After I read Ivanhoe, I decided to read more of the works of Walter Scott because I read that he was a childhood favorite of William Morris and likely influence on his writing.
First of all, he definitely was. A lot of the archaic-seeming terms that Morris sprinkles throughout his quest novels were still in use in the 18th century in Scotland and are found abundantly in Scott's novels chronicling the recent past: the time of his life, his parents', and his grandparents'.
Ivanhoe was really hard to get into because of Scott's efforts at historical accuracy and the slow commencement of plot (a bit like Tolkien in that respect, except the language is much denser), but also because its primary themes are about racism
( Read more... ) Be that as it may, however, I found that the novel picked up a lot in the middle after its slow beginning; there were lots of fun and unputdownable parts. I like Scott's use of language and his sense of humor very much, and I found the parts about Robin Hood and his men extremely delightful.
So next I read Waverley, his first novel, which is about the Bonny Prince Charlie revolt, the one with Culloden. From the start I found it much more readable. It's explicitly set sixty years before its publication date, and the language and subject matter is more familiar to me (Scott was a contemporary of Austen, possibly the most comfortable narrative voice for me). In terms of the plot, Waverley, too, begins a little slowly, and it took me some months to read because of this, but it, too, picks up as it nears the halfway point, and develops a lively adventure plot and a strong thread of humor.
( Read more... )The third book I read was The Antiquary, which was Scott's third published novel in 1816, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. It is by far my favorite that I've read so far. By way of blurb, here's the beginning of the article on Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
The Antiquary (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all practical purposes the hero, though the characters of Lovel and Isabella Wardour provide the conventional love interest. The Antiquary was Scott's own favourite of his novels, and is one of his most critically well-regarded works; H. J. C. Grierson, for example, wrote that "Not many, apart from Shakespeare, could write scenes in which truth and poetry, realism and romance, are more wonderfully presented."
Scott wrote in an advertisement to the novel that his purpose in writing it, similar to that of his novels Waverley and Guy Mannering, was to document Scottish life of a certain period, in this case the last decade of the 18th century. The action can be located in July and August 1794. It is, in short, a novel of manners, and its theme is the influence of the past on the present. In tone it is predominantly comic, though the humour is offset with episodes of melodrama and pathos. (Wikipedia)
In terms of the plot and humor and vibes, The Antiquary reminds me strongly of some of Georgette Heyer's humorous adventure novels, like The Talisman. It is full of rural Scottish scene-setting, however, vivid portraits and examples of Scottish English dialect from all classes - deliberate, but carefully edited to be readable to an English audience, I am informed by the introductions. Someone might dislike these, but I enjoy them. The romance does not have such a central part in Scott's novels, though, compared with Heyer, although it does seem that he felt he couldn't write a novel without including one.
The vivid, fully-rounded, rather satirical character portraits are beyond Heyer, though, and a bit more similar to Austen perhaps (although Scott's writing isn't really like Austen's). The comedy of manners is delightful. The Antiquary himself, according to the introduction, was apparently based on a friend of Scott's father, and enabled someone who knew his family as a child to guess who had written the book (which was published anonymously, a practice Scott eventually stopped). But I recognized in him one of the more delightfully humorous characters from Waverley as well (Baron Bradwardine), although I gather it isn't the style of dialogue which these two characters have in common that gave Scott's identity away, but the details of the Antiquary's household and interests and so on. (These are also great.)
It's sad to think, after finishing something I enjoyed this much, that it is perhaps the one of his works I was most likely to enjoy, going by these descriptions. But I will continue to read more of them, at least for a while. I skipped Guy Mannering because it reportedly has a plot device quite similar to one in The Antiquary, and am about to read The Monastery.
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