What I'm re-reading: Sword At Sunset

After all the stuff I have been saying about Rosemary Sutcliff, I felt in the mood. I went to my overflowing bookcases in my lovely but messy study and found my Tor Publishing copy of this book, with the American spelling. For quite some years you could only get the abridged version which left out the gay lovers and Artos and Guenhumara's wedding night, when he finally gets it that his half-sister Ygerna has really damaged him. It was meant for kids to read, but really, it made me scratch my head when I was near the end and Artos is stressed out because he's only once been more than half a man to her, he says when he finds her with Bedwyr. The author, when interviewed, said that she had met kids who had read and loved the full version.

It's set three days after the end of The Lantern Bearers, but it's Aquila's son, Flavian, who appears in most of this book. A beautiful, beautiful novel. You feel so strongly for Artos - and it was the first time I'd read an Arthurian novel told by Arthur, though since then there has been Parke Godwin's fabulous Firelord.

There have been others, wonderful others, but Sword At Sunset is my favourite.There are some books you just know you will have to read over and over again.

My student who has just finished The Lantern Bearers agreed it was wonderful, but he will now have to wait for next year for this one, unless he can find it in the Sunshine Library. After that I might wave the books of Mary Stewart and maybe Jack Whyte under his nose. Parke Godwin later.

Meanwhile, I will curl up with Artos the Bear and his friends at bedtime tonight. Lovely!

Eagle of the Ninth movie - I wonder...?

They're turning Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth into a movie. It made a wonderful TV series years ago, with Anthony Higgins in the lead. I don't think that's available on DVD - anyway, I can't find it, although maybe now ...?

Meanwhile, what will this one be like? I can only hope that it's a whole lot better than, say, the abomination that was made of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising. Checking out the cast list, I see that the role of Marcus Aquila has gone to an American actor, Channing Tatum - the guy who played "Duke" Orsino in "She's The Man" and Esca will be played, would you believe by "Billy Elliott" Jamie Bell, who is about 24 now. Well, there's no doubt Tatum looks like a Marcus. Whether he can act it or not we'll have to see. This fan will be difficult to please!

It's fascinating to see all the on-line blog comments by folk who haven't read the book but hope it will be an sword-and-sandal epic of the kind that has been appearing lately. Apparently, it's a small budget, so that's not likely.

I'm re-reading The Lantern Bearers, the third book in the series. It's not easy to get the Sutcliff books these days. They've put three of them under one cover - perhaps because of the movie? - but for the most part, you have to hunt for them on the bookshop shelves or order them.

Let's hope the movie is good enough that people start asking for the books and they re-print the lot!

What I'm re-reading: Rosemary Sutcliff

Well, actually I'm re-reading plenty of stuff, in between reviewing, but this is what I picked up yesterday. I'm not one of those who read her books as a child, though I had heard of her. I discovered her as an adult, as I did Tolkien and C.S.Lewis and others.

As a matter of fact, I had a strange experience not long ago. You see, I'm currently rustling up some Sutcliff books for one of my Year 8 students. They've mostly been sitting on the shelves gathering dust because our kids, while they will read fantasy no problem, are less interested in historical fiction these days and anyway, the covers are all pretty battered. But one of the boys stumbled across Mark Of The Horse Lord, which came out in a snazzy new cover some years ago, and loved it. We were supposed to have the Eagle of The Ninth series, but the catalogue and the shelves told different stories. I found him what I could, but most of our books are just the re-tellings. So when he asked me, once more, for "something like Mark Of The Horse Lord" I was lucky enough to find The Shining Company - the only other non-retelling book we had - and promised him i would get the others. I got to the staff room and excitedly told a colleague, an English teacher of about my age, that I had a customer for Rosemary Sutcliff's books. Imagine my surprise when she asked, "Who's Rosemary Sutcliff?"

"You know - The Eagle of The Ninth?" I prompted, assuming she'd hit her forehead and say, "Oh, yeah, her, of course..." But no. She actually had never heard of the greatest children's historical novelist of the twentieth century! And her an English teacher, old enough to remember... She asked if they were fantasy, because she doesn't like fantasy. No, I told her patiently, Sutcliff's books were not fantasy. They were historical fiction. She teaches history as well. Ancient history, to Year 7 students.

Sigh!

Anyway, I'm having a great time re-discovering Marcus Aquila and his descendants, and if they do produce that wonderful 70s TV series on DVD I'll buy it immediately! I know there's a movie planned, but after what was done to Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising, I'm going to wait and see before I decide whether to see the movie or not.

I've called Chris at the Collected Works Bookshop to ask him to find and pick up the novels for my library so that young Peter can have the same joy as I am having with this series.