To Calais, in Ordinary Time, by James Meek

In a horrible sort of coincidence, I ended up reading the perfect book for waiting out a pandemic: a book about the beginning of another pandemic. The Black Death looms over most of To Calais, in Ordinary Time, by James Meek, until the characters run right into it on England’s southern coast in the summer of 1348. Some of the characters think that the plague is a hoax. Others think it’s a French plot. Yet other characters are so caught up in their own personal dramas that they don’t care about the plague at all until people start to sicken and die.

I picked this up because a reviewer for The New York Review of Books discussed how Meek wrote dialogue for his narrators in different registers of English at the time. I am a sucker for books that feature earlier varieties of English. (#wordnerd) Will Quate, a serf who makes a bargain with his lord for his freedom by servicing as a bowman in the English army, speaks in plain English. The daughter of his lord, Berna, speaks an English that his heavily seasoned with French. Berna is a big fan of the Roman de la Rose, a popular allegory of love. Thomas the Proctor speaks and writes a Latinate version of English. At times, the three narrators confuse each other with their vocabularies. Meek brilliantly recreates the Englishes of seven hundred some odd years ago.

To Calais, in Ordinary Time reads like a series of learning opportunities in the form of adventures on the road. Because it’s not safe to travel alone, first Berna and then Thomas join Will’s company of bowmen. There are fights, confessions, and even a pageant of the Roman de la Rose on the way. Slowly, while all of this is happening, Will and Thomas piece together what happened to the woman who is held captive by the bowmen, a Frenchwoman who was raped and abducted just before the battle of Crécy. Berna and her maid Madlen (actually a swineherd Hab, who has disguised themself as their own “sister”) are wrapped up in their own dramas as they chase after men they believe to be their true loves.

My linguistic entry point turned out to be a small part of To Calais, in Ordinary Time. This book revolves around issues of war crimes and rape, different kinds of love, oaths and obligations, atonement, absolution, what it means to be a man or a woman, and so much more. In spite of many opportunities to bend his moral code, Will mostly remains a stubbornly upright man, who refuses to cut and run even when he should. In contrast, Berna has to learn that, for her, romantic love is a fantasy that came from reading her roman too many times. Of all the narrators, she was the one I wanted to yell at the most because of her insistence on following her own plans. It’s only toward the end when Berna grows up. Lastly, Thomas provides many doses of worldly wisdom for his young companions as they make their way south to Calais. I liked Thomas a lot. He’s been on the planet long enough to know how to manipulate the guilty to reveal their crimes so that they can go to purgatory or heaven with a clear consciences.

The end of To Calais, in Ordinary Time, when the company encounters the plague and bowmen start to drop dead, is frightening. The helplessness and fear the characters feel was absolutely palpable, made all the more believable by what I’ve been seeing on the news over the past weeks. I am deeply thankful that the virus sweeping around the planet is far less destructive and deadly as Yersinia pestis was. Thinking back on this book and its apocalyptic ending, I find it very fitting that the plot is all about what characters are willing to fight for, their identities, their loves, and their (more or less malleable) codes of honor. When the world is ending, who are we and what do we stand for?