ammarceker

A delightful and strange adventure story in the vein of The Three Musketeers or The Scarlet Pimpernel, but also an early foreshadow of the Mannerpunk genre which grew out of Peake's Gormenghast books. The well-researched text creates a believable world which is undoubtedly (and delightfully) removed from the modern. Not only does Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) create a fairly accurate portrait of ever-warring Feudal Europe, but at least proposes a psychological type for the soldiers of the time. Of course, to take such a type from (even contemporary) works is a bit of a silly falsehood, and with characteristic British whimsy, Doyle births a cast which seems realistic not despite but because of its deep-seated eccentricity. Of course, it is precisely this method which will grip Peake (in the wake of Chekhov) in his surrealistic works. Though once quite popular, this tale has become somewhat less well-known, perhaps because it is easy to take from it a stance of bravado, militarism, and anglocentrism. Perhaps there will come to us a dissolving of such strong self-identifications with such things that people will no longer feel a need to oppose fictional portrayals, and Doyle and Kipling may return with a grain of salt.

2023-02-17 20:48