Sunday, 25 January 2009
Agincourt
I picked up Bernard Cornwell's Agincourt at the local library yesterday after having read the praise given it by Ronald Maxwell at the Wall Street Journal in Victory By Longbow.
Until recently, most adolescent boys growing up in the Western world have had the dream of being a knight in shining armor, part of a world involving chivalry, damsels in distress, brightly caparisoned destriers, turreted and crenellated castle walls, tapestries, tournaments, broad swords. These elements are present in Mr. Cornwell's story, but only as a thin outer layer that gets peeled away with every turn of the page. Here the medieval world transitioning to the Renaissance is much closer to Hobbes's vision of humanity: "continual fear, danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Mr. Cornwell does not over-adorn the splendor, opulence and high art of Europe at the beginning of the 15th century. But neither does he obscure its darker side: numbing cold, clawing hunger, savage hand-to-hand fighting, the burning of heretics, the arbitrariness of justice and the arrogance of power. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
As my WFRP campaign prepares to venture across the breadth of Bretonnia in a sinister plot of evil, and having read the pulp Wahammer piece Knight Errant this historical fiction dovetails nicely. Very nicely. 100 pages in, and it is a page turner.
A strong recommendation!
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