To Calais, In Ordinary Time

This is a story about three people travelling through England at the beginning of the Black Death epidemic. The book is written in semi-medieval English and told from three different viewpoints. This is not a book you can just fly through however you won't want to.

This book was so good. I didn't to put it down! The characters were well rounded, and the storyline sucked you into it and made you feel like you were really there. The author did an great job telling this story.

To Calais, in Ordinary Time is one of those books you enter like a world and realize you want to remain in. To Calais is set in the 14th Century as the Black Death arrives in Britain, so that wanting to remain is very conditional. One doesn't want the death, the brutality, the disrespect for women—but one does want the pacing and the unexpected relationships that form and the ethical considerations faced when every act (or absence) is seen as God's will.

To Calais follows an unusual cohort traveling south to the ports, so the members can sail to Calais for a variety of reasons. There are experienced archers who've fought in Calais earlier and who embody a volatile mix of brutality and honor; a woman these archers raped and abducted the last time they were in France; a young woman escaping marriage to a much older man; a neither-priest-nor-scholar intellectual, charged as the group's spiritual advisor; a young peasant newly joining the archers; and a swineherd in love with this peasant, alternately appearing as himself and as his "sister" Madlen, in hopes of winning that beloved's affections.

Watching these characters define themselves, both individually and in relation to one another, is fascinating and, at times, heart-rending. The language of the novel, which uses older word forms and highlights the difference between the English-English of peasants and the French-English of the nobility, slows the pace a bit in ways that are appropriate to the gradual speed of the journey the characters are undertaking. And, amid all the seriousness and exploration of the complexities of identity are generous moments of humor.

The experience this book offers is surprising, deeply engaging, challenging, and rewarding—a blend of all the best fiction has to offer.

I received a free electronic ARC of this title from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.

An astonishing and brilliant book intended to--and effective at--capturing the world and language of late 14th-century England. A former priest, an archer, and a noblewoman on the run find themselves traveling together to Calais in a time of plague, war, and uncertainty. Exploring social mores, religious belief, gender, sexuality, politics, and more, Meek creates a wondrous tale of resistance and persistence.

What an accomplishment this novel is! It's about a group of British folks in the middle ages who set off to cross to Calais and fight the French. The language the author uses gives a feeling of authenticity. Characters meet with a variety of adventures, love, violence, crazy people, beautiful places, and the Black Death. To say this was an eerie and timely read during my first two weeks sequestered at home trying to evade Covid-19 is an understatement.
My stars and praise, however, do not mean this was an easy read. I often checked my kindle's dictionary for word meaning and also from curiosity about word origin. My own recent forays into French made this adventure both more understandable and richer. At times, reading the novel seemed like a lot of work because of the language and I drifted away from it for periods. Also the author is not shy of graphic violence or sex.. Still, the most wonderful things are not usually the most easily won.

I was so happy to choose this book since it's a little out of my "comfort zone" of reading. I usually stick to the same types of books that all have relatively the same plot.

I was intrigued as it seemed more like a diary of someone's thoughts as the book progressed. I feel the author did an excellent job on capturing the moods as they shifted, how people were being effected etc.

Definitely pick up this book if you are wanting something a little different than what you are use to but really enjoy this period in time. I was consumed by this book.

A fascinating story with an interesting and well thought cast of characters and a vivid and well researched historical background.
The plot flows and kept me hooked till the end.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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?