Edward Rutherfurd

''Even the forest grows new oaks.''
When I see a book by Edward Rutherfurd, the effects are the same as when I see a creation by Ken Follett. I believe that most die-hard lovers of Historical Fiction have placed these two writers on a high pedestal. Rutherfurd's books aren't heavy on the romance element like Follett's and this is a significant plus for me. So, it was with great enthusiasm that I started reading The Forest and I was not disappointed.

But why did Rutherfurd choose to write show more about the Forest? Well, The New Forest in the county of Hampshire is a place steeped in history and folklore. It is the largest ancient forest in England and therefore, it stands as an everlasting witness to many crucial moments in British History. Prince Richard and William II, the sons of William the Conqueror, died in the Forest and the legend goes that they died as a punishment for their father's faults. A mix of folktales and apocryphas covers the area making it one of the most fascinating and mystical places to visit in England. A version of King Arthur's legend claims that there is a hidden lake said to have been the birthplace of Excalibur and the domain of the Lady of the Lake. On July 31 in 1940, the English witches gathered in the New Forest and raised a powerful cone to stop the advances of Hitler's forces. Many stories of ghosts and weird, unexplained sightings grace the place and the village of Beaulieu is particularly high in the list of strange activity.

It goes without saying that all these elements are present in Rutherfurd's book and dealt with in a unique, beautiful way. The history of the forest is told in nine stories, through the eyes of two opposing families (Rutherfurd's favourite technique) and their course over the ages and the generations. Each story centers around two powerful themes, the struggle for power and the worries over the preservation of the forest. We see that the machinations people use to climb up the ladder of society and the effects of greed over the natural environment are similar through time in an eerie, discomforting way.

For me, the stories that really stand out in The Forest are ''The Hunt'', ''Beaulieu'', ''Alice'' and ''The Albion Park'', although each story is a necessary piece of the beautiful puzzle the writer has created. In ''The Hunt'' , set in the era of William the Conqueror, we meet a wonderful allusion of Man Vs Nature in the form of the agony of a young doe to protect her newly-born fawn during the continuous huntings of the nobles in the sacred forest. Like the beautiful doe, Adela -the heroine of the story- is trying to break free from the patriarchal society, being in the unfortunate position of having a noble name but no dowry.

''Beaulieu'' is set in the era of Edward I, the well-known Longshanks. Here, we see the games the Church uses to gain control of the Forest over the noblemen. At the heart of the story is a beautiful relationship between two people who are separated by the Law of God and the laws of men alike. Brother Adam is an extremely well-written character and I would surely read a novel with him as the central hero.

''Alice'' is derived from a well-documented trial case, during the Restoration era. Rutherfurd focuses on a woman's fight to protect herself and her children from the follies of her husband, in the midst of a mad civil war about Religion and Power. Yes, the story is obviously set in the terrifying years of Cromwell's revolution and its aftermath.

In ''Albion Park'', the longest story in the book set in 1794, he has created characters that are possible to anger you to the high heavens.Mrs Grockleton, a hybrid of Mrs Bennet and Catherine De Bourgh, Adelaide Albion, the unmarried aunt who has remained stuck in the feuds of the past and wants to control everything and everyone, Louise who strongly resembles the empty-headed, gold-digging girls in Jane Austen's books and Fanny, the main heroine, who is very intelligent but so docile and devoted to her family that she needs a rather big shock in order to face reality. I could notice some elements from Austen's Emma in Fanny's character, but without the sharpness of spirit and liveness of character that characterize our favourite matchmaker.

The last part of the book ties the past and the present in a brilliant way. I don't have much to say about Rutherfurd's writing, I am not able to. His descriptions take you right into the heart of the mystical forest, you can feel the wind, see the leaves change, the huts, the running deer, the chirping of the birds. He manages to use the right form of language for every era he depicts, and it is simply astonishing. You'd think that ''Albion Park'' has been written by Jane Austen, his interactions are so faithful, his research shows the traces of a great Historical Fiction writer, equal to Ken Follett and much better than Bernard Cornwell. His books are a source of knowledge and a jewell for every bookcase. show less

I wanted to love this book because I love the area it is written about, and the historical events and archaeological sites it is supposed to tell about. However, I can't bring myself to read anymore and waste any more of my life on this book. The writing is abysmal. It's as if someone wanted to write a nonfiction book but figured it wouldn't sell, then threw in some characters (names, really, not characters) and the occasional line of dialogue between chunks of master's thesis and sold the show more mishmash as a sweeping historical saga. The result is just dreadful, sometimes to the point of being funny. I read about half a page that had particularly annoyed me aloud to my husband and he laughed so hard he nearly cried. I am not sure what book everyone else is reading, but I must have gotten hold of the wrong copy because the one I have would not have made it out of a high school English class without a lot of red marks and a failing grade. I wish the author had just published his nonfiction book. I probably would have loved that. show less

I greatly enjoyed Sarum. All 1033 pages of it.

Sarum is the first Edward Rutherford book I tackled, although his New York book has stared at me with longing on a shelf for years. Starting at the end of the last Ice Age, Sarum follows the generational paths of five families through time to the modern day. The book hits all the strong beats: the building of Stonehenge, the Roman Invasion of Britain and their colonization, the Dark Ages, Saxon Britain, the Norman Invasion, the War of the Roses, show more the High Middle Ages and the Black Death, the coming of Protestantism and Queen Elizabeth II, the English Civil War, the conquest of India and the American Revolution, Trafalgar and Waterloo, the Great Wars of the 20th Century. Sarum left me with a great sense of breadth and time and gave me an appreciation for age and the passing of time. Everything starts and everything ends -- cultures, religions, industry and business, technology, reigns great and small. That which felt eternal at the time it happened passed and soon became someone else's archeology.

The highlights of the book are the grisly Stonehenge chapter (nearly a novella in itself), the building of the Salisbury Cathedral and the horrible chapter on the Black Death, followed by the Revolution and the Cavaliers in the Civil War. Of the five families, two are the main focus of the book: the horrible decedents of Tep, the river man who has always been there since before the Ice Age ended, and the Shockleys, decedents of a Saxon Thane whose fortunes rise and fall with England's. For 1500 years those two families have back and forths, constantly crossing paths until finally joining in the 20th century. The other families (Caius Porteus's decedents, the family of Nooma the Mason, and the Godefrei's) play second fiddle -- save in the Cathedral chapter -- to the others.

Sometimes the chapters felt a little too short and that generation ended too soon but, generally, I read this book with Wikipedia and my (nonfiction) history of England open to flesh out some of the details where the book glossed over. Overall, I enjoyed the rich detail Rutherford supplies in with the every day lives of his inhabitants of Sarum to give grounding in the time period. No politics get injected in the background of historical period detail -- it is told, straight, to help couch the feelings and motivations of the characters.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read some meaty historical fiction or to get an entertaining grounding in the history of Britain. Although some of the archeology in the early part of the book is a little wobbly now (book came out in 1987), the rest is solid and was backed by my reference books.

Five stars. show less

I think I might be slightly hooked on Edward Rutherfurd's city biographies, the 'no pain no gain' of 'factional' histories (800 pages, I thought I would never be finished!) Not only did I make the journey to Paris after reading London and New York but I requested that my local library buy a copy (and they did!)

Anyhoo, same format different city. The history of Paris from 1261 to 1968 (non-chronological for a pleasant change), but mainly focused on the Belle Epoque and the two world wars, show more told through six fictional (and interwoven) families representing the social strata of the city. Very clever and engrossing, but long-winded as ever. I also found the twentieth century chapters very soap opera-ish, like a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel, with everyone being very attractive and brilliant at whatever they choose to do.

The characters for me, however, are merely devices and mouth pieces (sometimes literally, when the exposition gets comically heavy) for the history, and I learned some interesting facts about people and places as ever, including the Sacre Coeur (started in 1873, why did I think it was older?) and the Eiffel Tower, the Sorbonne, named after the college of the King's chaplain, Robert de Sorbon, and Shakespeare and Company. There are also interesting discussions on religion ('The trouble with Christians is that they say one thing, and do something completely different' - this from a Jewish character in 1307, but which I thought was still very appropriate!), war, class and immigration. There are some rather crawling statements about how wonderful America is that seemed to have strayed from the New York volume, but then I supposed France did have a rather parasitic relationship with the States ('Freedom was in their blood. It was their birth right'), and all of the relationships are depressingly heteronormative, with handsome men matching with elegant women - even the 'illegitimate' children find their natural place in the end, usually after proving their worth by extending the family line.

I was of course drawn to the chapters on Versailles, and the one brief study of the Revolution (the first one), and found a couple of (intentional?) inaccuracies - Guillotin tweaked the gibbet to make a smoother and faster method of execution, he didn't invent the device, and isn't it commonly believed that Robespierre tried to shoot himself in the head and missed? I did like the story of the aristocratic de Cygne couple sent to the guillotine in 1794 and the last minute reprieve of the wife - very Scarlet Pimpernel! (As was the debate around the Dreyfus affair and anti-Semitism in France, which occurred around the time when Baroness Orczy was writing her novel.)

Fascinating through and through, glad I survived once again! show less