Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars "Last night a-marrying—to-day a-burying" I can’t believe my Mom read Eric Brighteyes to me when I was in Junior High school! Imagine her, a “cheerful by nature” Unitarian Mother for Peace, reading something like this to 12-year-old me: “Here, it would seem, is nothing but hate and strife, weariness, and bitter envy to fret away our strength, and at last, if we come so far, sickness, sorrowful age and death, and thereafter we know not what. Little of good do we find to our hands, and much of evil; nor know I for what ill-doing these burdens are laid upon us. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown about us, Gudruda, clasping at that happiness which is given, though we may not hold it.” I guess she read it to me cause she knew I had a Viking fetish. The edition we read of H. Rider Haggard’s 1891 Icelandic saga pastiche was published in 1974 in the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library series, with the original beautiful monochrome wood cut illustrations by the splendidly named Lancelot Speed. The book must have been beyond me: adult storyline (a love triangle tragedy), archaic syntax and vocabulary, and Icelandic setting (with Norse gods like Odin and Ran, supernatural figures like the Norns and Valkyries, and exotic cultural features like weregild). And from that first reading, over the decades I forgot everything but a few scenes, like the hero waking to find his sword sticking through his lover’s heart, and only retained a vivid memory of having been excited and moved by the story. So I was curious to reread the novel a while ago (in 2011). I found it a brutal, beautiful, fascinating, and powerful tale of Norsemen and Vikings and witches and berserkers, in all their bleak, brave, destructive, and passionate glory. Despite (or because of) the tragic deaths prophesied early in the novel for the main characters, and despite (or because of) their pride, anger, jealousy, gullibility, and violence, I cared about Eric, Skallagrim, and Gudruda, as well as about supporting characters like Asmund and “villainous” characters like Swanhild, and suspensefully read their inevitable progressions toward their foretold dooms because I kept hoping that somehow they would avoid them. Haggard manipulates his characters with supernatural devices (potions, spells, gods, etc.) while never making them do anything they couldn’t do anyway due to their own human hearts. And the thrall Jon, the amateur skald who turns out to have kept the saga of Eric Brighteyes alive, has his own minor but interesting role to play in the story… There is a grim humor in the novel, as when Eric takes to calling Skallagrim “the drunkard” or to mocking cowed foes. There is horror, too, as when Swanhild makes an evil pact with her familiar-demon-sending, or as when her eyes glow red as she casts a sleeping spell, or as when all the men whom Eric has killed or caused to die crowd silently around his fire. And numerous impressive scenes: Eric wrestling Skallagrim, Skallagrim inopportunely indulging his fondness for ale, Gudruda cleaning Eric’s festering wound, Eric awaking after his wedding night, the Norns revealing their weaving of Eric’s life and its end, and so on. Haggard’s style is epic, archaic, and laconic (“I care not for this rede”; “thou shouldst take my helm”; etc.) and plenty of Icelandic saga words like “fey,” “athling,” and “baresark.” And plenty of alliteration, clauses beginning “For,” and vivid and meet similes. Characters (especially Eric) are wont to break into Anglo-Saxon-esque alliterative verse in moments of intense emotion (similar to what Poul Anderson later does in The Broken Sword): "Hence I go to wreak thy murder. Hissing fire of flaming stead, Groan of spear-carles, wail of women, Soon shall startle through the night. Then on Mosfell, Kirtle-Wearer, Eric waits the face of Death. Freed from weary life and sorrow, Soon we'll kiss in Hela's halls!" Haggard even imagines a sentient sword precursor to Stormbringer: "Thou art a strange sword, Whitefire," he said, "who slayest both friend and foe! Shame on thee, Whitefire! We swore our oath on thee, Whitefire, and thou hast cut its chain! Now I am minded to shatter thee." And as Eric looked on the great blade, lo! it hummed strangely in answer. The reader of the free Librivox audiobook, Brett Downey, does not have a charismatic voice, and his female characters verge on the artificially feminine, and yet he reads the rhythm, pauses, and words well, and I came to enjoy listening to him. I liked his gruff Skallagrim voice and his simple, good natured Eric voice. He effectively overdubs his voice a few times when a large number of men shout in unison. And Haggard’s prose is so distinctive and savory that it is just a pleasure to hear it spoken aloud (though I’d like to time travel to hear my Mom—bless her heart—read it to me again…) If you like Viking stories or tragic heroic fantasy like The Broken Sword and The Children of Hurin, you would probably like this book. And if you are interested in the history of fantastic fiction, you should read it, because, apparently, it’s the first modern English novel to pastiche the Icelandic sagas and also influenced Tolkien. View all my reviews
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Jefferson Peters
This blog is for book reviews. Please feel free to comment on any of the reviews! Categories
All
Archives
May 2024
Jefferson's books
by Sabaa Tahir
A Young Adult Epic Fantasy with Lots of Violence & Romance
Elias is an elite Martial soldier, Laia a naïve Scholar slave. As they alternate telling their stories (in trendy Young Adult first person, present tense narration), we soon rea...
"It must be due to some fault in ourselves"--
George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is an anti-totalitarian-communist allegory in which the exploited animals of the Manor Farm kick Farmer Jones out and set about running the farm. At first...
by Lu Xun
Perfect Stories of Life in Early 20th Century China
Chinese Classic Stories (1998) by Xun Lu is an excellent collection of seven short stories by perhaps the most important 20th century Chinese writer of fiction. Lu Xun (1881-1936) stu...
Fine Writing, Great Characters, Immersive World
The Surgeon's Mate (1980) is the 7th novel in Patrick O'Brian's addicting series of age of sail novels about the lives, loves, and careers of the British navy captain Jack Aubrey and the ...
An Overwritten, Oddly Compelling Gothic Father
Matthew Lewis' notorious and influential Gothic novel The Monk (1796) takes place during the heyday of the Spanish Inquisition. Ambrosio, the monk/friar/abbot/idol of Madrid, is nicknamed ...
|
My Fukuoka University