Ivanhoe . . .
is hilarious! I have just finished reading it; for some reason, I had never read it before. When I got to the part where the tragic Jewish heroine, imprisoned by a lecherous knight, threatens to throw herself from the battlements if he comes a step closer to her, I started laughing aloud so hard that my sister asked me, with the tolerant expression she reserves for my most imbecilic moments, if I was all right. (The blond-haired Saxon maiden, in a similar perilous situation, merely starts weeping uncontrollably. Yet she is the one who ends up with the hero. Life is so unfair.)
posted by Deborah | 3:07 PM
5 Comments:
I love Ivanhoe! Read it in high school.
Ivanhoe should have married Rebecca--it would have been more satisfying to the reader--but less realistic. The edition of the novel I have is followed by a critical essay exploring this.
The part where Rebecca is about to throw herself from the height of the castle is my favorite part. Amazing ...
I miss you!
Oh Deborah, I miss you! I wish you and Joanna were still here. I wish I could just walk down the hall and find comfortable people ready to welcome me and give me tea. I know that is remarkably selfish of me. I also wish I had time to write you a proper email. Some Sunday afternoon I think I will do just that, especially now I am finally on the network over here.
God bless!
Yes, it does seem odd that Scott does not arrange a happier ending for Rebecca, considering that she is the only character he goes out of his way to make the reader sympathize with. I think one of Scott's failings was that all of his characters are fairly static. Rebecca is sympathetic because she suffers nobly, and Scott seems unable to imagine her other than as a noble sufferer; that's why he can't give her the happy ending she deserves.
I miss you both too! I haven't had a quirky intellectual conversation over a cup of tea since I came home. :-(
Pax vobiscum!
Athelstane's "resurrection" still takes the cake in my book ;-)
"And my first action will be to hang that abbot!" :-P
Me and my sister used to read that part to each other before going to bed, and die laughing.
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