Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell (door Caroline van der Velde)

When I started reading Cornwell’s latest book I expected something like one of the stories about Richard Sharpe, the soldier lifted from the ranks in the army of Wellington during the Napoleonic wars, or the trilogy about King Arthur. A good story with a battle as a backdrop.
In this respect I was disappointed. The story of the protagonist, Nick Hook, is a bit flimsy. Nick is not a really interesting character, and I get the feeling he is just there because Cornwell needed someone who could have been present at the battles described in this book, and he did that before in Sharpe’s Waterloo, but in this case the protagonist is not a person I can feel really sympathetic about.

At the beginning of the book he is more than anything a Richard Sharpe with a longbow, so that gives you the feeling that there’s more interesting things to follow, but the character doesn’t really develop and stays more or less the same throughout the book. He isn’t very ambitious and things just happen to him. His wife Melisande is the one who sometimes gives him a bit of drive.
Melisande happens to be the illegitimate daughter of a French nobleman, and this could have been a good starting point to develop the characters a bit more, but the people remain rather two-dimensional to the end.

It doesn’t help that Nick keeps hearing the voices of the Saints Crispin and Crispinian in his head. This may have something to do with the fact that I’m not deeply religious myself, but I don’t get the impression Nick is really changed by all this. I wouldn’t have liked him better if he had become some sort of religious fanatic, but at least his story would probably have been a lot more interesting and exciting. As it is, he is only important because he happens to be at the Battle of Azincourt.

The only character I really like is Father Christopher. I like his take on the world, his sense of humour and his understanding of people.

His counterpart, Sir Martin, on the other hand is again a cardboard figure, just like the many others who appear in the book. You never get a chance to relate to anyone really, because you never get to know them very well.

So after all these rather scathing comments, is there anything to like about this book?
Yes, there is. If you like reading about battles that is. The title of the book is Azincourt , but the story is actually about three battles.

First there is the siege of Soissons, in which Nick finds himself inside the city, giving Cornwell the chance to paint a battle from inside the walls. Then there is the siege of Harfleur, when Nick is with the army trying to conquer the city and then, of course, there’s the grand finale, the Battle of Azincourt itself.

As always, Cornwell’s research has been done very well and the battles are described in great detail. You can feel the mud between your toes as it were. Cornwell takes you right in the middle of things. Sometimes the detail is a bit too much. Repeatedly mentioning you have to take the bowstring off the bow because if you leave it on too long it will weaken the bow, was a bit overdone. Telling it once would have been enough in my point of view. But those are mere details. Cornwell has done a great job describing the battles and that’s really what the book is about.

But however well depicted, can a battle function as a protagonist and keep our attention the way a person could? At the end of the story I wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if Cornwell had written a non-fiction work about Azincourt and the events leading up to it.For research and detail I give the book 4 stars, but for the story itself only 2. Nevertheless, Bernard Cornwell is and remains, one of my favourite writers and I will certainly look forward to his next novel (Mr Cornwell, make that another Sharpe, please?).