Back in time

As Bryce Courtenay himself acknowledges, he’s a storyteller not a writer of literary fiction. This is good news for us readers as it makes Sylvia an easy, comfortable read; there’s no need to be reaching for the dictionary every two minutes or trying to get your head around fancy metaphors. But that’s not to say that Courtenay’s latest novel is simplistic, by any stretch. It’s a complex narrative with rich, engaging characters and wouldn’t have been possible without the staggering amount of research that was done. Courtenay certainly doesn’t do things by halves.

Set against the backdrop of medieval Europe Sylvia tells the story of Sylvia Honeyeater, an orphaned peasant girl with the voice of an angel; a talent for mimicking bird calls; and a fateful fish-shaped birthmark on her back. When the town gossip discovers Sylvia’s birthmark she claims that a miracle has occurred however the priest is not convinced. In an effort to save her damaged reputation the gossip gets Sylvia banished from the village and only home she’s ever known so that, at eleven years of age, Sylvia finds herself alone and left to fend for herself.

Sylvia’s fortunes rapidly take a turn for the better when she meets Reinhardt, a rat catcher and flute player, whose charm and powers of persuasion always see him land on his feet. Together they travel to Cologne where they earn a living as the musical entertainment in a winkelhaus (aka a brothel) and where Sylvia’s love of learning leads her to enter a convent.

Whilst the book’s blurb promotes it as a tale about the Children’s Crusade of 1212 this is first and foremost Sylvia’s story, told by Sylvia, about Sylvia. In fact, the crusade doesn’t really come into it until more than halfway through the book and ends up getting less attention than I was expecting.

The history behind the story is fascinating and Courtenay has spared no effort in ensuring that every detail of his broad canvas is a fine reflection of the era.

He maintains a consistent pace throughout so that whilst there are no dull spots there are also no ‘edge of your seat’, page turning moments. As result, I found 500 pages to be a bit too long; it could have been a hundred pages shorter and the story wouldn’t have suffered.

In places I found Sylvia to be overly sentimental with a few too many happy endings to seemingly ill-fated situations but I’ll put that down to a character flaw on my part rather than a weakness of the novel.

Without doubt Courtenay is a brilliant storyteller who creates a world with vivid characters and landscape in which the reader will soon find themselves immersed. Sylvia, is a relaxing holiday read that will keep you entertained and perhaps even think about picking up a history book to find out more this fascinating time in history.

Karin van Heerwaarden

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Sylvia

Author: Bryce Courtenay
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Price: $49.95 (hard cover)

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