The Happy Homemaker

I just finished reading Ivanhoe. My university was to snobby to read Sir Walter Scott though we learned a little about him and his style. He is definitely a Romantic. I usually do not like romantic nationalism but Sir Walter Scott does it better than anyone. He doesn’t his heroes near translation to heaven and his “bad guys” one dimensional monsters from Hell. Almost every character is rounded out to the point you have sympathy for even the most horrible character. King Richard is seen from both sides, a chivalrous hero full of ideas and the most honorable soldier and also a not so great king who taxes his people while he spends his time fighting in far off lands rather than taking care of the business of his own kingdom.

This is also a story about Christians and Jews and I have never seen Jews more sympathetically represented. Walter Scott seems to almost feel what will happen to the Jews over a hundred years later and wishes for them to return to their promised land. His Jewish beauty Rebecca is way more interesting than the Saxon princess Rowenna. It’s Rebecca’s beauty that brings warm passion into the cold Templar’s heart, Brian. Brian also complains of the bigotry in the Templar order at the same time he is doing the evil work of the Norman barons. He even makes Robin Hood and his Merry Men come alive as real people not just a myth.

Sure Ivanhoe is not perfect historially. However, except for some weird “soap operaish” plot changes, the novel is near perfect. Sir Walter Scott is not called the father of historical fiction for nothing. Knights, princesses, Robin Hood, Richard the Lion Heart, the Templars, it is all here in the most entertaining novel written in the early 19th century. Try it out!

Now I am reading Katherine by Anya Seton. Care to join me?