A Knight’s Epic Quest, and the Perils of Chivalry
This content was originally published by MAILE MELOY on 11 May 2017 | 5:00 pm.
Source link
The callow young Yvain, as a protagonist, isn’t learning to be king, like Arthur is, or even learning to be good. But Anderson is interested in the overlooked aspects of epic stories. His National Book Award-winning “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation” is the story of a young slave raised by philosophers in colonial Boston, who becomes part of an uprising — the American Revolution — that won’t extend its hard-won liberty to him.
Photo
“Yvain” begins with a knight, Calogrenant, pouring water on a magical weather stone, bringing storms to devastate a French lord’s land. The lord says, “You attack my home! My wood! My castle! If a man has been wronged, it’s his right to complain.” Calogrenant is beaten in the fight, and limps home to tell his story to Arthur’s court. To avenge his cousin, Yvain pours more water on the stone and kills the freshly annoyed lord. When he sees the grieving widow, Laudine, he falls in love, in knightly fashion.
Yvain’s efforts to become worthy of Laudine, with the help of her sorceress servant, Lunette, are guided, and often misguided, by chivalric code. Laudine struggles with political necessity, while Yvain is diverted by side quests, with a rescued lion beside him.
Continue reading the main story
Trained falcons open and close the book, fierce but constrained, like the human characters. The humans are angular in flowing clothes and armor, passing from forest to tent camp to castle, weighing questions of honor and loyalty.
Some passages are wordless, told with Andrea Offermann’s swirling double-page spreads. She uses tapestries — the graphic novels of the Middle Ages — for recounted stories. And a tapestry-making sweatshop with captive women is one of the wrongs Yvain has to right. Offermann choreographs fights with slashing swords, horses charging from both pages toward the center, and Yvain’s devoted lion leaping in.
The result is a sharp critique of medieval social strictures, with stunning battle scenes, monsters and blood. My nephew devoured all 134 pages of it.
Continue reading the main story
I finally asked him: “Why do you think TOAFK is better?”
“Because it’s longer,” he said.
Continue reading the main story
The post A Knight’s Epic Quest, and the Perils of Chivalry appeared first on Art of Conversation.
