Nom de Plume

Sometimes, I worry there’s no more originality to be had in the world. How much harder it is to come up with anything original than it was two hundred, four hundred years ago — one has the sense it’s all been done before. We walk into art galleries and scoff, “Oh it’s so derivative.” We read voraciously, and only 1 in 10 books is memorable in any way. If Burns had written, “Oh my luve is like a red, red rose” today, he would have been laughed out of his poetry workshop. You can bet, too, that no poetry journal would take “Tyger ,Tyger burning bright” either, unless it were an animal-centric publication intent on reclaiming language with its alternate spelling. I do think it’s harder to be original than it ever has been — despite, or maybe because of — our seeming acceptance of all. But here’s a secret; we’re no more accepting, not deep down. I think we’re just as judgemental as the Spanish Inquisitors. The only difference is that iron maidens and torture racks are no longer socially acceptable. (Unless, of course, one is Rumsfeld.) No, instead we kill that which is easily accessible with disdain.

Perhaps that’s the appeal of historical novels; they take us into a world that is so unfamiliar to us that it all seems new. Though to be honest, many historical novels fade into dusty memories of themselves too. (Which is the reason I haven’t bothered with Geraldine Brook’s latest novel; the one before was fine, it was good even, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was about. She should have stuck with her nonfiction.)

However, this is not the case with Nicole Galland’s The Fool’s Tale. At first, I thought it was so good because it occupies a time and place that few other novels do — in my mind at least — and therefore seemed wholly new. Then, when I finished, I changed my mind.

This was a fantastic novel.

Set in Wales at the tail end of the 12th century, King Maelgwyn, known as Noble, is saved as a child by his friend and servent Gwirion. After that, Gwirion occupies a special place in Noble’s court and heart. He is the fool, the jester, the one who carries out elaborate and crude pranks and is the only person to whom Noble shows any concession and forgiveness.

Noble, like most kings, must marry for political reasons; he chooses for his bride Isabel Mortimer, the niece of his nemesis. In this way, he hopes he will be able to defend his minor kingdom.

Gwirion and Isabel find themselves at odds. Each tries to win the king’s affection, believing him or herself the most important. Over time, however, their hatred of each other turns into something else entirely, just as Noble (displaying the irony Gwirion is so fond of), turns into anything but. In fact, Noble becomes a monster.

At first blush, The Fool’s Tale seems like the Arthurian love triangle, but the similarity seems to disappear after a while because even though the structure of ruler-wife-servant remains, the characters are so very different. And at the end, one is left topsy-turvey in an already unfamiliar landscape.

At the end of the novel Galland says:

…despite the cornucopia of historical detail … these three people are not inherently Welsh, nor inherently Medieval–mostly because neither am I. Of course, they’re not modern Americans, but all I can say about them with any certainty is that they are mine.

And this, I think, is ultimately what I found so appealing about the book. It was less a journey in time, into the black and white pages of a novel, or even into the lives of these three characters , as much as it was a journey into Galland’s private world. I had the sense of entering an inviolable space where my own clamoring voices were hushed. She let us in.

And that’s originality.