Tiptoft is not happy with Anthony’s reply and says, ‘People prate about how wonderful life is, but I swear to you that reading is better. Search how you may you will never find happy endings in life. It is only there in books.’
I’m not entirely sure what to make of Robert Irwin’s Wonders Will Never Cease. It didn’t quite satisfy me, but it’s the kind of book where I don’t know whether that’s the author’s fault or mine.
The book is reminiscent of Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. And, I suppose, of my own Erling Skjalgsson novels. It’s a book set in real history, where the supernatural and the magical intersect with historical events. It’s related in the present tense in a very spare, apparently artless, voice – I wasn’t sure at first (not being familiar with the author) whether this style indicated an inexperienced writer or a greater artistic purpose. I kept reading, and discovered it was the latter, successful or not.
The narrative begins with the Battle of Towton in 1461, when the Lancastrian forces of the English King Henry VI are overcome by the Yorkist forces of Edward IV (if you have trouble keeping your Roses kings straight, as I do, Edward came just before Richard III). Young Sir Anthony Woodville and his father fight on the losing side, but his father immediately switches his allegiance and becomes a favored retainer of King Edward.
But before that, Anthony is killed in the battle. He wakes up, however, a couple days later, remembering only a vision of the Grail Castle of Arthurian lore. As a man raised from the dead, Anthony is the subject of considerable curiosity, hero worship, and envy as he learns to become a great knight and servant of the king. Eventually his sister will marry King Edward. He will meet, among other people, Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Mort D’Artur. All through his life he will be surrounded by wonders – miracles and horrors and visions and witchcraft, and fictional characters he himself invented who take on alarming lives of their own.
And yet, this book full of wonders is oddly not very wonderful. The magic and miracles Anthony observes prove to be ultimately pointless, as are his dreams and adventures. The ultimate message I carried away from Wonders Will Never Cease was that, even if you saw lots of marvels, it wouldn’t make your life marvelous.
To repeat myself, I just couldn’t make up my mind about this book. It’s an interesting read, but ultimately flat, like a shaggy dog story. But that may have been the author’s intention.
Cautions for language, mature subject matter, and the occasional bit of blasphemy.