Status Updates From Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Ye...

At times, the plot crawls at a snail's pace, then it runs like a racing horse. Edward on being separated from his company on the retreat, quickly travels from northern England to London, back to Scotland, gets pardoned, gains the hand of Rose and is the last visitor to his friend and chieftain Fergus Mac Ivor before his beheading.

Scott did a fine job describing the interests and political machinations behind the Jacobite Rising. An endeavour doomed to fail under any circumstances. That it went as far as it did is only explicable by lack of communication, slow movement, wrong decisions and fatal allegiances. The images of the low- and highlander Scots aren't very favourable anymore now that the lustre peels off.

Taken hostage by interchanging parties, Edward ends up without any proper accomplishment at the court of Bonny Prince Charlie, joins the Jacobite rising in prominent position and shows his charming side at a ball in Holyrood Castle before the march south starts the following day.
Refreshing to have such a hapless passive character as hero today when everyone seeks self-fulfillment and is the center of his universe.

Waverley is merely a pawn of those around him. His agency is limited, his decisions amount to nothing. It's difficult to believe the appreciation he gets by the highland chieftains, the affection received by the ladies.
His resignation from the English army is forced upon him. His effort to seek justice in Edinburgh is about to be thwarted by petty villagers and a scheming publican.

Of concern for those interested in the emergence of the literary novel. Supposedly the first English historical fiction. Super popular at its time. A different time, different readers. For a modern reader, it is slow plodding, verbose, cumbersome. The redeeming features so far are glances of Scott's british humour and eruditeness.
This damned tiny print of my edition and the antiquated English are a huge challenge.

Edward Waverley is a dilettante, quick-witted but bored easily and acting on a whim without own convictions, driven by others. An interesting choice and essential for the novel, judging by the introduction.
Scott is at times really funny, oozes witty irony, constantly breaks the fourth wall with explanations to the reader and gets lost in long-winded tedious descriptions of environment. Will be a tough read.

After two auto-fictional books nominated for the Deutscher Buchpreis in recent years, now for something completely different. Historical fiction from the 19th century. I blame it on a visit to Edinburgh four years ago and the huge Scott monument there, making me a bad conscience that I know nothing about this guy.