For an entire lifetime I've had a ghastly relationship with Sir Walter Scott. Ivanhoe was a mandatory book in the Erasmus Hall High School English curriculum and I remember reading the novel with painful indifference. It's entirely possible that I didn't persevere to the final pages but instead relied upon the 1952 film. At various times I've made an effort to read novels by Sir Walter, but time and again I've foundered. Twenty or so years ago, Old Mortality and Redgauntlet were being trumpeted by academic critics, and I gave each novel a fair trial, but, after a chapter or two, ran aground on the sandbar of dullness. As part of my project of re-reading books that were popular or required in the 1950s, I tackled Ivanhoe again, and I can report that this time I read it to the very last drop -- but what a colossal effort! I never "got into" it but read it in gobbets of five or six pages at a time before succumbing to boredom or sleep. I deserve the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Prize for Drudgery.
Why did our elders judge Ivanhoe to be suitable for 10th graders? The plot plods, the characters are unidimensional cliches, and there's a total want of suspense. The dialogue is ludicrous. It reminds me of what Jonson said about Spenser--that "in affecting the ancients, he writ no language." But in point of fact, Scott does write a language--he writes bad Blackadderese. "Fear not, my lord. I must speak with you in private, before you mount your palfrey." "Have patience, sir. I might retort your accusation, and blame the inconsiderate levity which foiled my design." "A truce with your raillery, sir knight." "If thou refusest my fair proffer, the provost of the lists shall cut thy bow-string, break thy bow and arrows and expel thee from the presence as a faint-hearted craven." And on and on for four hundred mucilaginous pages.
There's another roadblock to empathetic reading. Ivanhoe features a Jewish money-lender named Isaac who's a walking inventory of stereotypes: he's usurious, greedy, faint-hearted, fawning, and although he claims poverty, is secretly rolling in shekels. He sums up all the worst aspects of both Shylock and Fagin. But Scott thinks we should forgive Isaac even though he's such a miserable human being, and by asking us to do so, he somehow manages to make tolerance even more offensive than bigotry itself.In addition, Isaac has an impossibly beauteous and virtuous daughter named Rebecca. Yes, it's a miracle, says Scott, but there are Jews (or at least Jewesses) who are not money-grubbing villains. Thanks a lot, Sir Walter.
Why was Ivanhoe high-school fare? Beats the heck out of me. And it makes me angry to think that this bad book was thrust down our throats. Let's put those upstart immigrants in their place, is what they were saying. Was it malevolent or merely unconscious? Difficult to ascertain, but after slogging through Ivanhoe, I'm not in a forgiving mood.
January 7. I've now watched the 1952 Ivanhoe with Elizabeth Taylor as Jessica, an aging Robert Taylor as Ivanhoe, and an aging Joan Fontaine as Rowena. It's a bit dated and it occasionally anticipates Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it's not half bad. The writer, who had the wonderful name of Aeneas McKenzie, discarded the novel, started from scratch, and composed a screenplay that has action and adventure and romance and every once in a while borrows an incident from Sir Walter Scott. A good strategy, in my view.
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