In A Dark Wood Wandering: A Novel of the Middle Ages

This is a book I picked up on a whim, used in a library resale shop. According to the blurb on the cover, it has been in print continuously since 1949. I figured that may indicate a good book.

The introduction tells how the book came to be translated into English, a fascinating story unto itself. Published in 1949 in Holland, it was a bestseller throughout continental Europe, but virtually unknown in the U.S. In the early fifties a postal clerk/writer in Chicago named Lewis C. Kaplan, whose avocation was translating obscure pieces of literature into English, happened to see a reference to the book in a literary magazine and decided that he wanted to translate it. He wrote to the Dutch publisher and the author, received permission, and began. Mr. Kaplan did not speak Dutch, so the translation was an arduous process. He finished a first draft and was beginning to work on a revision when he died in 1958.

His distraught widow disposed of all his effects, but held on to the last manuscript he was working on, putting it into a briefcase in a closet in her apartment. Twenty years later when her apartment had a fire, Kaplan's son came to help his mother clean up the mess and discovered the briefcase with the sodden manuscript in it. He took it, dried it out and set about trying to discover what it was. (It had no identifying title or other information.) By chance, Kaplan's widow found a slip of paper with the author's name on it, and the son tracked her down through the Library of Congress.

Here's the part I like: Of the 20 years that the manuscript sat in the back of a closet the introduction says, "During that time Hella Haasse [the author] thought occasionally of Mr. Kaplan and the English version of Het voud der verwachting; it seemed to her that he was taking considerable time to complete his work, but she knew that he had tackled a formidable task and, with commendable sensitivity, she hesitated to give him the impression that he was being rushed."

There were more chance events that led eventually to the U.S. publication of In A Dark Wood Wandering in 1989, 40 years after it was first published!

The novel itself takes place in the late fourteenth and early to mid-fifteenth centuries during the Hundred Years War between England and France. The main protagonist is Charles d' Orléans, nephew to King Charles VI. The novel traces his long and eventful life as it was interwoven with the politics of the day. At the age of 20 Charles d'Orléans was taken hostage by the English after the infamous battle of Agincourt, and imprisoned in England for the next 20 years. During his exile, Charles wrote poetry for his beloved wife left behind in France and his even more beloved homeland which he recognized was being torn apart by the political skirmishes of the French nobility. He returned to France determined to live out his remaining years quietly, but couldn't avoid being sucked back into the political current from time to time. He lived to be quite old and fathered 3 children, one of whom ultimately became King Louis XII of France.

I enjoyed this book immensely. I like historical fiction in general, and this had the added bonus of being something completely new. I knew very little about the Middle Ages, and found it quite compelling. The writing was fresh and modern. I was struck by the realization that, time may pass, but politics are always the same, driven by the thirst of the gentry for power and money. (That's rather depressing, isn't it?)

In A Dark Wood Wandering is well worth reading.