Last evening I finished reading Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow. I am not quite sure what to think of it. I would not rate it as one of my childhood favorites, as Agatha Christie's Tuppence Beresford did. The language made it a bit difficult to understand, I had a hard time following characters, and there were far too many dead bodies for my taste. The expression, "by the mass" got old by the third chapter, particularly because the only other references to faith in the book were of a corrupt monk and a friar impersonator. Rather like the continuous use of OMG in present society when in every other instance God is banished from the culture.
The book is action packed and fast paced. The swashbuckling would probably be more appealing to young men.than to this middle aged lady. Dickey comes out relatively unscathed peril after peril, battle after battle. At least he experiences hunger and fatigue, unlike the hero of a certain recent television series who could go 24 hours without even a bathroom break! Now I see that the numerous scripts of television programs containing pictures with moving eyes or people hidden in armor are probably plagiarized from this book and the eyes which Dickey sees behind the arras. The romance with Joanna is the typical medieval fairy tale of quickly falling into an everlasting love with almost no getting to know the other person first. Of course Dickey has to rescue her from her wicked guardian and from her impending arranged nuptials before he can have her for himself.
I purchased this book while we were homeschooling Anne, since it was on the Mother of Divine Grace syllabus. Anne never read it. I was going to give our copy away after I finished it, but I think I will hang onto it for posterity, just because it is a classic.
