To Calais, In Ordinary Time

A peasant turned bowman, a minor lord's runaway daughter and a church scholar make their way from a Gloucestershire village to Calais as the Black Death comes from the other direction. Each of the three characters has their own dialect, which are loving reconstructions of the different flavours of Middle English with modernised and regularised spelling but a syntax and vocabulary of their own, showing the language's Saxon, French and Latin roots. This makes it sound like it might be just an elegant literary game - there are plenty of nods to Chaucer, Dante and Shakespeare but the real medieval literature intertext is the French allegory, The Romance of the Rose - but once you get into the language it's a surprisingly pacy and incident-packed read.

It is a bit of a challenge, and unlike many genre novels with fantasy Ye Olde Fashionéd Speake, there's no glossary in the back. It slots in neatly with a lot of my obsessions, and I loved it.

Points of comparison: a year ago I read Sylvie Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them, set in a convent in Norfolk at the same time period - it's a very different book in terms of style, but both have an uncanny ability to inhabit the past at the level of speech and gesture, and take delight in the sorts of persons left in the margins of conventional history.

The blend of literary experimentation and almost fable-like storytelling reminded me of Russell Hoban's Pilgermann and Riddley Walker, and John Gardner's Grendel (though I haven't read the latter since I was in high school).

Set in 1348, England, the story features four (not three, like the blurb says) people who join up with a company of archers on their way to fight in Calais, France: a farmhand-cum-archer named Will, a Scottish proctor named Thomas on his way to Avignon, a knight's daughter named Bernadine fleeing her arranged marriage to a much older man, and a fourth person who will remain nameless so as not to spoil the story.

The narrative is by far the most intriguing aspect of the novel. It is written in a made-up form of English which is designed to sound archaic but still be accessible to modern readers. It is much easier to read than, say, Shakespeare, but it does take a little while to get the hang of. I found Wiktionary (en.wiktionary.org) to be the best resource for understanding the meaning of the words, but it is possible to just read it as it is and glean the overall gist of what it's talking about. However, if the etymology of English is not of interest to you, this is going to be a very tedious read. On the whole, the narrative works if the dialog is just basic chitchat and the action is routine. In-depth discussions and detailed action fail to be communicated effectively. And the first sex scene is downright hilarious, worthy of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

The plot is fairly simple and can be summed up in three words: medieval road trip. Initially, there's nothing of interest to hold the reader's attention, so the enigma of the strange English used in the narrative at least gives us a sense of mystery and discovery. Once they start their journey, though, there's one incredulous event which seems strange that everyone buys into and then a long dry spell of just semi-random events happening on their way. The story doesn't actually get interesting until over the halfway point. I'd say this is one of its major shortcomings, even though it does rally for a relatively strong finish.

The characters are mostly annoying, with the exception of Will and Cess, a Frenchwoman the archers have kidnapped and forced into servitude. The archers are horrible people, the proctor is vain, the knight's daughter is spoiled. Some do change, but the strange narrative hinders the discussion of their personalities and keeps them at a distance. And, I don't know if it was just me or the narrative, but I couldn't keep the different archers straight until well past the halfway point.

The setting is a huge missed opportunity here. While there is a basic description of the time period and the locales, it won't satisfy anyone who picks up the novel wondering about the Middle Ages. Even the Black Death, which features heavily, is given just perfunctory treatment, despite all the people who do succumb to it.

Finally, there are the themes of the novel, which seem at odds with its setting. This kind of story, set in the High Middle Ages, seems to be more of interest to conservative people. However, this novel is very progressive--overtly, but also sometimes contradictorily, so. It deals quite heavily with homosexuality, confession, love, and classism. But then it also discusses feminism and rape, two subjects some people just don't want to hear yet another man writing about. I think the themes will alienate both conservatives and progressives, just for vastly different reasons.

Overall, I'm disappointed with this one, mainly because of weak plotting, annoying characters, and being light on setting. If it were not for my job-related interest in English and personal interest in the High Middle Ages, this would be a one-star read. I also think the themes and pseudo-archaic narrative will give this novel a very, very limited audience.