Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

A ‘Shadow Language’ Tale Of Medieval Frontiers

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Hereward the Wake. Woodland guerrilla leader of the resistance to the Norman conquest.

Hereward the Wake. A leader of the resistance to the Norman conquest.

From NPR:

Paul Kingsnorth’s new novel, ‘The Wake’ — a grim tale of medieval conquest and revenge — became a hit against all odds in the U.K. last year, and it’s about to be released in the U.S.

Kingsnorth’s novel is definitely not soft and fluffy. The Wake is set during the Norman conquest, when armies from France swept across England, crushing Anglo-Saxon civilization. It’s sort of a post-apocalyptic tale, set in the 11th century. And it’s also written in a slightly made-up language…

No, I am NOT going to read this book any time soon. No, really, I’m not. Stop looking at me that way…

I already have serious reading to undertake, and I am committed to doing it deeply, with intent — and well. The last thing I need is to take on a challenging read set in the 11th Century and written in a “Shadow Language.” So why am I even bringing this up here?

Because I find it absolutely wonderful that such a tale has won champions and become a “hit.” I find it absolutely wonderful that a writer — who is engaged in his own program of “chasing buffalo” in west Ireland, living as close as he can get to the land — has the sheer balls to do this.

“I suppose I was probably halfway through it when I thought: There’s no way anybody’s going to publish this,” he said. “I’m writing a book about a period in history no one knows about, in a language no one can understand, with a central character who’s horrible. There’s absolutely no way anyone’s going to touch this with a bargepole, but I don’t care!”

That is a fine war-cry. All of us writers should take it up.

PK4_illustrationKingsnorth’s go-for-broke effort paid off huge. “The Wake” is England’s Bookseller Book of the Year. And ain’t it grand that a bizarre publishing world that can make a hit out of dreck like “50 Shades of Grey” can turn around and make a hero out of a writer who burned his boats and set off inland to conquer or die?

As one reviewer notes:

It’s a brave author who launches readers into a completely alien world with an unreliable and often unlikeable narrator who doesn’t quite speak our language as our only guide, but that is what The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth, does, and it works.

Read the full story to get the dope on the “Shadow Language.” Kingsnorth uses it to create full immersion. And when it’s read aloud, it sweeps you away. Cormac McCarthy is notorious for throwing untranslated Spanish at the reader, along with biblical cadences that sound and feel odd to the modern ear, especially in “Blood Meridian.” But as my friend Pete noted, when you “catch the rhythm,” you are swept along in an unstoppable torrent. That archaic tone, language and feeling creates a totally immersive experience.

Of course I am also intrigued by the setting — the post-Hastings Conquest was a lengthy and brutal affair; medieval frontier warfare. War to the knife and the knife to the hilt.

The book is narrated by Buccmaster of Holland, a man of the Fens relating the events of the Norman invasion. His point of view is highly subjective, and the reader quickly becomes aware that he is prone to exaggeration, not always truthful, often violent, as well as a jealous and defensive man with entrenched beliefs. Yet he is a remarkable character, and utterly believable. The story is very much his own, though it is also the story of a conquered people and the response that the apocalyptic events of 1066 and its aftermath provoke from the English. From the time when Buccmaster’s sons go off to fight the invading French, through the fierce repression of Norman rule with its brutal killings, heavy taxes and oppressive regime, we see the effects on a man who prides himself on his Englishness, who is keenly aware of his own importance as a man with a large house and land to farm, and whose place in the world is literally taken from him. When he loses everything, Buccmaster retreats to the woods, becoming a ‘green man’, like Hereward the Wake of whom the men in the woods hear. From the woods Buccmaster and his motley band fight the French – but we know, of course, that his dreams of reclaiming England for the English are doomed. In fact, one of the ways in which this novel is powerful is precisely because we know the historical outcome; Buccmaster is in many ways a tragic hero, battling hopelessly for his own place in history, hanging on to what he believes in even though every reader will know that this is futile. It’s the fate of Buccmaster himself which keeps the reader in suspense, and the drive of his flawed character which holds a strange appeal.

And I have a hunch that Kingsnorth is simpatico:

Over the years I’ve been called an anarchist, a Tory, a communist, a liberal, a nihilist, a romantic, a misanthrope, a utopian, a crazy collapsitarian, a left wing oikophile, a deep green reactionary, an anti-humanist and – my favourite – a ‘lower middle-class eco-toff’. I’m sure there are some other names I have forgotten.

I’ve noticed that while my politics have changed over the last twenty years, my worldview and my basic principles and inspirations essentially haven’t. I find this interesting. These days, I tend to see what we call ‘politics’ as a slightly more respectable form of primate tribalism: a means of clumsily rationalising deep psychic impulses and then fighting about them. There is very little that is more fruitless than this kind of behaviour. You’re more likely to find truth in science, poetry or the caves of a desert hermit, and I’d suggest you look in all those places first.

Yeah, what he said…

Anyway, yes, The Wake will have to wait. But a Frontier Partisans salute could not. Here’s to a bold writer, a wild tale — and a Shadow Language. Mr. Kingsnorth, you are an inspiration.

 

 

 

Comments

  1. deuce says

    You can’t read everything, Jim. Shout-outs allow others to take a little of the burden (and helps authors).

    As you know from Facebook, I’m all for what Kingsnorth (what a cool name) is doing. Like McCarthy or Tolkien, he’s presenting an alien world. Post-modern, Anglophone prose doesn’t always cut it. Those who holler and whine for prose “clarity” are actually pleading for cultural obscurity and auctorial laziness. I’ve said it before: THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY. At least attempt to speak the language.

    Reply

  2. Keith West says

    “No, I am NOT going to read this book any time soon. No, really, I’m not. Stop looking at me that way…”

    Methinks the blogger doth protest too much.

    As for me, well I’ve got some other novels set in that time period to read. They’ll keep this one company until I can get to it.

    Reply

  4. Dick Sandvik says

    Your description reminds me of a book I loved also written in a “shadow language” — Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban. In it, the frontier is post-apocalyptic — but it’s still a frontier. Pretty amazing book — I’ve read it twice.

    Reply

    • deuce says

      RIDDLEY WALKER’s a good novel and Hoban was an interesting guy. However, Burgess beat him to it with A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and its “Nadsat” slang, which brilliantly illustrated an England in the shadow of a Soviet-dominated Europe.

      It would seem THE WAKE’s shadow language really doesn’t come from the same impulse as “post-apocalyptic” novels. Those are showing the linguistic changes wrought by disasters IN THE FUTURE. Kingsnorth is trying to show the mindset of an Englishman who hasn’t bowed to Norman-French influence. Kingsnorth’s shadow tongue attempts to show the world of someone before French culture wrought its changes. In other words, more like HANTA YO.

      Kingsnorth isn’t making anything up. He’s just showing what we’ve lost.

      Reply

  5. Craig Rullman says

    Another one to check out would be Hanta Yo. This book was written in English, translated into the old Lakota language, then translated back out into English. The result is a tour de force immersion into plains Indian life in a way no other book has done for me. There is a long list of words in English that don’t, nor do any of the same concepts, exist in the original Dakota/Lakota. That’s a critical piece when trying to inhabit a mindset. The story begins many generations before contact with europeans, and by the time the first traders enter the tipi, the wrong way and without manners, and sit down, eyeing the commodities inside, this reader wanted to lance them. Add that book to the pile, although it should likely go first, as hanta yo means: clear the way.

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    • lane batot says

      “Hanta yo, hanta yo; Wakanya hibu welo; Maka kin le mitawa; Cha hibu welo!”–yeah, as you can see, I got it bad! I actually memorized this chant from that electric scene in the book–translated “Clear the way, clear the way; In a sacred manner I come; I own the earth, And so I come!” I got that book the year it came out–probably wrote a bad white man’s check for it, as I had zippo for green frog skins back in them days! But I HAD to have it–my original hardback copy is savagely worn–it got carried on numerous reservation breaks(some call them “Spring Breaks”), when I escaped from the Rez(college) and camped in my tipi(yes, the same one I eventually had go out in a blaze of glory! As told in an earlier episode on this blog!) for days deep in the mountains. I named all my wolf dogs Lakota names from that vocabulary in the back of “Hanta Yo”, too(like my first wolf-dog–Misun Icamani–“Little-Brother-Walks-Alongside”) Those were the days….. I guess I could drag out that story about me using this chant(as well as six others in Lakota) to deter that witch doctor in Africa from putting a curse on the house I was staying in(yeah–FREAKED the guy OUT! He was NOT used to a damned Mzungu getting’ all supernatural on his arse! Sent him packing! Had THE WORST LUCK in my life the following year, however, so I think I took some of that curse on myself!)–but it would take WAAAAAYYYY too long for this format!…..I JUST got some movie cheapo at the Wal-Mart about the Norman invasion–I fergit the title–I haven’t watched it yet! It looked rather interesting, and, well, it was CHEAPO! I’ll havta watch it and report back……

      Reply

        • lane batot says

          ….I don’t even think my very potent salamander supply could regenerate the 10 nubs I’d end up with if telling that tale(although it is usually most folks favorite amongst my Africa stories…..)–that had best be saved for sitting around a campfire, or maybe one a them thar phone calls, if’n you got the money saved up to pay the bill…..That movie I mentioned? Still haven’t watched it(saving it for some night when I don’t havta work the next day), but the title is “1066; Battle For Middle Earth”–it has a BBC logo on it–that’s usually a good sign. Sounds like it may be something of a docu-drama of sorts, which is fine with me. I’ll let you know when I get around to watching it….

          Reply

  6. Paul McNamee says

    Seriously considered doing the audiobook on this one. Sooner rather than later.

    Buccmaster sounds a lot like a Pict king I’ve read about 😉 railing and rallying despite the long term futility of the effort.

    Reply

  10. Eccentric Cowboy says

    A fella writing something that goes contrary to all odds but pushes it anyway and makes it? Now this is a guy I’ve gotta take a look at. Reminds me of Peter Capstick when he started. The publishers in New York thought he was an idiot for wanting to push a book about hunting in modern Africa. Turns out they didn’t understand the American audience as well as they thought, ha!

    Thanks for writing about this gent Jim. 🙂

    Reply

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