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In which I consider things chivalrous and knightly...
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Do we still love a chivalrous knight?

April 2017

Welcome to my very first newsletter! Some of you are here because you subscribed directly. Others of you are here via a Ryan Zee promotion for lovers of 'seasoned contemporary romance', which included my novel The Apothecary's Garden.

The 'seasoned' main character of The Apothecary's Garden is Hilary Kent, a chivalrous old gent if ever there was one. The subject of this newsletter was inspired, however, by my latest novel, which is based in and around the play The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

More of that anon! In the meantime, I wanted to talk about a book I read recently, written by modern-day knight Ethan Hawke.

Rules for a Knight

Most of us are probably more familiar with Ethan Hawke as an actor, but he is a writer as well. In fact, he has two Oscar nominations for writing as well as two for acting. Watching him recently in The Magnificent Seven (Antoine Fuqua, 2016), I was blown away yet again by his acting skills.

His fable Rules for a Knight (2015) is a quieter affair, though just as accomplished, and certainly thought-provoking (or perhaps rumination-provoking is more apt). In this short book, Hawke addresses his four children on how to live a good and noble life - using the voice of his fictional Arthurian-era knightly ancestor. The 'rules' on matters such as humility, honesty, courage and grace are illustrated by tales from his ancestor's life. This may sound rather portentous, but it's all done with a light and charming touch, and is delightful rather than didactic.

I love Rules for a Knight, and I'll no doubt happily re-read it - but I did have a quibble. The rules themselves are applicable to all of us, in any era. But setting the illustrative tales in medieval times, and featuring a knight and his squire, kept it all very rooted in the masculine 'outdoor' world of adventure. This undermined the occasional reassurances that all the rules applied to ladies just as much as to knights. I would have loved to see some stories exploring how the rules applied to his daughters' lives as well as his son's. What would this tale have been like, I wondered, if Hawke had set it in the modern-day?

But there is something that is still very seductive about medieval times and the Arthurian legends - that I certainly cannot deny. And I suppose chivalry is seen as all the more meaningful when considered in the context of an era many view as being 'nasty, brutish and short'. It's a dilemma...

Emotional Rescue

What would we want from a modern-day knight?

The Rolling Stones provided one answer when they released a song in 1980 called 'Emotional Rescue': I'll be your saviour, steadfast and true, Mick Jagger sang in falsetto, I'll come to your emotional rescue.

In what seems a less adventurous age, perhaps we want less of the dragon-smiting and more of the mutual day-to-day support.

That is not to diminish the incredible courage and selflessness demonstrated by those people today who risk life and limb to help the vulnerable or to stand against the oppressive. Perhaps they are our knights today - in the larger picture - running into danger to right wrongs and to protect both friends and strangers.

But within a more personal frame, we look for a touch of chivalry in our relationships, both romantic and friendly. There is a heroism to be found in the small moments of life, in the respect and courtesy we show each other, the feeling of safety we share in intimate moments, the bottom line of mutual support even when we are being wrong-headed or a bit nuts.

And it is in there we find, I think, the most interesting main characters of our fiction and our romance novels.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle

One of the things I love about The Knight of the Burning Pestle (c.1607) by Francis Beaumont is that it sports with all these aspects of chivalry.

The original play is actually two-plays-within-a-play. In The London Merchant, one of the sub-plays, we have a romance between a merchant's apprentice Jasper and his master's daughter Luce. For a Jacobean play, I am quite impressed by the friendship and witty equality between the two characters, especially in the more original scenes when we first meet them.

In the other sub-play, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, grocer's apprentice Rafe transforms into the eponymous knight, and recruits a squire and a dwarf to be his page. Together they head off on chivalrous adventures in far-off lands such as Waltham Forest and Moldavia, seeking to fight evil-doers and rescue distressed damsels.

These two sub-plays are tied together in the overarching main play by the Citizens - the grocer George and his wife Nell. This pair of characters remain in the audience throughout, directing and commentating whenever they can. They are the ones who demand a tale of high-flown chivalrous adventure, with the lead played by Rafe - rather than the play they are supposedly at the theatre to see, yet another everyday story about a merchant and his family woes.

George and Nell also provide an intriguing portrait of the give-and-take of a marriage. Neither of them are backward in coming forward, both of them have tempers, and I cannot imagine their household is often very peaceful. But they show real affection for and appreciation of one another. They seem a stalwart pair. In many other aspects of the whole, they make for the most unreliable of narrators, but I can't imagine them ever apart.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle is also hilarious - Full of Mirth and Delight, indeed. That's what got me in initially. But it was this exploration of chivalry and love that really kept me there.

A Night with the Knight of the Burning Pestle

I fell in love with Francis Beaumont's play when I first saw it at the beautiful Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London (directed by Adele Thomas, 2014). I knew I had to write something in response!

Hence my novella, A Night with the Knight of the Burning Pestle, a mashup of Beaumont's play.

My story takes a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and wraps yet another layer around it. We meet the actors, and follow them backstage, and witness a modern-day romance between Dale (who plays Rafe) and Topher (who plays Jasper). Which makes it two-plays-within-a-play-within-a-novel. To mix things up a bit more, I also turned our citizen-grocer George into Georgiana.

If that all sounds a little confusing, well, it probably is. But the original play is full of delightful chaos - that's part of the fun - and I hope I have managed to live up to the sheer anything-goes joy which Francis Beaumont first created.

Release Details

My novella is available for pre-order in eBook format from 1 April 2017 via the links below, and is released on 1 May 2017. It will also be available in paperback from 1 June 2017.

I hope, dear Reader, that you will give it a try! And I would love to know what you think.

     

PRE-ORDER LINKS

     

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