The Wake
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2014 and The Bookseller Industry Book of the Year Award 2015. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Folio Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.
A post-apocalyptic novel set a thousand years ago, The Wake tells the story of Buccmaster of Holland, a free farmer of Lincolnshire, owner of three oxgangs, a man clinging to the Old Gods as the world changes drastically around him. After losing his sons at the Battle of Hastings and his wife and home to the invading Normans, Buccmaster begins to gather together a band of 'grene men', who take up arms to resist their brutal invaders.
Written in a 'shadow tongue' – a version of Old English updated so as to be understandable for the modern reader – The Wake is a landmark in historical fiction and looks set to become a modern classic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kingsnorth's debut novel is a feat of linguistic speculation it's written entirely in a modernized version of Old English. When our hero observes that "I had cnawan yfel was cuman when I seen this fugol glidan ofer," phonetics, patience, and the glossary help readers approximate this as "I had known evil was coming when I saw this bird gliding over." Set in England around the Norman Conquest, the novel portrays this cultural upheaval through the eyes of Buccmaster, a Saxon farmer. After his sons are killed at the battle of Hastings, and the French burn his farm and murder his wife, Buccmaster and a small band of fighters take to the countryside with vague aims of fomenting rebellion. The rhythms of the prose, the phonetic clues, and Buccmaster's emerging narrative voice cue the reader in after a few difficult pages, and many sections sail along. Others remain obtuse, and the fact that comprehension is always coming in and out of focus gives the reader a sense of searching for connection with something authentically old. However, the stylistic triumph glosses over some basic flaws: for most of the novel, Buccmaster is absent from key events, and the bulk of the plot is related to him by others, making for a dull middle of the novel. And the ostensible climax of the story the kidnapping of a French bishop comes only a few pages before the end, underscoring the uneven pacing. It's a brilliant novelty, but not a classic.
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