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Seen Ridley Scott's new Robin Hood film? Haven't yet? Either way, if you're interested in the legend of Robert of Locksley, you should rush to read Angus Donald's debut novel OUTLAW, the first in a projected series of Robin Hood retellings. Vivid, engaging, and rich in medieval detail without Tokienesque pseudo-archaic language or culturally improbable characterisation updates (sorry, Ridley), this tale moves faster than a speeding arrow. Impressively, Donald has not sugar-coated his eleventh-century world. Robin Hood is open to considering alliances with both a pagan priestess who commits brutal ritual sacrifices and is willing to declare men incarnations of her gods, and with the backers of the upcoming Crusade. In this England, gang rape and massacre serve as political dialogue. In OUTLAW, this tale is told by Alan Dale, whom we might know better as "Allan-a-Dale," Robin's boyish harpist-archer, the last major character to join the outlaw band. Alan is a grandfather now, and too old to draw a string or pluck a harp; Robin is long dead. To what appears to be a local Nottinghamshire audience, Alan orally relates the beginning of his adventures with Robert Odo, outlaw prince of Locksley, and, in particular, their feud with the corrupt, murderous, and lavender-perfumed local functionary, Sir Ralph Murdac. Alan is the perfect guide to this midnight world, for in its darkness, he sings - literally, as apprentice trouvere, or troubadour, to the courts of both Robin and the incarcerated Queen Elaine (formerly of Acquitaine.) The details of the trouvere's trade make up some of the book's most captivating descriptions. We learn of the invention of harmonic chanting by monks at "the new cathedral being built at Notre Dame," and of the jongleur, who combined dancing, juggling, and "telling amusing stories" with music, but was "ranked lower than a trouvere, who would, of course, find or compose his own music." As the young trouvere searches for the love and honour of which he sings, he ends up with ambivalent feelings about Robin that, as an old man, he is still trying to sort -- hence his soul-searching recitation. This allows OUTLAW to examine and criticize the legend-building and hero-worship of "Robin Hood" that have been going on at least since the fourteenth century. I suspect that will be even more pronounced and daring in the next book in the series, which sees the accession of "Richard Lionheart," the usual heroic patron of Robin Hood's efforts -- and Lionheart's invasion of Jerusalem as governed by Saladin, or Salah-al-Din Yussuf, of Tikrit in present-day Iraq. Donald's OUTLAW reminds me of another dramatisation of an oft-lionized hero's life, from the viewpoint of his acolyte and helpmate. In Bertolt Brecht's play THE LIFE OF GALILEO, young protege Andrea Sarti tells the maverick astronomer "Woe is the land that has no hero." "No," retorts his master. "Woe is the land that needs a hero." That question is the theme of Donald's song. I can't wait for this trouvere's next performance.
Reviewed by Rebecca Nesvet, May 2010
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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