Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted - Posts Tagged "action"
Huzzah the king of historical fiction Bernard Cornwell
Cue the trumpets. Unfurl the banners. There is a royal cardinal of historical fiction among us. Me? I’d kiss his ring and vote him pope.
Bernard Cornwell is the living cultural treasure of which I speak. Here’s a Englishman, an ex-TV producer who followed his heart to Cape Cod and couldn’t get a green card. So he wrote the Richard Sharp series (21 novels) about a rifleman who follows Wellington from India to the Battle of Waterloo. See the DVD if you don’t believe me. Never has history tasted more true.
There is no era of blood and guts that Cornwell has not gored and scored. He’s written 40 novels and is considered “the most prolific and successful novelist in the world today” (Wall Street Journal). The King Arthur legend, the Saxon invasion of England, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the 1350’s War of the Roses, he’s marched his sparse prose through every one.
1356, his newest, tells how yeoman English archers, with pluck and luck and sharp stiletto daggers, pop the eyes out of the cream of France and make a rabbit stew. He tells the birth tales of the professional soldier through the mists of time. His heroes struggle out of the gutter to gain the manner house. I await his serialized interpretation every spring and my library orders them by the bucket.
History is recoded by the winners, and Cornwell annotates the sights and sounds, the pompous and villainous, the abbots with nasty habits, slayers with haymakers and monster men who swing a morning star. He tells history far beyond the ‘Be All You Can Be’ recruiting poster. He puts you in the melee and mud like no other.
War is hell and Cornwell writes in Technicolor. Swords were useless for fighting in the battle line, so smash an ax to split a steel helmet, swing a cudgel to clear a lane through the cannon fodder. The only difference between Cornwell’s heroes and the hounds of hell is that they do not condone rape. Mayhem and chivalry, surely, but a lady’s virtue is a gate best not trampled on Cornwell’s turf.
Richard Sharp, Uhtred, Thomas of Hookton, Nathaniel Starbuck – these men have the spine of a nation, the genes of the Celts, the grip of the god-damns (French slang for the English). If ever a warrior looked into a mirror, it was to find a bit of Richard Sharp glinting back in his eye. There will be no boogey men inside the castle tonight, my darlings.
So raise your pens to Bernard Cornwell, a master of the craft and pinpoint accurate with a yew-bow at two hundred yards. If it weren’t for his lineage, we’d all be eating pommes friets and goose liver pate with never a gold Louie between us. And the cries of our mothers would keep us awake at night as we pined for a blade.
Huzzah Lord Cornwell, the castle and keep of historical fiction are yours, well won.
Bernard Cornwell is the living cultural treasure of which I speak. Here’s a Englishman, an ex-TV producer who followed his heart to Cape Cod and couldn’t get a green card. So he wrote the Richard Sharp series (21 novels) about a rifleman who follows Wellington from India to the Battle of Waterloo. See the DVD if you don’t believe me. Never has history tasted more true.
There is no era of blood and guts that Cornwell has not gored and scored. He’s written 40 novels and is considered “the most prolific and successful novelist in the world today” (Wall Street Journal). The King Arthur legend, the Saxon invasion of England, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the 1350’s War of the Roses, he’s marched his sparse prose through every one.
1356, his newest, tells how yeoman English archers, with pluck and luck and sharp stiletto daggers, pop the eyes out of the cream of France and make a rabbit stew. He tells the birth tales of the professional soldier through the mists of time. His heroes struggle out of the gutter to gain the manner house. I await his serialized interpretation every spring and my library orders them by the bucket.
History is recoded by the winners, and Cornwell annotates the sights and sounds, the pompous and villainous, the abbots with nasty habits, slayers with haymakers and monster men who swing a morning star. He tells history far beyond the ‘Be All You Can Be’ recruiting poster. He puts you in the melee and mud like no other.
War is hell and Cornwell writes in Technicolor. Swords were useless for fighting in the battle line, so smash an ax to split a steel helmet, swing a cudgel to clear a lane through the cannon fodder. The only difference between Cornwell’s heroes and the hounds of hell is that they do not condone rape. Mayhem and chivalry, surely, but a lady’s virtue is a gate best not trampled on Cornwell’s turf.
Richard Sharp, Uhtred, Thomas of Hookton, Nathaniel Starbuck – these men have the spine of a nation, the genes of the Celts, the grip of the god-damns (French slang for the English). If ever a warrior looked into a mirror, it was to find a bit of Richard Sharp glinting back in his eye. There will be no boogey men inside the castle tonight, my darlings.
So raise your pens to Bernard Cornwell, a master of the craft and pinpoint accurate with a yew-bow at two hundred yards. If it weren’t for his lineage, we’d all be eating pommes friets and goose liver pate with never a gold Louie between us. And the cries of our mothers would keep us awake at night as we pined for a blade.
Huzzah Lord Cornwell, the castle and keep of historical fiction are yours, well won.
Expletives Deleted
We like to write and read and muse awhile and smile. My pal Prasad comes to mutter too. Together we turn words into the arc of a rainbow. Insight Lite, you see?
- Peter Prasad's profile
- 59 followers
