ENEMY OF GOD BY BERNARD CORNWELL (REVIEW)

Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell
New York: Saint Martins Press
$24.95 397 pages


“All kings lie. No kingdom can be ruled without lies, for lies are the things that we use to build our reputations. We pay the bards to make our squalid victories into great triumphs, and sometimes we even believe the lies they sing to us.”
-Arthur, Enemy of God

Several years ago, when I was reading everything I could find about mythical figures such as King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristan, Iseult and Galahad, I blundered on the works of a Romanian philosopher named Mircea Eliade. Eliade was also obsessed with mythology and one of his most famous essays, “The Eternal Return,” entertained the idea that all of the stories of legendary heroes and tragic lovers are still with us. However,
the story’s basic elements (culture, physical characteristics, sex etc.) are constant changing. For example, the story of Tristan and Iseult could have been repeated last week in a Greek fishing village with Iseult is a waitress, Tristan might be an African fisherman and King Mark may operate a local grocery. Eliade thought that all of the great myths served as “ eternal templates” that were repeated endlessly throughout all time.

Bernard Cornwell has an interesting variation on Eliade’s theory. Instead of creating colorful alternative versions in different times and places, Cornwell radically alters the original story. In Enemy of God, not only is Arthur not a king, he has no desire to become one. Sir Lancelot, instead of being a courageous warrior and Queen Guinevere’s devoted lover, is a cowardly, vain and devious snake who plots Arthur’s death. Cornwell’s Guinevere is arrogant, ruthless and selfish - almost the opposite of the traditional virtuous wife who regrets her adultery, but is incapable of giving up Lancelot.

As a consequence, Cornwell’s treatment of the Arthurian legend is filled with unpleasant surprises and revelations. There is no round table, nor does Arthur preside over a kind of parliament of courageous and devoted warriors. Instead, England is ruled by a multitude of contentious warlords, each with their own petty holdings. Although there are alliances and blood-oaths, they are frequently broken as the warlords shift positions and loyalties in order to increase their own power and holdings.

Enemy of God, like The Winter King, is narrated by Derfel Cadarn, an aging monk who was once Arthur’s favored warrior. In fact, Derfel not only emerges as Arthur’s biographer, but quickly becomes a dominant character in this complex and violent epic. Also, it is through the narrator’s eyes that 5th century England comes alive. At this point, England is a land filled with the relics of the old Druid culture, nearly destroyed by the Romans who had built marble temples, impressive roads and stone buildings. Now, the Romans have vanished and roving bands of Saxons, Irish warlords, Druids and fanatical Christians struggle to claim the war-torn country.

Enemy of God contains (at least) six major themes. (1) Merlin’s quest for a mythical Cauldron which will enable him to summons the “Old Gods of England” and re-establish the ancient order that existed before the Romans came; (2) Derfel’s love for Ceinwyn, Princess of Powes, who has been promised to King Lancelot, (who becomesDerfel’’s most hated enemy); (3) the tragic tale of Tristan and Iseult, two lovers who flee King Mark’s kingdom (Mark is Tristan’s father in this version); they seek refuge with Arthur; (4) the growing treachery of Lancelot, including his plot to kill Arthur; (5) Arthur’s prolonged attempt to make Mordred, the crippled grandson of King Uther, the rightful King of Camelot; and (6) the rise of the fanatical Christians who have branded Arthur as the “Enemy of God” and are dedicated to purging England of pagans.

As these varied episodes unfold, Cornwell does a masterful job of creating an atmosphere fraught with superstitious omens and prophecy. Although there is little magic in Cornwell’s ancient England, the little that remains is impressive. Early in the novel,Merlin and his assistant, the one-eyed Nimue, announce the following harbingers of disaster: a sword shall rest on the neck of a child; a king who is not a king shall rule; the living shall marry the dead; and the lost shall come to light. With a growing sense of dread, Derfel moves from revelation to revelation, knowing that one or more of these prophecies will alter his own fate.

Cornwell’s second novel presents Arthur’s “united” kingdoms as a deception. Beneath the surface of brotherhood and love lies a tangled knot of lies and betrayal. What gradually becomes apparent is that each of the major factions (Merlin, Arthur and the Christians) has a hidden agenda. The struggle for control of England will be between Merlin of Avalon who is committed to the ancient and mystical world of the Druids; Arthur’s dream of a reign of peace which will unify England under a single ruler (Mordred); and the Christians who believe that paganism will be driven out of England and their God and the church will be established after Christ’s anticipated return (500 A. D.).

Although Arthur’s proposed “Camelot” appears to be winning in Enemy of God, Derfel perceives the inner corruption that is undermining everything and repeatedly attempts to warn Arthur. He only succeeds in alienating his family and himself from Arthur’s protection. The prophecy regarding “a sword resting on the neck of a child” presages a treacherous attack on Derfel’s family, and it becomes increasingly obvious that Mordred, the devious, crippled child/king, will prove to be “a king who is not a king.” Certainly, the most bizarre prediction proves to be the one involving Lancelot’s “marriage” to the corpse of Mordred’s mother in order to become the “rightful heir to the throne.”

Between the rituals involving Merlin’s legendary Cauldron, the sexual orgies associated with Guinevere’s cult of Isis and the Christian ceremonies that promote self-flagellation and maniac seizures, The Enemy of God presents a disturbing picture of a country moving towards the total collapse of all order (religious, political and cultural). By the conclusion of this novel, Arthur is definitely showing signs of disillusionment and resignation.

The reader may be subject to the same feelings. Certainly, those of us who have loved the story of Tristan and Iseult may find it difficult to accept Cornwell’s reduction of this tragic love story to the young prince’s somewhat abrupt death (killed in a duel) and Iseult’s execution by burning at the stake. None of the trappings of the traditional story are here. No love potion accidentally shared, no courtly love affair and no “ship with a white sail.” Instead, Cornwell gives us two helpless teenage lovers, whose lives are brutally extinguished before they have hardly begun to live.

Cornwell’s reduction of romantic myths to grim fables that are devoid of magic and/or grandeur is disturbing. Enemy of God contains a basic cynicism that may be the downfall of both the legendary Arthur and Bernard Cornwell’s trilogy.

THE WINTER KING By Bernard Cornwell -reviewed by Gary Carden

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
New York: Saint Martin’s Press
$24.95 - 431 pages

The city (Camelot) is built
To music, therefore never built at all
And therefore built forever. -
-The Idylls of the King, Tennyson

I was probably ten years old when I discovered King Arthur in the local library; I never got over it. That battered copy of Bullfinch’s Mythology was filled with illustrations of armored knights with noble countenances, sad maidens trapped in dark towers and bloody duels on lonely roads. I was hooked. As the years passed, other writers took up this wonderful story and I found every new version even more appealing. From Thomas Mallory to Alfred Lord Tennyson and from The Once and Future King to the musical, “Camelot,” I remained a devout fan. Like millions of other disciples, I read Mary Stewart’s epic series, and I especially remember a beautiful John Boorman film, “Excaliber,” that came out in 1981. I never cared for the comical and irreverent versions like Thomas Berger’s Arthur Rex Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court as well as the hundreds of “sword and fantasy” romances packed with dragons and Druids. No, I wanted my Arthur to be either serious, fierce and doomed, or “not yet born” (Evangeline Walton’s Mabinogion Tetralogy).

Now comes, The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell - the first novel in an Arthurian trilogy. This is not a work to be undertaken lightly, for it comes freighted with issues that demand careful reading. First, the cast of characters is intimidating with over one hundred lords, nobles, heartless villains, Druids and enchanting (in every sense of the word) women. Second, the names of people and places represent a minor challenge due to the fact that have Celtic, Irish and Welsh origins. The reader must become accustomed to proper names that have a generous supply of double dd’s and yy’s as in King Gorfyddyd (pronounced Gor-vith-id), who is an especially nasty, one-armed fellow who hates Arthur with some cause ... Arthur cut his arm off in an earlier battle, and then added insult to injury by leaving Gorfyddyd’s daughter, Ceinwyn, at the alter.

However, this enthralling tale quickly renders these textural problems irrelevant. Cornwell’s “refurbishing” of the King Arthur myth is both original and captivating. Instead of a Christ-like figure intent on Christianizing the heathen, Arthur is an exceedingly ambitious (and deeply flawed) leader who is only saved from being a heedless tyrant by his conscience. In addition, the majority of the “Christians” in The Winter King are vain dissemblers who are intent on their own vision of power. Although Cornwell’s world is filled with the trappings of magic, he is careful to make the distinction between the belief in spells, curses and divinations and any subsequent event that could be termed “miraculous.” (Sorry, no “sword in the stone” this time.)

Cornwell’s warlords and soldiers fear the curse of the Druids who march in the enemy’s frontlines behaving like demented epileptics, but there is little indication that their powers are real. Everyone in The Winter King is constantly on the alert for omens and portents: the flight of a bird, the sound of thunder and the death agonies of a sacrificial lamb can fill the bravest warrior with apprehensions and even the most elegant lady will spit in the direction of the enemy when she encounters an omen. (Everybody spits a lot in this novel.)

The narrator of The Winter King, Derfel Cadarn, is a Saxon orphan who grew up in the household of the High Druid Merlin; later, he became a soldier in Arthur’s army, advances to the status of warlord and ends his days as a monastery monk devoted to recording all that he has witnessed in his life. It is through Derfel’s eyes that we see such legendary figures as Arthur, Guinevere, Galahad and Lancelot.The consequences are definitely provocative. Here are a few brief examples.

In this first novel, Guinevere is a vain, ambitious and materialistic woman who despises the Druids, dabbles in paganism (she claims to be a follower of Isis and spends much of her time aquiring art). However, her initial attraction to Arthur has all of the trappings of true love/lust. Although she has been “bespoke” to a war chief named Valerin, and despite the fact that Arthur is in the midst of wedding Gorfyddyd’s daughter Ceinwyn, both become victims of “love at first sight.” Heedless of the consequences, the two lovers bring havoc and the death of thousands. (Remember, Lancelot hasn’t even seen Guinevere yet!) In the eyes of their followers, their love is both fated and doomed.

As for Arthur, in this introductory novel, he is not even a king, but the illegitimate son of King Uther who has renounced him and proclaimed his heir to be a crippled child (grandson) named Mordred. (No, not that one! There are three Mordreds so far!). Arthur readily accepts Uther’s decree and pledges himself to be the guardian of a maimed “child king.” His motives are suspect from the beginning, and after the scandal attending his abandonment of Ceinwyn on her wedding day, he is condemned by the majority of England’s warlords - yet he steadfastly insists that he will be the leader that will bring unity to a land that is hopelessly divided between Saxons, Franks, Druids and Irish warlords.

Lancelot easily qualifies as The Winter King’s most despicable, vain and devious character, (even though he has been perceived by other writers as the darling of Arthurian legend for centuries). Cornwell presents Lancelot’s undeserved reputation for bravery, loyalty and virtue as the direct result of an extremely effective publicity campaign conducted by poets and bards. Indeed, the narrator,Derfel perceives the versifiers and singers who spend their time composing fictional accounts of Lancelot’s adventures to be nothing more than parasitic sycophants and he takes ill-concealed delight in their massacre in the palace of King Ban, Lancelot’s father. Lancelot’s brother, Galahad, emerges as the prince who actually possesses the virtues attributed to his brother.

The Winter King contains some of the most vivid descriptive passages of suspense and bloodshed that I have encountered in Arthurian literature. Derfel’s journey to the Isle of the Dead to rescue Merlin’s mistress, Nimue, is unforgettable (as is Nimue, who manages to be crazed, bizarre and captivating. She has a golden eye, too!). The destruction of King Ban and his kingdom, the murder of Norenna, Mordred’s mother, and Arthur’s final battle with his arch-enemy, Gorfyddyd deserve to be described as riveting. They had me grinding my dentures and holding my breath. However, all of this slaughter and tension is interspersed with marvelous descriptive passages that conjure up those Victorian paintings with Arthurian settings: Flowery bowers, crystalline streams, lush gardens, silken garments and impossibly beautiful women.

The reader may end up like the doomed lovers Arthur and Guinevere, Merlin and Nimue and poor Derfel and Ceinwyn (no kidding! All it took was the touch of her finger on the back of his hand!) Yes, readers may find themselves compelled by forces beyond their control - fated (like me) to go and find a copy of the second novel, Enemy of God. Expect another review shortly.