Informative at times, Interesting at times and well, too slow at times

books:

	• Ivanhoe: A Romance (Modern Library Classics) Walter Sir Scott Modern Library, 2001 - 592 pages average customer review:based on 63 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Informative at times, Interesting at times and well, too slow at times

I'm glad that I read this book and I think that it had many exciting and enjoyable moments. The characters were interesting, for the most part, although I thought it slightly odd that Ivanhoe was hardly the main character of the book. It did have some very slow moments, but like all romantic novels, the character's feelings are talked about for pages and pages. If you know all of this beforehand, it is quite a fun read. I agree with the reviewer that the anti-semitism was brutal throughout the novel but at the end, you felt that there was an enlightenment with Ivanhoe and other characters about the fact that Jewish people are, in fact, PEOPLE! I liked that part of the book very much.

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a classic of honor and relationships

Ivanhoe shows up on just about every list of the 100 greatest books ever written. There is good reason for this. It's descriptions of time, place and character are vivid and engrossing. Perhaps most interestingly, the book describes an almost dizzying array of complicated relationships. Strict father to independent son, lover to lover, lover to unrequited lover, father to daughter, conquerers to the oppressed, jew to gentile, servant to master, king to subjects (loyal and disloyal), it's all in Ivanhoe. Personally, I was most taken with the treatment the Jews received, with Scott being very modern in his treatment given the time and place in which he was living. Rebecca comes through as one of the most interesting characters in the novel, the Jewish woman who seems to understand Christianity better than any of the Christians. Beyond the engaging relationships, we are given action that draws in characters that have become mythic: Richard the Lion-hearted, Robin Hood, the Knights Templar and of course Ivanhoe himself. This is a novel that is worthy of the intensive study it has received, a staggering achievement.

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Sir Walter Scott: the master of the historical romance

I'm sort of glad movie producers haven't discovered (and ruined) this great story yet.

This book has nearly every genre packed into it: romance, history (highly fictionalized of course), action, humor, social satire, even some poetry.

Scott's a great writer whose main concern is to give the reader an enjoyable story. I think he successed admirably. At the same time he slips in some important issues to consider (like family and leadership responsibilites, loyalty, and racism). One of the best things I like in Scott is his ability to give some of the more minor characters an individual flair (check out Wamba son of Witless).

I'd recommend the Oxford World's classics edition of the text as it provides many helpful editorial notes as well as an interesting introduction, bibliography, and chonology for Scott.

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Free SF Reader

I loved all that knightly action stuff when I was younger, but I found this quite stultifying, and really had to force myself to finish it. Very, very dry. I may change my mind if I have a look at again, but given the time period, that is probably unlikely.

Scott Writes As An Antiquary - And We Need Ian Duncan's Notes!

Sir Walter Scott. Ivanhoe. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Ian Duncan, Barbara and Carlisle Moore Professor of English at the University of Oregon. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics Edition), 1996.

Reading some of the reviews published on the site about "Ivanhoe", I have been shocked and horrified to discover that well-meaning (?) English teachers have apparently been letting schoolchildren loose on "Ivanhoe" without the necessary guidance and preparation. No wonder that some of them have turned away from a book, which, although famous (thanks probably to the early-1950's film starring a stunning young Elizabeth Taylor as Rebecca), is almost as difficult to read as anything else Scott wrote and despite its phantastic tale of knights in armour tries the patience of the modern reader until the very last page.

That is one very good reason to opt for the Oxford World's Classics version, which I believe contains just about all the additional information that a normal reader could require. Ian Duncan has not only printed Scott's final text (which he has carefully scrutinized and compared with both the autograph and early editions), but also includes Scott's own introduction and his notes (21 pages of them) as well as his own editorial notes containing explanations of difficult terms, speculation on where Scott may have got his details wrong and, last but not least, details of Scott's use of the language of the Bible, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, Webster, Dryden and Pope. Of course, reading the book with one thumb in the notes at the back is not as comfortable as reading a modern novel, but it is probably the only way to understand Scott.

And if you want to understand Scott, I would strongly advise not reading "Ivanhoe" before tackling some of his earlier novels. In "The Antiquary", for example, Scott portrays himself under the pseudonym of Jonathan Oldbuck. In "Ivanhoe", Scott is pursuing not only his literary career but also his antiquarian predilections. That is why the book is full of old-fashioned vocabulary and why there are long descriptions of things medieval which matter little to the plot; Scott found history interesting of itself, and was also an expert on medieval law, on heraldry etc. And he also had an interesting personal background as the scion of a fairly strict Calvinist family who had turned episcopalian; Scott himself was a member of the Freemasons and took very much an "enlightened" stance on the things of religion (to be followed in books such as "Old Mortality" and "The Heart of Midlothian"). Yet he was never a scoffer; rather, he portrayed characters who fulfilled his ideals as well as gross hypocrites. Here in "Ivanhoe", his ideal is obviously Rebecca whose tolerance (despite persecution), humanity and self-denial are painted in the clearest colours, contrasting greatly with the pseudo-religious values of the Templars but also of Friar Tuck who here seems to represent the degenerate Saxon form of the Roman Catholic Church. It is perhaps the supreme irony that in a book populated by devout Catholics, the only character who really behaves in a model Christian way is the Jewess Rebecca.

It would take too long to enumerate all the other fascinating aspects of this novel here, but I recommend it to anyone looking for more than just entertainment. Pay attention to the nuances, and these 500 pages will amply reward the not inconsiderable effort needed to comprehend them.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Hailed by Victor Hugo as 'the real epic of our age,' Ivanhoe was an immensely popular bestseller when first published in 1819. The book inspired literary imitations as well as paintings, dramatizations, and even operas. Now Sir Walter Scott's sweeping romance of medieval England has prompted a lavish new television production.

In the twelfth century, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe returns home to England from the Third Crusade to claim his inheritance and the love of the lady Rowena. The heroic adventures of this noble Saxon knight involve him in the struggle between Richard the Lion-Hearted and his malignant brother John: a conflict that brings Ivanhoe into alliance with the mysterious outlaw Robin Hood and his legendary fight for the forces of good.

'Scott's characters, like Shakespeare's and Jane Austen's, have the seed of life in them,' observed Virginia Woolf. 'The emotions in which Scott excels are not those of human beings pitted against other human beings, but of man pitted against Nature, of man in relation to fate. His romance is the romance of hunted men hiding in woods at night; of brigs standing out to sea; of waves breaking in the moonlight; of solitary sands and distant horsemen; of violence and suspense.' For Henry James, 'Scott was a born storyteller. . . . Since Shakespeare, no writer has created so immense a gallery of portraits.'

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