 | Title: The Ballad of Sir Dinadan Author: Gerald Morris Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Pages: 242 Synopsis: (from the publisher) Young Dinadan has no wish to joust or quest or save damsels in distress or do any of the knightly things expected of him. He’d rather be a minstrel, playing his rebec and writing ballads. But he was born to be a knight, and knights, of course, have adventures.
So
after his father forces his knighthood upon him, he wanders towards King
Arthur’s court, in the company of a misguided Welsh lad named Culloch. There
Dinadan meets Sir Kai and Bedivere, and the three find themselves accompanying
Culloch on the worst sort of quest.
Along
the way, Dinadan writes his own ballads, singing of honor, bravery, loyalty,
and courtly love—and becomes a player in the pathetic love story of Tristam and
Iseult. He meets the Moorish knight Palomides, the clever but often
exasperating Lady Brangienne, and an elven musician named Sylvanus, along with
the usual collection of recreant knights and dimwitted defenders of chivalry.
He learns that while minstrels sing of spectacular, heroic deeds, honor is
often found in simpler, quieter ways.
|
It
should be said that when I was initially reading through this series, this was
my least favorite by far. But I was determined to do this reread with an open
mind. I enjoyed it far more this time around, until I got to the end and
remembered why my overall impression was one of dislike.
I
actually don’t mind the old cover on this one, and the new cover is
surprisingly similar.
Spoilers,
etc…
The
Twist
This book interweaves the telling of two Arthurian tales: Tristan and
Isolde, and Culloch and Olwen. Tristan and Isolde (here Tristram and Iseult, two
of various ways to spell the doomed lovers’ names), of course, is the more
widely known, possibly because of its parallels to the
Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle. We see it all through the eyes of Sir
Dinadan, a minor knight known in legend for being musical and occasionally
accompanying Tristan. Dinadan here is Tristram’s younger brother, and is one of
the knights who accompany Culloch on his quest to win Olwen (which starts out
in this book because Culloch wants to become a Knight of the Round Table rather
than the result of a curse). Olwen’s father is an ordinary man, not an ogre.
The
Plot
This story is a midquel of sorts, the only one in the series not to
advance the main narrative temporally. It begins during the years Gawain and
Terence are in the Other World in The
Squire, His Knight and His Lady and ends sometime before Parsifal’s Page. From previous books, we've already gotten some hints about the plot. A recap:
·
Tristram
killed Marhault
·
Tristram
and Iseult are irrevocably in love (lust) due to a love potion meant for Iseult
and Mark
·
Palomides
is one of the best swordsman in England along with Gawain, Lancelot and Gareth
·
Dinadan
is not good at the knightly arts and has a bit of a strong prejudice against
the fairer sex. He thinks all women are liars and treacherous backstabbers
There
are two major themes at work in this book. The first is one Morris has touched
on before: the difference between the legends/ballads of great deeds and what
actually happened, whether things were more unbelievable or more mundane than the
legend. The second is the awful things that happen in the name of love but are
really petty, selfish and cruel. Like Parsifal’s
Page, this book is also divided roughly into two parts. We open with
Dinadan, the younger son of a nobleman who wants to be a minstrel. But that is
not a life for the sons of nobles (Gillian Bradshaw’s Gwalchmai faces a similar
problem). When his father knights him in a drunken fit of trying to make his
“namby-pamby” son a “man”, Dinadan takes this as an excuse to leave. He falls
afoul of a plot by a lady and a knight to steal another man’s lands. Finding
the truth to be far from what the lady had made him believe, he goes back to
confront the pair. In the ensuing scuffle he accidentally kills the knight and
the lady accidentally kills herself. Dinadan writes a heroic song about the
mishap, turning it into a fine and tragic tale. He falls in with a would-be
knight named Culloch, and when the pair reach Camelot they discover the tale of
Dinadan’s “heroism” has preceded them. Dinadan becomes a Knight of the Round
Table, while Culloch is sent to do a great deed and earn knighthood. Sirs Kai
and Bedivere accompany them.
Culloch
soon hears of a king who has announced a series of tasks. The man who completes
them will win the king’s daughter Olwen as his bride. Culloch declares he will
take on the tasks over the objections of his fellow travelers. The tasks turn
out to be stupid, and Culloch cheats at all of them. Dinadan uses the time
questing to learn more about what his brother Tristram has been up to: namely,
being the biggest idiot the world has ever known. Dinadan also meets several
times with the fugitive Lady Brangienne, Iseult’s former best friend who was
involved in the whole love potion thing. Now Tristram and Iseult want her dead
so no one else can know about the potion. For awhile she hides out as a
lady-in-waiting to Olwen. Kai, Bedivere and Dinadan give up on Culloch and go
back to Camelot.
Several
years pass, marking the beginning of Part Two. Dinadan is out questing when he
runs into Palomides, a Moorish knight visiting from Jerusalem to learn the ways
of English knights. They set off together to meet the famous knights Palomides
has heard so much about. Unluckily for them, the knights they run into are morons
like Tristram and Culloch. The pair have several adventures together while they
search for good knights for Palomides to meet. Eventually, Palomides returns to
Jerusalem. Dinadan runs into Tristram again. This is about where the book goes
downhill for me, so disgusted am I by the awfulness of what follows. Dinadan
determines to take Tristram back to their home, but Tristram steals a lyre
given to Dinadan as a present and goes racing back to Cornwall in disguise as
the minstrel “Tramtris”. (Great name, isn't it? Really shows what Tristram can
do when he gets inspired) Dinadan gets his lyre back, but “Tramtris” and Iseult
escape together and spend a blissful, if short, amount of time cavorting about
a cave they've shipped a whole bunch of furniture to with some sort of vague
plan to spend the rest of their lives playing house there. Since they’re about
five minutes from Tintagel it doesn't take long for Mark to find them. Mark
imprisons Iseult in a tower in Tintagel. Tristram, like a gnat drawn to a
fluorescent light, sneaks back in yet again. Dinadan arrives in time to
helplessly watch as Mark kills Tristram. Iseult in her shock accidentally falls
out the tower window and dies. This whole plot is so sickening with how
absolutely pitiful and pointless the situation is that even though it makes
sense character-wise it’s hard to read. Dinadan goes to tell Brangienne, who
has moved to hiding in a convent and is very content there. He asks if she’d
like to marry him, and she turns him down, to both of their relief even though
they agree they can’t imagine marrying anyone else. The book ends with Dinadan
singing a song about the unending love of friendship.
The Characters
Dinadan:
I admit I find Dinadan’s attitude about women puzzling at the very least. I
mean, he is deceived by one woman due to his ability to think with only one
head at a time and concludes from this experience all women are treacherous
shrews. How the heck is he generalizing like this from one experience? If he’d
met more women who were mean to him, like Gaheris in Savage Damsel, I’d sort of understand where he’s coming from. I’d
even get it if he thought all beautiful women were out for something since the
woman used her beauty as a weapon. But the first woman he sees while out
adventuring deceives him and from then on all women are clearly evil? Wow,
that’s shallow. Which I don’t buy, because the rest of the time Dinadan’s
pretty perceptive. He seems to have softened by the end of Part One, since he
helps a woman and her children get away from an abusive husband. In Part Two
he’s occupied with avoiding Tristram and helping Palomides, so nasty opinions
about women go to the wayside. I felt bad for him, stuck with an uncaring
father and Tristram as a brother. Tristram never recognizes him or even
remembers his name. In the end Dinadan has seen so much of the bad side of love
and lust that he’s relieved when his soulmate turns down his marriage proposal.
Brangienne
(Bragwaine): Iseult’s sharp-tongued former chief lady who eventually becomes a
nun content with her life in a secluded convent. I didn't consider this in the
first go-round with this book, but upon a second read I suspect she might have
been in love with Marhault. Which may account for her and Dinadan not getting
together at the end of the book as I originally expected. Morris pulls this
last minute “let’s just be friends” stunt again later in the series, but I was
more prepared for it the second time and it bothered me less. In this
read-through, it also didn't bother me once I latched on to the theory that
Brangienne still mourns Marhault. Or she may be asexual and content with a
platonic relationship with Dinadan, an explanation I can also accept. Last time
I read this book I had no idea what asexuality was. But either way I feel much
better about the conclusion to Dinadan and Brangienne’s relationship this time
around even though it still feels a little abrupt.
Tristram
(Tristan): Tristram and Iseult are my least favorite characters in all of the
Morrisverse. Morris has made these two characters disgustingly pathetic to a
level I don’t think he ever sinks to again. It’s obvious he doesn't like them
and finds their vaunted “romance” an utter sham. With his Guinevere and
Lancelot, they each finally sort out their priorities. Even moronic Gareth has
some redeeming qualities: he’s loyal to a vow he took, and his devotion to
Lancelot’s memory speaks to some shade of moral character even if it is
misguided. Tristram can’t even do that, and his loyalty to Iseult was created
falsely by drinking a love potion. Even before he took the potion, he killed
Marhault from behind when Marhault had already spared his life. This is the
kind of despicable human being we’re dealing with. Tristram is also so mind-shatteringly
dumb that little moments like this one are par for the course:
(Scene:
Tintagel dining hall. Dinadan and Palomides have asked to speak to Iseult
privately, pgs 170-171)
Mark: No one speaks to my wife without my permission!
Tristram: (completely serious): Here’s a solution that will make everyone happy. Why don’t these knights give their message to me, and then I’ll tell Iseult later, when we’re alone.
Yeah.
Cue reader facepalm or headdesk. I really, really dislike this guy. It’s hard
even to feel sorry for him in his few lucid moments where he’s reflecting on
where his life went wrong.
Culloch:
A foolish would-be knight who thinks doing stupid tasks to win a bride will
make him a worthy knight. His legend is similar to a Greek myth or a fairy tale
where a hero or heroine has to perform impossible tasks in order to win their
true love. Morris takes this and shows how pointless just doing random tasks
that have nothing to do with your eventual goal in order to prove your worth
really is.
Olwen:
Culloch’s eventual wife. She doesn't play much of a role other than punching
Culloch and storming out when he falls asleep at their wedding. Isbaddadon says
her vows for her, somewhat appropriate since he and Culloch are better matched.
Brangienne claims she’s not very pleasant, but we never see it so it’s
difficult not to simply pity her for being stuck with Culloch and Isbaddadon.
I’d be bad-tempered too if I were trapped with these two men in my life.
Isbaddadon:
Olwen’s father, whose name, I believe, is pronounced Isbathadon (a double d in
Welsh is a –th sound), he and Culloch seem two of a kind. Both are not too
bright and enjoy eating more than anything else.
Iseult
(Isolde): We don’t meet Iseult in person until Part Two, but we hear a lot
about her before then from Tristram and others. She is obviously smarter than
Tristram, and extremely manipulative and conniving. It’s probably down to her
that Mark doesn't figure out what she has going on with Tristram when the entire
rest of the country knows. Dinadan finds her so pathetic that he doesn't even
use all the terrible stuff she does as more proof that women are evil. Her
death scene, where she ends up lying broken like a matchstick next to the
impaled Tristan, is one of the hardest things I've ever read and is the main
reason I didn't read this book again. And I probably won’t for a long, long
time, much as I enjoyed the rest of it.
Palomides:
A Moorish knight from Palestine. Yes, that means he’s black. No, Morris did not
make him up. And to those who say “there were no black knights in Arthurian England!”
I say: go do some research. Who do you think the crusaders like Richard the
Lionheart were fighting? Who ruled the Iberian peninsula during this time
period and gave us all those beautiful mosaic palaces? North African
Muslims, folks. They were the equals in combat with all the fancy knights in
shiny armor tramping through Europe to “reclaim” the Holy Land. And remember,
Morris’s universe is set in the thirteenth century when Arthurian legends were
recorded. He is perfectly correct in putting African knights into this context.
Morris also goes out of his way to point out that Palomides is a better knight
both in skill and honor than most of the knights Dinadan meets. He holds up
particularly well when compared with pathetic Tristram.
Kai:
This is the most we've seen of him in a book thus far. He goes along on
Culloch’s quest to keep an eye on Bedivere and is extremely irritated at all
the foolish things Culloch does. He does come to respect Dinadan even though
Dinadan’s not much of a fighter.
Bedivere:
This is our first look at Bedivere in Morris’s books, though he was mentioned
at least once before. He is extremely humble, soft-spoken, and optimistic. He
is Kai’s foil, and the pair are close friends. Luckily for him, in this version
he’s not missing a hand.
Mark:
Yet another crazy old Mark portrayal, a man already cruel and kind of nuts but
driven even more insane by Iseult constantly and obviously betraying him with
Tristram. He reminds me of the duke from Moulin
Rouge in the part where he screams “It’s not that I’m a jealous man…I just
don’t like other people touching my things!!!” In all the versions of Mark I've read, there has been only one remotely positive portrayal, and he never
actually appeared because he’d been dead for a thousand years (Susan Cooper’s Over Sea, Under Stone). Arthurian
authors just don’t like Mark for some reason, even if they don’t like Tristan
and Isolde, either.
Lamorak:
He makes a few appearances, randomly fighting Tristram over whose lady is more
beautiful (said ladies are never present for comparison). The only reason I didn't put him as a cameo is the role he plays in reintroducing Morgause. I
missed this entirely the first time I read it back in high school, but having
now read The Wicked Day I know that
Lamorak is Morgause’s lover. Lamorak in this version constantly makes
references to his love, a faery women who is never named. The woman herself
appears in Tintagel after using a magical drinking horn to publicly reveal
Iseult’s infidelity. This is the first proof positive that Morgause is still
alive after her defeat at Terence’s hands in Squire’s Tale, but if you weren't familiar with the original
stories it might have gone over your head as it did mine. No reference is made
as to why Morgause might want to cause chaos at Tintagel. I guess just because
she likes doing that kind of stuff, even though Tristram was doing very well
exposing the affair on his own.
Arthur,
Gaheris, Lynet, Gawain, Lancelot and Morgause are mentioned or make cameo appearances.
Marhault is mentioned a lot but he’s already dead by the time the book begins.
Poor Marhault. I liked him in Squire’s
Tale. Speaking of The Squire, this is the first of the Tales with no
Terence or Gawain. This probably contributed to my initial dislike of it.
Overall
I
like the first three quarters of this book more than I did on the initial
read-through. Dinadan is much more likable and relatable than Piers, and it
was nice to see more of Kai and meet the awesomeness that is Bedivere and
Palomides. But I just can’t stand Tristram and Iseult. They’re not even tragic,
they’re so pathetic. But I do have to give props to Morris for purposely making
me feel this level of disgust about literary characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment