Stonehenge: A Novel, by Bernard Cornwell

Stonehenge: A Novel

Bernard Cornwell

One special pleasure of reading historical fiction is getting to see how different authors, such as Edward Rutherfurd and Bernard Cornwell, deal with the same historical events. In the case of the building of the great Bronze Age temple called Stonehenge there is a lot of room for interpretation since little, if anything, is known beyond the basic archaeological findings. I can barely recall Rutherfurd's version in Sarum: The Novel of England , so it obviously did not cement itself in my mind. I am afraid that Cornwell's novel was not, in my mind, all that compelling either.

Stonehenge tells the story of the presumed architect of the awesome edifice, Saban, the son of a chieftain of Ratharryn in what would someday be Wiltshire. He has two brothers, the warlike Lengar and the creepy, lame Camaban. When Lengar kills their father and takes over the tribe, he makes Saban a slave to Haragg, a traveling trader. It turns out that Camaban engineered the enslavement as a way of preventing Saban's death at their older brother's hands. Camaban has plans for the brother that had treated him kindly. Saban goes with Haragg to Sarmennyn where he falls in love with Aurenna, the Sun's bride, and is instrumental in ensuring that she does not die in the consuming fire of sacrifice. When Camaban orders Saban to bring a large number of colossal stones by sea to Ratharryn to build a "sky temple", with the lure of a sort of Revelations-style transformation of the Earth to a land of no winter and death, he goes along with the plan. When this seemingly impossible task is accomplished, he and Aurenna move back to Ratharryn with their two children. It is then that everything goes to hell in a hand basket. The Sarmennyn stones are too small for the vision Camaban, who just gets weirder and weirder, he and Aureana, um, ally, and the demands for the new concept of the temple to which Saban has dedicated himself, should chill the heart of anyone working in a corporate setting today. He is given daunting tasks, which are regularly made more and more difficult to achieve while the deadline stays the same. It becomes obvious that the peaceful paradise the temple is meant to usher in will only be completed with the shedding of a great deal of blood.

You all know I just love Cornwell's novels. They are well written and exciting. This novel lacks something of the intensity and tautness of the author's usual style. Most of his historical novels are about one remarkable soldier, whether Sharpe, Uhtred, Thomas of Hookton, Nick Hook, or another, striving against political odds to achieve whatever victory he seeks. Saban is more of an architect and engineer, and the spark found in Cornwell's usual heroes is missing. This is simply the story of a bunch of entirely fictional characters building a historical monument. There is not much sense of the placement in history, not very much suspense, and only a modicum of creativity with interpretation of what life may have been like for the people of that time.

Here again is the sinister disabled character. Here is the sort of archetype that critic Leslie Fiedler would recognize, the single brilliant male mind responsible for an astonishing achievement. It seems that our desire for a Messiah is present in this otherwise acerbic commentary on religion. This is, in fact, the central theme of Stonehenge, how religion, which originates from fear and superstition, can be manipulated into intolerant orthodoxy, screwed into the antithesis of its own stated object. In no other novel has Cornwell had such a blank canvas to make this point.

My husband and I read this novel together, having bought a used copy at a local bookstore. It is available from the National Library Services for the Blind. You can check out other sources using the links in the right-hand column of this page.