Alacrity and Other Words.

I have finished The Archer's Tale, but I believe I will make a few more posts on it before I'm through thinking. This marks my fourth novel by Cornwell and, in all honesty, I believe he suffers the same weakness for alliteration, assonance, and consonance that I do. I believe, fully, in the rhythm of words, and I also believe those prose writers need to consider such just as deeply as poets, but much of the amateur prose I read of late seems to favor something far less artistic in its telling. However, it is not alliteration I am here to talk about today.

Today, I would like to talk about words.

Cornwell uses words well, though I stumble on his commas (or lackthereof) occasionally, and I am impressed that I can finish one of his books and see a word I either do not immediately recognize or, even better, have forgotten for its concrete meaning in a distant memory. There are never many, but they are enough to make me smile. I love words: ornate, archaic, contemporary, slang--diction is one of my main interests as a writer and a reader, and I am annoyed by authors who do not seem to know how to pick the right words. This is not a complaint I make of Cornwell. I think, for his genre and style, he picks a fine troupe to command his prose.

This post, then, will focus on the few words I had to pause for while reading. To begin: "At first Skeat thought Thomas of Hookton was little more than another wild fool looking for adventure--a clever fool, to be sure--but Thomas had taken to the life of an archer in Brittany with alacrity" (33).

When first reading this sentence, I assumed "alacrity" meant something akin to eagerness; somewhere in my vocabulary, the two words were joined. However, just to satisfy my own hobby, I looked the word up and found it a bit more complicated. Alacrity, in a truer form, speaks to liveliness and willingness and even, in some ways, cheerfulness. It is more than simply being eager and, as such, goes from a throw-away word used in a descriptive paragraph to being a true mark of characterization. Thomas is not simply eager to be an archer, but he takes to the archer's life with a cheerfulness, a liveliness, a willingness that surpassed eager. Eager is what adventurers would be. In using alacrity, Cornwell is reiterating that Thomas is much more than a fool looking for glory. This, then, is a fine use of a word.

I will come back to Thomas at a later date, as he intrigues me, but let's move on to more words:

The lawyer now laid a long list of charges against Sir Simon. It seemed he was claiming the widow and her son as prisoners who must be held for ransom. He had also stolen the widow's two ships, her husband's armor, his sword and all the Countess's money. Belas made the complaints indignantly, then bowed to the Earl. "You have a reputation as a just man, my lord," he said obsequiously, "and I place the widow's fate in your hands." (75-76)

At first, as is often my impression when I cannot immediately place a word, I thought "obsequiously" was entirely unnecessary. It felt like a big word thrown in for the sake of having a big word, but Cornwell is much more clever than that, on his better days, and I was terribly disappointed. As such, I chased the word down and found that it meant, specifically, the type of obedience, compliance, or whathaveyou reserved for servants who know their duty and place. It is not just, as I first assumed, a description that means "deferentially" or some other such word, but a word specifically designed to accomodate the complicated social situation between servant and master. I learned something new with "obsequiously" and, what's more, I was no longer disappointed! Some folks reading this may be shaking their heads at my ignorance, but it's not every day that I get to learn a new word in context.

This next word is simply fun and, indeed, fun to say: "At first he would force himself to a clumsy courtesy, though usually he was bumptious and crude and always he stared at her like a dog gazing at a haunch of beef" (84). What I love about choosing "bumptious" here is the same skill that I enjoy about Cornwell's novels: it's all about characterization. Every word points to the character and whether this is a natural talent or a supreme work of patience on Cornwell's part, I am captivated by how cleverly he uses words to his advantage. Bumptious refers to someone who is cheeky--a younger man who is trying to act bigger than his britches, so to speak--and this could certainly characterize our dear Sir Simon, the target for this word choice. But really, isn't it fun to say? Bumptious. It sounds lovely in my head--makes me smile and think of a bumbling fool off The Three Stooges, though I know that isn't quite what the word intends.

I had a feeling I knew what "unctuously" meant, especially in the context of its sentence, but I didn't truly know. Though I have studied theology for quite some time, this word seems to have escaped my learning. Which is why, when I stumbled (quite literally) over it in the reading, I had to look it up immediately: "Perhaps the saint inspired him, for he was suddenly possessed of devilment and began to enjoy playing a priest's role. 'I am merely one of God's humble children, my son,' he answered unctuously" (142-143). The word, itself, refers to a special type of piousness that one would reserve for priests and the like, but it is that smug sort of piousness--the type when the person speaking doesn't just assume they are on higher moral ground than you but, instead, this person fervently knows their superiority. Were I pretending to be a priest, I am not certain I could affect such a manner of speaking, but our dear Thomas seems to have shifted quite comfortably into the role.

As an aside, I find it terribly interesting (especially in this context) that unctuous can also refer to oily, greasy, or that slimy, soapy feeling.

Cornwell gives us another fine word: "So if the English were kept south of the Seine then they must eventually fight or make an ignominious retreat to Normandy" (245). I wasn't entirely sure of this word, either, but I've found that it stretches to mean humilitating, degrading, dishonorable--and all those other words that coalesce among the ruined. Of all the words I encountered while reading The Archer's Tale, I found this one might have been just a tad unnecessary. Its meaning is certainly well-fitted to the sentence, and I cannot complain for that, but this word bothers me. Here, it in relation to the specific diction of the text and the time and the characters speaking in the scene, the word feels out-of-place. I do not believe it is a specialized word that someone would've used to describe the situation and, as such, I have to attribute it to the narrator's word who, in this case, would become Cornwell. In other words, this is the first time I think I am hearing Cornwell the Author instead of the fictional narrator of the novel, and I will admit I am bothered by it.

Luckily, it does not happen often with Cornwell. He has an uncanny ability to cede into a narrator and allow their voice to take over a text, and it is this talent that makes reading his novels so enjoyable. I believe them, while I am reading; I believe in what I am reading and even dare to dream its possible that history happened in just this way. If that is not the mark of a skilled writer, I am not sure what is.