alone champions Rebecca and prevents her being burned at the stake for witchcraft by the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. In her meeting with an apparently unprejudiced Rowena at novel's end, Rebecca of York asserts (Ch. XLIV) ' ... there is a gulf betwixt us. Our breeding, our faith, alike forbid either to pass over it. Farewell.' IVANHOE may be the best work for someone to read before any other poem or novel of Scott's. It will not be his last. Also recommended: --Sir Walter Scott, THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, KENILWORTH and THE LADY OF THE LAKE. --W. M. Thackeray, REBECCA AND ROWENA. A.N. Wilson, THE LAIRD OF ABBOTSFORD: A VIEW OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. =-=-==-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= II. for amazon.com REVIEW'S TITLE: "The brilliant but useless character of a knight of Romance", March 16, 2007 REVIEWER: T. Patrick Killough (Black Mountain, NC United States) REVIEWER'S RATING OF IVANHOE: * * * * * (Five Stars) The plot of IVANHOE is probably as well known to many American readers as some books of the Bible. Taking the plot for granted, therefore, what else is worth thinking about? Walter Scott added two elements to the novel form in literature: (1) historical realism or quasi-realism and (2) political reality. (1) The historical reality of the 1190s and the troubled reigns of King Richard the Lion-Heart and later of his brother Prince John of Anjou is that it was a horrible time to be Jewish in England. Jews were burned, despised and paid huge tribute to rapacious rulers from their treasure. Who captures this social fact better than Scott in IVANHOE? Does even one "Nazarene" treat a Jew even once as unselfishly and uncritically as did the Good Samaritan in Jesus's parable? No, not one. Rowena comes closest but is jealous of the fair Rebecca. She would live with Rebecca as with a sister, if Rebecca would become Christian. Ivanhoe and the villainous templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert love Rebecca. But Bois-Guilbert will not even have her as his mistress if she refuses baptism. And even in Thackeray's spoof of IVANHOE -- REBECCA AND ROWENA -- Ivanhoe himself can only marry Rebecca after she becomes Christian. IVANHOE is the most unsparing criticism of anti-semitism in England before George Eliot's DANIEL DERONDA. Its explicit preaching against hatred of Jews is light but the descriptions, the debates between Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert, the actions make denunciation unnecessary. (2) IVANHOE is also a political novel. Prince John wants to elevate himself from Regent to King and is preparing to go to York where a coalition of bribed nobles is to depose his older brother Richard I and name John as replacement. Prince John seems to hold all the high cards. King Richard is presumed to be still a prisoner in Austria. In fact, he has returned in disguise to England and is rallying forces loyal to him. He knows what Prince John is up to but has to kill a few days waiting for his decentralized loyalists to pull themselves together before he nips the conspiracy. With nothing better to do, he disguises himself as the Black (Sable) Knight and takes a laid-back part in the melee on the second day of Prince John's great tourney at Ashby. He also finds time to help Wamba the Jester, Gurth the Swineherd, Robin Hood and his merry men storm the castle of the evil Reginald Front de Boeuf to rescue kidnapped Saxon leaders as well as Rowena, Rebecca and Rebecca's father, the Jewish moneylender Isaac of York. As the novelist describes King Richard I in Chapter XLI: In the lion-hearted king, the brilliant
but useless character of a knight of romance was in great measure
realised and revived, and the personal glory which he acquired by his
own deeds of arms was far more dear to his excited imagination than
that which a course of policy would have spread across his government.
Scott shows Prince John and his inner circle using Jewish and extorted Church money to foster disloyalty to Richard. It is a tale worthy of a Bob Woodward expose. By all means read IVANHOE for sheer fun. It is a great romance of the middle ages. But keep your eye on the history and the politics as well. ==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= III. for epinions.com REVIEWER'S RATING OF IVANHOE: * * * * * (FIVE STARS) REVIEW'S TITLE: Rebecca of York: A Jewish Heroine in Anti-Semitic England by aohcapablanca, Mar 18 '07 Sir Walter Scott's novel IVANHOE is set in the north of England, not far from York. Most of the action takes place in a couple of furiously active weeks in the summer of 1194. The story is driven by mounting tension between two Royal brothers of the House of Anjou: King Richard I and Prince John, who is running England while the King supposedly languishes in an Austrian prison en route home from the Third Crusade. Prince John has called a meeting in York at which he plans to muster enough leading men loyal to him to depose Richard and proclaim himself King. But Richard is secretly already back in England, disguised as the Sable (or Black) Knight and fully intends to frustrate John. But the King must wait until his scattered loyalists put together an armed force too strong for John to think of resisting. Meanwhile the Lion-Heart would far rather be a knight errant and fight in tournaments than engage in politics or spend time doing humdrum kingly duties. For his part, despite certain administrative skills, Prince John's character flaws make it unusually hard for anyone to like him for long, though he is organizing a great tourney at Ashby to woo to his cause both ruling Normans and underdog Anglo-Saxons. Some of Prince John's bored Norman supporters then cook up a hare-brained plot to kidnap the Lady Rowena who is traveling home after the tournament with a Saxon entourage led by her kinsman and protector Cedric the Saxon. One Norman wants to marry Rowena and plans to rush in as her savior after driving off Norman men-at-arms in his employ pretending to be Saxons. The ambush works and the Saxon party, including by accident Isaac, coerced Jewish moneylender to Prince John, and his physician daughter Rebecca, is bustled off to Torquilstone, the castle of Norman Baron Reginald Front de Boeuf. Their captive party also includes a litter for wounded Saxon hero and ally of King Richard, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Rowena's childhood sweetheart and disinherited son of Cedric. Unfortunately for the rough pranksters, two of the servants of Cedric escape to raise a rescue. They are Wamba the Jester and the swineherd Gurth. They then enlist the help of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, along with the incognito Black Knight. The rescue of the captives is a success. Front de Boeuf and his castle are destroyed by fire. But Rebecca has meanwhile won the fancy of an amoral Templar Knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who fights his way out of Torquilstone with the girl and bears her off to a nearby preceptory of the Templars at Templestowe. Alas for Bois-Guilbert, the Grand Master of the Knightly Order of Templars is making a surprise inspection. He has no sympathy for any of his priest-knights who are unchaste, especially with Jewesses. The fanatically pious Grand Master also suspects that the Jewess Rebecca has used magic to turn Bois-Guilbert's head and holds a trial to prove it. Rebecca is permitted to send an appeal to the wounded Ivanhoe to find her a champion who will prove her innocence via armed combat with the Templars' appointed representative, the unwilling Bois-Guilbert. Although Wilfred of Ivanhoe is too weak from the recent tournament to put up a good fight, he nonetheless kills Bois-Guilbert, whose conscience is so guilty that he simply shrivels and dies of a stroke, virtually untouched, on the field of combat. Rowena marries Ivanhoe at story's end. Richard forgives John. And Isaac and Rebecca sail away from virulently anti-Semitic England to asylum with a Muslim prince in Spain. There is important history washing through IVANHOE: the history of anti-semitism in England. The century of IVANHOE saw the first recorded assertions of blood libel (Jews ritually slaying Christians) in 1144 in Norwich. IVANHOE is set 50 years later in the year 1194, meaning that Jews had only another 96 years to go in England. For in 1290 King Edward I expelled all Jews lock, stock and barrel who would not convert, and they were not officially tolerated again until Oliver Cromwell needed their financial assistance in 1656. This 1290 government action was the earliest and most radical expulsion of Jews in any major European country. It was 1858 before Jews could sit in Parliament. Sir Walter Scott, writing Ivanhoe in 1818, could look back to the earliest era of English anti-semitism from a future when it was still flexing its muscles in Britain. In my opinion, IVANHOE captures the tentacles of fear and contempt for Jews wrapped around English hearts better than any work of fiction in English before George Eliot's DANIEL DERONDA. What is not to like about brilliant, kind, stubborn Rebecca of York except that she is Jewish and dares to love a Christian knight, Ivanhoe? Because she is Jewish, Rebecca is assumed by all (except Bois-Guilbert who is infatuated with her and despises most Christian dogmas) to have a fast track to Satan and all dark arts. Watch how every single Christian reacts when he or she realizes he is in the presence of any Jew: Rebecca, her father Isaac, Jewish leaders and servants. It is all in IVANHOE -- including the one saving grace, Rowena, who could even live with Rebecca as a sister, if Rebecca would only turn Christian. What an age! Robin Hood put it this way to the disguised Richard the Lion-Heart: Good
fruit, Sir Knight, ... will sometimes grow on a sorry tree, and evil
times are not always productive of evil alone and unmixed.
(IVANHOE, Chapter 33).
Walter Scott was the master of probing mixtures of good and evil in every person, every time and every country. -OOO- Pros: Three-dimensional fictitious characters interact with one of England's most popular Kings, Richard the Lion-Heart. Cons: An otherwise fast-paced narrative is slowed by meditations on anti-semitism, royal politics and superstition. The Bottom Line: IVANHOE has something for every reader: from students of anti-semitism in England, to lovers of the pageantry of Kings, Knights Templar and a Christianity crying out for reform. Overall Product Rating: Excellent Recommended: Yes Patrick Killough Black Mountain, North Carolina 03/18/2007 http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/sirws_ivanhoe.html |