Name: Hurdy Gurdy
ISBN: 9780571361946

Christopher Wilson

Hurdy Gurdy

A silly romp with occasional funny moments and a healthy dose of pretension.

1) Let me preface by saying I'm aware this is (trying to be) satire. As a medievalist by trade I was fully prepared to enjoy a book that self-consciously ripped off my beloved literature -- Chaucer would have been first in line to read this. Or at the very least Boccaccio - the OG plague writer.  The first few chapters did this BRILLIANTLY. They were outrageously funny and it was clear the author had done his research (loved the starting scenes at the monastary A huge fan of St Odo, Brother Rattus and the sly comments on relic culture). I was prepped for blatant inaccuracies. But as the book wore on the errors started to grate. It no longer seemed like Wilson was purposefully making mistakes but actually just throwing generalisations willy-nilly (or should it be hurdy gurdy). It no longer seemed funny but like - just erroneous? Like witch-burnings and plague dr masks? really?? In the fourteenth century??? (I am unclear if Wilson was being purposefully anachronistic and poking fun and our misconceptions of the period or whether this was sincere). 

I think the thing I found difficult was that it increasingly felt that Wilson was laughing 

 medieval culture rather than satirising it or pointing out the eccentric inconsistencies. You know? Look at those stupid medieval peasants weren't they so silly and random and quirky. They didn't know anything.

Satire is really hard to pull of well so that it's clear who or what you're mocking, and though Wilson did a good job at the start I think he didn't sustain it through the whole book and fell into lazy and boring habits.

2)I didn't find it nearly as funny as the reviews said it was. There were a couple of time I laughed out loud but the jokes were repetitive

3) I thought the random references to modern day culture (thanks to the wonderously high St Odo may his bones ever rest in peace) were a little shoehorned. The digs at 21st century would have been clear enough anyway and the parallels easy for the reader to notice. So cutting across the flow of narrative haphazardly, often cutting off any building tension, just came across, not witty and refined as one presumes Wilson intended, but stunted and too much on the nose. Sometimes you could feel Wilson smirking as he wrote probably patting himself on the back for a particularly ripe and moralistic tone. 

Look, it's not that it was awful. I might change my review to two stars. The first half was infinitely better (and funnier) than the second.

hat carter

A silly romp with occasional funny moments and a healthy dose of pretension.

1) Let me preface by saying I'm aware this is (trying to be) satire. As a medievalist by trade I was fully prepared to enjoy a book that self-consciously ripped off my beloved literature -- Chaucer would have been first in line to read this. Or at the very least Boccaccio - the OG plague writer.  The first few chapters did this BRILLIANTLY. They were outrageously funny and it was clear the author had done his research (loved the starting scenes at the monastary A huge fan of St Odo, Brother Rattus and the sly comments on relic culture). I was prepped for blatant inaccuracies. But as the book wore on the errors started to grate. It no longer seemed like Wilson was purposefully making mistakes but actually just throwing generalisations willy-nilly (or should it be hurdy gurdy). It no longer seemed funny but like - just erroneous? Like witch-burnings and plague dr masks? really?? In the fourteenth century??? (I am unclear if Wilson was being purposefully anachronistic and poking fun and our misconceptions of the period or whether this was sincere). 

I think the thing I found difficult was that it increasingly felt that Wilson was laughing at medieval culture rather than satirising it or pointing out the eccentric inconsistencies. You know? Look at those stupid medieval peasants weren't they so silly and random and quirky. They didn't know anything.

Satire is really hard to pull of well so that it's clear who or what you're mocking, and though Wilson did a good job at the start I think he didn't sustain it through the whole book and fell into lazy and boring habits.

2)I didn't find it nearly as funny as the reviews said it was. There were a couple of time I laughed out loud but the jokes were repetitive

3) I thought the random references to modern day culture (thanks to the wonderously high St Odo may his bones ever rest in peace) were a little shoehorned. The digs at 21st century would have been clear enough anyway and the parallels easy for the reader to notice. So cutting across the flow of narrative haphazardly, often cutting off any building tension, just came across, not witty and refined as one presumes Wilson intended, but stunted and too much on the nose. Sometimes you could feel Wilson smirking as he wrote probably patting himself on the back for a particularly ripe and moralistic tone. 

Look, it's not that it was awful. I might change my review to two stars. The first half was infinitely better (and funnier) than the second.