Jul 21, 2015 10:40 PM
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In 1819, Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" was like Harry Potter meets the Twilight series, a mega pop-culture milestone, its biggest challenge for readers being how to put it down.
Today, the challenge is a little different: Can you make it all the way through before putting it down - for good?
The story centers upon England in the second century after the Norman Conquest. At this time, Scott informs us, the Normans "still felt the elation of triumph" while the subject Saxons "groaned under all the consequences of defeat." Enter Ivanhoe, a Saxon knight who distinguished himself in service under the Norman king Richard, and is now back to inspire Saxons and others under the boot of Richard's usurping brother John, who is taking advantage of Richard's foreign imprisonment to rule the land. Can Ivanhoe bring England together, reconcile with his father, and restore Richard to the throne?
No, he can't. At least not alone, or even for the most part while conscious. "Ivanhoe" is one of those novels with a central figure most conspicuous by his absence, as he is laid up by injury for most of the book.
Scott has a deep bench of secondary characters to hold our interest. Among them is the strange Black Knight who rides to Ivanhoe's rescue; a fellow named Locksley who traipses around the forest with his merry associates stealing from the rich to give to themselves; the Saxon jester Wamba, who offers up some clever barbs; and Waldemar Fitzurse, the scheming mind behind John's usurpation.
The two most indelible characters, as any reader can attest, are Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca the Jewess. Bois-Guilbert is Ivanhoe's sworn enemy who hides his cynical relativism beneath a mask of hypocritical piety that begins to slip when he falls in love with Rebecca. There are a lot of emblematic characters in "Ivanhoe, " but Rebecca stands out for her do-or-die devotion to Ivanhoe, as well as her willingness to assume a Christ-like burden in defense of her Jewish faith.
"Embrace thy religion?" she tells off Bois-Guilbert. "And what religion can it be that harbours such a villain?"
You finish "Ivanhoe" wondering what Rebecca or Scott saw in the title character. He's a wholly altruistic yet dull character with no inner life to speak of. Bois-Guilbert is a hundred times more interesting a villain than Ivanhoe is a hero. No wonder Scott kept him off-stage so long. Yet with that extended absence comes a loss of focus the book never regains, spinning off instead in assorted directions with long periods of sometimes charming but still pointless discussion in-between.
Scott has the bones of a great story, but after a drawn-out showdown at an evil knight's castle, he seems to run out of ideas for it. Instead we get a lot of dead-end side alleys like a parley in a hermit's cell, a trumped-up witchcraft trial, a shakedown involving a rich prior, and an implausible "resurrection" scene. There are also moments of revelation where various characters reveal who they really are, the sort of thing that went down well in Scott's day but strains credulity now.
"Ivanhoe" does have a great build-up. After you get through 50 pages of scene-setting, the next 150 are a fast-flying breeze. Scott envelops you in the world he creates. As knights tilt at each other and John broods and plots his crimes, the book begins to suck you in. The story of Rebecca and her father Isaac, victimized because of their faith, present a sense of conscience unusual for its time, as well as an additional rooting interest to deepen the dramatic tension.
I don't think Scott sustained that tension, and the ending felt like a right hash, but the ride was still fun.
