He drops the [book] and hops about with his hands in his armpits, going "Ouch!"
Or, why am I still reading this awful book?
Well, it's an interesting idea, that there weren't actually widescale Anglo-Saxon invasions, that it was mostly acculturation. And one I would once have been professionally very interested in. And the idea may be valid even if his expression of it is off. But I wish I could find a better and more scholarly expression of it, because when he comes out with something like "Being human, we like to personify such things, so we conjure up Arthur on one side and the likes of Alfred, Hengist and Horsa on the other." my blood pressure does something unfortunate. And maybe he only means only that there were characters like Alfred on the Saxon side, and isn't borrowing Alfred from his place in real history (king of the West Saxons from 871-99, and of the "Anglo-Saxons" from perhaps 886, and incidentally the English defender of Britain against the invading Vikings) and thrusting him back into a different and mythical conflict four centuries earlier on the opposite side, but it leaves me greatly vexed. And rather unwilling to take his word for anything else, which would be unfortunate if there are bits of the book that are scholarly and accurate.
I was re-reading Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing the other day, and Henry has the wonderful speech when he's comparing real writing with a cricket bat, which -- even if it may look like a club -- is actually several pieces of wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that it's sprung, like a dance floor. Real writing is like that. Then you can hit a ball with barely any effort and it will go sailing out of the grounds. If you had used a club instead, the ball would only have travelled a few feet and you'd end up dropping the club and jumping around with your hands in your armpits. This book is a club in its recording of facts, even if its prose style is rather good. ("Consult any list of Roman emperors and it makes the English medieval monarchy, even during the Wars of the Roses, look remarkably stable." It's a very good line. It may even be true, but there's no way I'm prepared to take his word for it at this point: he has completely blotted his copybook.)
(Okay, it's not as bad as the book I read years ago in which Merlin arranged for Beowulf to be killed by a flamethrower. But that was at least supposed to be fiction.)
ETA: So if this man, writing in 2004, shows up how easy it is to disprove Myres again, given that Myres was already quite discredited when I went up to Cambridge in 1989, I shall graduate from being vexed to being filled with rage. I am absolutely prepared to believe the basic case -- that archaeological evidence doesn't support the idea of largescale Anglo-Saxon invasions -- but this particular exposition of it is doing its cause more harm than good. Open question (mainly directed as sollersuk): is there a more scholarly exposition of this theory published somewhere else?
Well, it's an interesting idea, that there weren't actually widescale Anglo-Saxon invasions, that it was mostly acculturation. And one I would once have been professionally very interested in. And the idea may be valid even if his expression of it is off. But I wish I could find a better and more scholarly expression of it, because when he comes out with something like "Being human, we like to personify such things, so we conjure up Arthur on one side and the likes of Alfred, Hengist and Horsa on the other." my blood pressure does something unfortunate. And maybe he only means only that there were characters like Alfred on the Saxon side, and isn't borrowing Alfred from his place in real history (king of the West Saxons from 871-99, and of the "Anglo-Saxons" from perhaps 886, and incidentally the English defender of Britain against the invading Vikings) and thrusting him back into a different and mythical conflict four centuries earlier on the opposite side, but it leaves me greatly vexed. And rather unwilling to take his word for anything else, which would be unfortunate if there are bits of the book that are scholarly and accurate.
I was re-reading Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing the other day, and Henry has the wonderful speech when he's comparing real writing with a cricket bat, which -- even if it may look like a club -- is actually several pieces of wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that it's sprung, like a dance floor. Real writing is like that. Then you can hit a ball with barely any effort and it will go sailing out of the grounds. If you had used a club instead, the ball would only have travelled a few feet and you'd end up dropping the club and jumping around with your hands in your armpits. This book is a club in its recording of facts, even if its prose style is rather good. ("Consult any list of Roman emperors and it makes the English medieval monarchy, even during the Wars of the Roses, look remarkably stable." It's a very good line. It may even be true, but there's no way I'm prepared to take his word for it at this point: he has completely blotted his copybook.)
(Okay, it's not as bad as the book I read years ago in which Merlin arranged for Beowulf to be killed by a flamethrower. But that was at least supposed to be fiction.)
ETA: So if this man, writing in 2004, shows up how easy it is to disprove Myres again, given that Myres was already quite discredited when I went up to Cambridge in 1989, I shall graduate from being vexed to being filled with rage. I am absolutely prepared to believe the basic case -- that archaeological evidence doesn't support the idea of largescale Anglo-Saxon invasions -- but this particular exposition of it is doing its cause more harm than good. Open question (mainly directed as sollersuk): is there a more scholarly exposition of this theory published somewhere else?