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Madselin

Norah Lofts

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Jul 12, 2011 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction

Lofts (d. 1983) was a deservedly popular author of historical fiction in her own lifetime, though not nearly as well-known to the current generation of serious readers as she deserves to be. Her work --which is set mainly in her native England, usually in Suffolk, where she was a longtime resident-- is characterized by a solid knowledge of history (she was a secondary-school history teacher before becoming a full-time writer), excellent plotting skills, serious psychological insight, and above a Lofts (d. 1983) was a deservedly popular author of historical fiction in her own lifetime, though not nearly as well-known to the current generation of serious readers as she deserves to be. Her work --which is set mainly in her native England, usually in Suffolk, where she was a longtime resident-- is characterized by a solid knowledge of history (she was a secondary-school history teacher before becoming a full-time writer), excellent plotting skills, serious psychological insight, and above all very lifelike, nuanced characterizations of men and women who are believable compounds of positive and negative traits and motives; and you have the feeling that she's generally more interested in understanding her characters than judging them. She blends the realistic observation of a Realist with, frequently, the evocative, intense situations and emotion-inducing moral grey areas of the Romantic school. And for all her gentleness in judging individuals, she has a sharp eye for illuminating social injustice, cruelty, greed and hypocrisy, and implicitly condemning them for what they are. All of these characteristics are in view in this mature work; I found this one of the best Lofts novels I've read (and I've read several).

The Goodreads description for this book reads like the jacket blurb it probably was, and the description of the dynamic of the relationship between Rolf and Madselin is misleading (it makes this sound like a romance genre novel, which it isn't). But they have the setting right, and the general idea of Madselin's situation. Personally, the aftermath of the Norman Conquest isn't my favorite historical setting, because of the sheer brutality of the real-life suffering visited on innocent people with complete impunity for the murdering thugs who inflicted it; and Lofts doesn't hesitate to depict this in all of its unvarnished ugliness. But there are redemptive qualities in her plot and treatment that made this novel a gripping, rewarding read. It's also, at 209 pp., with the author's limpid, free-flowing prose carrying you along, a very quick read. (Another characteristic of Loft's style is dialogue that reads like modern speech, without actual anachronisms; she doesn't try to cultivate archaic-sounding speech patterns, unlike such writers as Scott.) At the book's opening, in the winter of 1067, 16 months after the battle of Hastings, Madselin is a 17-year-old widow hiding in a convent from the Norman usurpers who, just days earlier, brutally murdered her husband, a Saxon lord, and took over his little farming community. Like all teens of that day, she's no empty-headed child with her emotional maturity and sense of responsibility artificially stunted by an unnatural cultural environment (like our culture :-( ); she's not a stranger to the rough realities of the adult world. But for most of her life, she's been somewhat callow, willful and self-absorbed; she's only now beginning to see the needs of others besides herself, and to see some of her past attitudes and actions in the unflattering light of reality. This novel will be, in large measure, a story of her growth in moral maturity and empathy. It's also the story of Rolf, new lord of the manor, given a fief by William the Conqueror (whose armorer he was) despite his lack of noble pedigree, product of a rough upbringing, conscious of his social inferiority, taciturn, looking out for Number One from ingrained instinct, but not devoid of conscience or learning ability. These two will demonstrate the adage that "war makes strange bedfellows;" and along the way, as she gradually reveals through their pasts and present who they are as people, Lofts spins a fascinating tale. Before she's done, she'll throw a suspenseful monkey-wrench into the works that'll have you turning pages like mad; and the denouement may blow you entirely out of the water (as it did me.) Maybe I'm too prodigal with 5-star ratings, but I thought this one deserved it. ...more

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