Wonders Will Never Cease

September 11, 2017
Irwin (The Arabian Nightmare) draws on the strangest elements of early Renaissance legend and history for this charming, peculiar picaresque. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, fights on the losing side of the War of the Roses and dies in battle. After a brief trip in the land of the dead, he finds himself back among the living; even more unexpectedly, he’s in the new king’s good graces. During the reign of Edward IV, he encounters events both miraculous and strange, but Anthony provides little besides the stitching that holds a number of disparate tales together; the actual events of his life—such as the deaths of his father—take up less space than a tale about one of King Arthur’s knights. Narratives are spun by Anthony’s mother, Jacquetta (supposedly descended from a dragon); a court alchemist named Ripley; and Thomas Malory, a knight who mostly spends his time working on his magnum opus, Le Morte d’Arthur. These stories drift out of their tellers’ control, as Anthony’s life drifts out of his, and he ends up on the wrong side of history again. Medievalists and history buffs will enjoy this premodern romp of bloody battles, court intrigues, and the occasional prophesying disembodied head, but fans of Game of Thrones and The Other Boleyn Girl are likely to bounce off it.