Fate is Inexorable (The Lords of the North - Bernard Cornwell)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	The Lords of the North - Bernard Cornwell
Date:	15/04/07 (249 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great story, ripping yarn, attention to historical detail

Disadvantages: May not be your genre, violence would take it out of the reach of younger children

Historical fiction must be amongst the best to write. Why do I say that? Well, you start off with the historical fact, add in a few fictional characters, take some artistic license around the story and, voila, you have a decent book. In actuality, I’m sure it’s must trickier than that and the proof of the pudding is in the eating but I do know that I’ve come to enjoy historical fiction nearly as much as any other genre that I’ve traditionally liked. Perhaps one of the best examples of this “off-the-top-of-me-’ead” thesis would be Bernard Cornwell’s “The Lords of the North” from his Alfred the Great series which I read whilst holidaying in Wales recently.

The year is 878 and Alfred has just won a great victory over the Danes, establishing him as the undisputed King of Wessex. Uhtred is a Danish lord who has helped Alfred to overcome his enemy but is resentful of his bounty of just five hides awarded to him by Alfred as a reward. Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the man who killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea and spilled Svein of the White Horse from his saddle at Ethandun, together with his female charge, Hild, decides to travel north to reclaim his ancestral lands and kill the mighty warlords of Northumbria. Joining forces with Guthred, the man who would be the Christian king of the North and sponsored by Alfred, Uhtred determines to kill Kjartan the Cruel along with his son, Sven the one-eyed, who live in the fortress, Dunholm for murdering the man who brought him up as a child. With a cruel twist of fate and for reasons of politics, Guthred sells Uhtred into slavery in order to gain power. As he rows relentlessly on a slave ship trading around the coasts surrounding the North Sea, Uhtred dreams of the day that he can gain revenge on those who betrayed him and take back that what was his.

First of all, I read this as a stand alone experience but it is the third in Cornwell’s Alfred the Great sequence with more books to follow. The previous books include: “The Last Kingdom” and “The Pale Horseman”. Bernard Cornwell is an established writer of historical fiction who is probably most famous for his series of Sharpe books (adapted for TV and starring Sean Bean) but he has also written The Grail Quest series, “Stonehenge”, The Starbuck Chronicles and The Warlord Chronicles. Cornwell’s attention to detail is immaculate. With an opening introduction that explains the place names used and how they translate today to a historical note at the end that gives context to the historical events as well as explaining where the author has used artistic license to fill in any gaps, those readers demanding attention to detail won’t be disappointed in Cornwell’s efforts to achieve authenticity in what is, essentially, a Boy’s Own type of story.

Cornwell writes with a flourish. From a slow start that sets the scene, the story gathers momentum from chapter to chapter, with the writer building his characters through a mixture of actions and dialogue. The story is a first person account of events from Uhtred’s perspective and I’m sure that it’s no coincidence that the hero of the book is nether a Christian nor a Saxon. It’s because of this that Cornwell engineers the opportunity to examine the political flux in motion at this time in English history, with the country split between Saxons and Danes and the struggle between the competing religions of Christianity and the Danish Gods underpinning the motives of both Alfred as potential overlord of the whole country and the Danes who see the country as their own. I came to like Uhtred a great deal and if the writers wants us to identify with the characters then he succeeds. Uhtred is fatalistic, determined and almost a machismo figure in the mould of a ninth century Clint Eastwood. With the romanticized swords “Serpent’s Breath”, “Wasp Sting” and a faithful horse, Uhtred is every bit the Arthurian knight type of figure taken straight from a Beowulf poem.

I enjoyed the contrasting depiction of the church as well. From some very devout figures including Alfred and the flawed Father Beocca to some very sinister religious characters like Hrothweard and his obsession with carrying the corpse of the Saint Cuthbert around, Cornwell captures the essence of the religious struggle that drove the events of those times. Men’s desire for Christian forgiveness contrasts with the Danish warriors’ desperation to die with a sword in their hand and enter the Corpse Hall - Valhalla - where enemies will meet once more and old battles will be re-enacted all over again. Cornwell deals with the action sequences very well, never glorifying war or fighting but lending a level of authenticity to the way battles would have panned out. With the numbers quoted in the respective armies being so small and a pretty rudimentary style of fighting in simply matching up shield walls with shield walls meaning that the force with the greater men is generally more likely to win then the author paints a picture of mud and turf, blood and guts that makes the reader wince with the detail and yet understand the emotions of the winners and losers in those life and death struggles.

At 383 pages and just 11 chapters, it didn’t take long to rip through the book at all. The story gathered pace and the set pieces including battles, sword fights and a truly mystical finale lit up the later chapters even if things did become decidedly gory at times. Fans of historical fiction will love it although it might be a bit much for younger children with some of the violence involved. The book can be read as a stand alone experience but I’m sure it reads even better in the series that it is a part of. It would be an easy jump from book to screen if television producers did decide to take the story on but, in the meantime, more stories are to follow and that’s great news for people following the events of the embryonic country that was to become the England of today.

Thanks for the read

Mara

ISBN: 978-0-00-721970-4
Published by Harper Collins: www.harpercollins.co.uk
I bought this paperback from Tesco for £3.79
Available from Amazon from £3.49

Summary: Overview of "The Lords of the North"