The Wake is a singular debut novel by Paul Kingsnorth (One No, Many Yeses; Real England), set in England immediately following the Norman invasion of 1066. Its first-person narrator is a landowner named Buccmaster, who has lost everything to the attack: his family, his home, his land and his privilege. He takes to the fens and woods, with revenge in his heart and an intention to drive the French from his land and all of England. There he becomes one of the guerrilla fighters known as green men, whose chapter in history is little known.
What makes this powerful story distinctive is Kingsnorth's decision to write the story in what he calls a "shadow tongue," an Old English hybrid of the author's invention, made slightly more understandable to the modern reader. (Hint: try reading aloud, to hear cognates and the rhythm of the speech.)
The Wake is an ambitious novel in its themes and scope, in addition to its unusual linguistic decisions. As the English folc in his story become disconnected from their land, they lose their freedom: "if the frenc cums and tacs this land and gifs these treows [trees] sum frenc name they will not be the same treows no mor." As an impassioned defense of the natural world and people's responsibilities toward it, the novel acts as a metaphor for modern times. Buccmaster's personal narrative is a lesson in pride and its dangers, a glimpse of another culture in its own language. Kingsnorth's captivating first novel is thought provoking, multi-faceted and intriguingly rendered. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia