The adaptation of older stories into more contemporary forms, particularly those which were adapted from archaic forms, epic poems, oral legacies, mythical texts, into novels and films, has always fascinated me, both for its rarely satisfactory execution and for the very mechanics of making a popular piece of art from ancient material. In many ways this process is akin to exhuming a Mousterian bowl from your backyard and selling it at Ikea. The critical reception of such exercises always dissuades me from reading or watching them. From Robert Graves's stodgy 1934 novel I, Claudius to Robert Zemeckis's ill-imagined 2007 film Beowulf, most strict adaptations seem to be trying a little too hard to stick to the fictional facts. Give me the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou. You can keep Wolfgang Peterson's Troy. Give me Styron's The Confession of Nat Turner. Keep Madison Smartt Bell's Haiti novels.
In her 1990 novel Thomas the Rhymer, Ellen Kushner, famous for a string of fantasy novels she published in the 80s and 90s and as the host of public radio’s Sound and Spirit tackles the legend of True Thomas, a 13th century Scottish minstrel and purported prophet. You can read more about Thomas and some of his prophecies at this informative wiki page. Kushner uses four narrators to tell the tale of Thomas’s adoptive family, his exodus in Elfland, and his romance with a milkmaid named Elspeth. It all sounds pretty kooky in synopsis, but Kushner manages to tell her story in an engaging and earthy way. Surprisingly, the least deft of these four narratives comes from Thomas himself. When Kushner hands the narrative over to Gavin, a farmer, or his wife Meg, or Elspeth, we start to see some of the shades of reality seeping through the story. Thomas’s own tale is of nothing more than an orgiastic trip to the land of the elves. Kushner renders this fantasy in a dreamlike psychedelia that only occasionally borders on the inane, as when the elf queen’s brother becomes an orange flame and fights for Thomas’s fate. However, we see from the simpler folk around Thomas that he may have made all of this up to cover up his own gallivanting womanizing ways. The novel’s real worth lies in this examination of reality and the power of storytelling and song in shaping the narratives that are believed in the present and remembered in the future. While the elfin queen and the wondrous feasts denied to Thomas may have some significance as an allegorical digression about the limits of escape and emigration, the uncertainty of Elspeth’s fate is at the heart of the drama here. Thomas manipulates the conventions of the period to his advantage when he asks Elspeth if she would accompany him on his journeys, knowing full well she would risk her standing in the community by running around with an unmarried man. It is her life which is wasted by his flight. Of course, Kushner’s book is a romance, so Elspeth forgives Thomas and they live in happiness until the end of their days and bear many great children together. The end.
In all cases, Kushner renders her novel in a clear and uninflected style, which is infinitely more effective than trying to capture the language of the Scots phonetically, or intersperse archaic words and phrases. Her use of evocative perspectives reminds me of Styron or Faulkner without the arch literary pretension. While most fans of traditional fantasy might bemoan a lack of dragons and magic and violence, I find Kushner’s novel much more revealing about human nature than the average bit of swords and sorcery.
Oh, and how about the dust jacket pictured above. Not Nice Jacket material, that's for sure. I much prefer Kate Greenaway's watercolor below.
Posts
