upon a hyll stands a treow but this treow it has no stics no leafs. its stocc is gold on it is writhan lines of blud red it reacces to the heofon its roots is deop deop in the eorth. abuf the hyll all the heofon is hwit and below all the ground is deorc. the treow is scinan and from all places folcs is walcan to it walcan to the scinan treow locan for sum thing from it. abuf the tree flies a raefn below it walcs a wulf and deop in the eorth where no man sees around the roots of the treow sleeps a great wyrm and this wyrm what has slept since before all time this wyrm now slow slow slow this wyrm begins to mofI have a habit of trying to learn as little as possible about the books I read before diving in, hoping to avoid spoilers. Knowing that The Wake was on 2014's Man Booker Prize longlist was all I needed for me to put my name on my library's waiting list, so I was utterly gobsmacked by the writing style when I finally got my hands on it. I eventually flipped through and discovered a partial glossary at the back of the book (which was very handy because, while I could eventually translate "deorc" into "dark" through context, I would not otherwise have known that "ea" was a "river") and also found a message from the author explaining his rationale for creating a "shadow language" that mimics Old English while remaining understandable to the modern reader. While I was afraid that reading The Wake would be like trying to slog through Chaucer, I quickly caught onto the rules of this language and it became a wonder to me; adding layers of authenticity to the story and forcing me to slow down and really drink in the writing.
On the back of the book it says, "Everyone knows the date of the Battle of Hastings. Far fewer people know what happened next…" As a Canadian, I have to admit that I didn't know what happened at the Battle of Hastings or the details of the Norman Invasion or even the Dutch and Danish ancestry of the early Britons, so all of this was new and intriguing to me. The main character buccmaster of holland -- a free man and landholder -- loses everything in the invasion and takes to the woods to avoid the "frenc cnihts" who were at large in the countryside, raping and killing and burning the homes of those who would not submit. He joins forces with other refugees, and being a man of high self-regard and former relative social standing, buccmaster thinks himself the rightful leader of the group. They live in the wild places that the invaders dare not enter and make small guerrilla attacks of opportunity against the French. Also from the back cover it's said, "The Wake is a post-apocalyptic novel set a thousand years ago" and that is exactly right: buccmaster and his followers have had their world destroyed and they struggle to survive as they attempt to restore the crown of England.
But what elevates the story from a Robin Hood-like tale of derring-do is buccmaster himself: when he was a child, his grandfather -- one of the few men who resisted the introduction of Christianity -- taught buccmaster the ways of the old gods (Woden and Frig); how to speak to them and how to call them to your aid. He taught the boy where to find the home of the gods and bequeathed to him a rune-covered sword that buccmaster wielded as the source of his authority. In the beginning, it was buccmaster alone who could read the warnings of the birds and a startling comet that disaster was on its way, and as the story progresses (and as buccmaster spends more and more of his time communing with the gods in the woods), it becomes unclear how much of his thinking is downright delusional. The evolution of buccmaster -- and the slow revelation of the details of his life -- is narrative genius.
Author Paul Kingsnorth has previously released a poetry collection, and there is much poetical in The Wake; especially in his imaginary conversations and in his dreams:
i becum it i becum it i was a man no mor. was i a wyrm a hara a broc i was sum thing that was not a man but was not lic any wiht i cnaw. i gan down a deop hol in to the ground deop and blaec and i colde feel the eorth in my haer on my nebb cold and wet. down i gan until i cum in to a great light place in the eorth and all around me i seen dweorgs worcan to dig gold from the rocc worcan with hamors and with hands. i flowan through this and I cum up abuf the eorth again i was in the heofon i was a fugol with a carfan bec and i flowan then flowan across water what nefer seemed to haf an endI enjoyed absolutely everything about The Wake (even if it often put me to sleep) and would absolutely recommend it: the small amount of extra effort it takes to read the unfamiliar language is rewarding as it made me feel clever -- as though I had taught myself a foreign language -- but it's designed to be readable, and it is.
The following totally made my New Year -- a particularly attention seeking acquaintance made the following facebook posts two minutes apart:
Was she actually posting the first comment, with a one-year-old in her arms, when she made the tumble? She hurt herself and the first thing she did was facebook it? She got a lot of concerned replies for the second post, so I guess: Mission Accomplished!
Kennedy and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed...
