Interview.

Writing that little pageant to The Winter King reminded me of this, an article I wrote back in 2005 for The (pathetic excuse for a student newspaper) Northumbria Student. I blagged an interview with Cornwell (on top of a lot of other things) when I went to the Hay festival that year and to be blunt I was cacking myself. I've still got the interview somewhere, which will be dug out another day.

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Waiting to interview one of your favourite authors is unnerving, I am possibly about to make a fool of myself, worse he could turn out not to be very likable. Hardly the best of thoughts as I’m waiting to meet Bernard Cornwell, scarily successful author of the Sharpe books (among others). I should have been less worried of course, I was delighted to find Cornwell was easy going, self depreciating, humorous, talented and with a clear love of what he does. All I had to do was not make a tit of myself.

Although Cornwell isn’t specifically promoting The Last Kingdom, the first work in a series set during the Danish invasions of our own Northumbria, it is fair to say it was the prominent point of the interview. I had just finished reading the work, enthralled at a tale set in places I’ve grown up around, particularly the beautiful Bamburgh Castle. Told from the perspective of the Northumbrian Uhtred, based roughly on Cornwell’s ancestor, embroiled not only in a family struggle for rulership, but also in the war between the Danes and King Alfred.

“I knew sod all about the Vikings,” says Cornwell, talking of the inspiration for the work, “the cause that started me off on it was meeting for the first time my real father three years ago. And discovering that the family had come from Northumberland and in fact they had once called themselves the Kings.”

He goes on to tell how he became fascinated with the history of his family, stressing this account is purely fictional, with so little known of the Dark Ages historical accuracy is impossible.

"That’s wonderful for novelists,” he adds with a smile, “if they don’t know, then I can make it up.”

The work is a tale of a roguish man who is our eyes to the famous figures and events of the day, from Uhtred’s perspective we see Alfred the Great, envisaged controversially as a devious and clever politician.

“I think that before he was a warrior he was a thinker, a scholar and a churchman.” says Cornwell, who has extensively researched Alfred, of his unsympathetic portrayal. “It doesn’t add up to the picture of a great warlord, it adds up to the picture of a very clever man.”

Similarly Cornwell’s dislike of religious puritanism, something he links to his religious stepparents, shines clear. It is fair to say the spreading Christianity comes across as downright inferior to the Pagan cultures of the Danes and Northumbria.

“It’s a more attractive culture isn’t it? That’s partly because I’m obviously attracted to the roguish nature of the Danes and I’m not particularly attracted to the piety of Alfred’s Wessex.” He isn’t kidding, in lifestyle, thoughts and actions Wessex and other devout Christians seem positively pathetic compared to the fiery, passionate Danes.

“Denmark now has to be one of the dullest countries on God’s earth. Yet back then they were tearing a swathe through Anglo-Saxon England, tearing up all the regulations and that makes them fascinating and abhorrent and interesting and awful.”

Cornwell refers to the French poet André de Chénier, who accused Robespierre of wishing to issue a certificate for correct thinking. “Puritans are those who make the rules and try and force the rest of us to obey. And it’s not just rules like we should all drive on the left of the road, which is quite sensible, but it’s rules about how you think.”

Similarly, some may find the portrayal of the ideals of the time controversial. Uhtred and his fellow characters act as Dark Age Northumbrian’s would, and events of a sometimes horrific natures are presented as a normal part of life. Not only war and violent slaughter, but such spectacles as human sacrifice, for which Cornwell is unapologetic.

“Simply put you can’t be Sharpe, or Uhtred, or Derfel... and be squeamish, I’m squeamish but they’re not.”



Copyright John Conway - 2005 - john.charles.conway@googlemail.com