| Product: |
Thunder God - Paul Watkins |
| Date: |
17/12/06 (223 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Authentic style
Disadvantages: Dour at times
Ever since seeing Tony Curtis fighting with Kirk Douglas at the top of a tower turret, I’ve been enamoured with the idea of Vikings. That romantic backdrop to a violent, raiding culture makes for a great story and with historical novels all the rage at the moment, what with Conn Iggulden’s Emperor series bringing Julius Caesar’s life and times alive and Bernard Cornwell continuing to thrill readers with his tales of pre-historic Britain as well as shaping the literary shenanigans of the swashbuckling Sharpe; the history genre has never had it so good. Having recently tried one of the Emperor series and enjoyed it, I was keen to try more from the historical fiction range so when I spied Paul Watkins’s “Thunder God” and picked it up for a reasonable sum; I quickly became engrossed again in the world of Vikings and Norse mythology. Paul Watkins was a first time author for me. Born in 1964, he went to school in Wales before launching a career as an author. His previous novels include “Night Over Day Over Night”, “Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn” and “In the Blue Light of African Dreams”. “Thunder God” was first published in 2004 and has received critical acclaim from both The Times and Sunday Telegraph.
“Thunder God” is set in 975AD in Norway and follows the story of Hakon, a fisherman’s son who is struck by lightening when pursuing the mythical Sasser Greycloak on his way to the Grimsvoss Mountains. Now considered to have special powers, Hakon finds himself inept when raiders loot his village, taking him and an old man called Tostig hostage when they leave. Intending to sell him into slavery, one of the ship’s crew – Halfdan - takes Hakon as a his own slave instead and when the boy once again shows no fear during a storm featuring thunder and lightening as Halfdan is praying to the Gods, the enigmatic captor learns to respect his charge whilst still treating him harshly. Following our hero’s subsequent release from slavery following the death in battle of his captor, Hakon embarks on a search for home, together with his friend, Cabal who accompanies him on his travels. Traversing the known world, from Miklagard (Constantinople) as members of the Emperor Basil II’s Vangarian Guard to a raid on a Welsh village and beyond, “Thunder God” tells the sweeping tale of Hakon and his adventures, set firmly within the Norse culture and a strong undercurrent of religious tension.
Told in the first person and from Hakon’s perspective, the book works well on a number of fronts. First of all, Watkins’s attention to detail is meticulous. He weaves in numerous historical artefacts and sketches the lifestyle of those times with an authentic, literary canvas upon which to pen his story. It’s a remarkable, highly visual journey for the reader to undertake in imagining the village of Altvik, the lands and surroundings of Turkey and the sea voyages around the British coast and across whole oceans. From a stoical opening, the book gains momentum and it’s the sub-plot of Cabal’s hatred of the Christian church and it’s ramifications on the raid on the Welsh village that provides the catalyst for the greater pace in the second half of the book.
Watkins manages to underline his story with a religious sub-text as the Norse religions of the tenth century are challenged by Christianity. As Brand, the brimstone depiction of a Christian converter descends on the village of Altvik and attempts to both bribe and hoodwink the villagers into converting their old religion to the newer Christianity, Hakon is propositioned by Brand to accept a cut of the forthcoming tax regime based on King Trygvasson’s decree that all towns and villages must pay a levy which can be reduced if the local population either has a Christian church or plans to build one. There’s a welcome twist to Hakon’s eventual election as the village priest and an apocalyptic finale that asks the question as to just how far the Vikings may have sailed during their travels. The book carries a lingering mystical feel, what with the focus on the many Norse Gods of the time, the ephemeral nature of the elements crystallised in the naming of the winds (especially the Arador of the North) and it’s this mysticism that carries the story from simple routine to something much more.
Where the writer succeeds in spades is when he is describing the sea-faring aspects of the story. Integral to the whole Norse culture, Watkins uses sweeping adjectives to describe the struggles at sea as well as including copious detail as to the hardships of sailing at that time. “The moaning of the gale continued, surrounding our ship. I wondered if this could be the voice of the wind, which Cabal had spoken of. I found myself listening for words inside its droning chorus. The sun disappeared, smudged out by smokey blue-grey clouds. Hard gusts ploughed the water. The boat heaved up on swells and sail lines groaned with the strain.” There’s a lilting, poignant quality to Watkins’s descriptive powers that reach their peak when pitched at the passages that deal with the sailing sequences and those at sea, in general. There are sea battles between warring drakkars (Viking ships), raids on coastline villages along with lengthy sequences of deprivation that reflected a sailor’s life in those dangerous days.
Where the author isn’t quite as strong is with the characterisation of the fictional creations in the book. Throughout, there’s a dour feel to the proceedings with little to lighten the mood despite there being plenty of opportunity to build this in. This is clearly a serious tale but the story would have benefited from a little humour rather than the black clouds that surround the metaphorical heads of the book’s cast. It’s this aspect that leads to a lack of real depth to any of the characters in the story, despite the portentous plot strands and the author’s clever blend of fiction and historical speculation that gets a brief explanation in an author’s note at the end of the book. Even more frustrating is the occasional typo including a repeated word in the text. Generally unforgivable for any publisher, the errors can be counted on one hand and, fortunately, fail to sabotage the four-part work which ends so strongly.
All in all, I did enjoy “Thunder God” despite its relatively slow start and for those that enjoy historical fiction with an articulate attention to detail then this will be for you. There is violence including human sacrifice that takes the book out of the range of most children so, with that, I would suggest that older teenagers and adults will appreciate this particular tome. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about Paul Watkins in the future.
Thanks for reading
Mara
Notes
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321 pages
Paperback published by Faber Ltd
ISBN 0-571-27198-2
I bought this from Tesco for £2.96. Available at Amazon from £3.50.
Summary: Overview of book
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