I Ve Read the Book Ivanhoe, Which Was Written by Walter Scott

I’ve read the book Ivanhoe, which was written by Walter Scott. He lived 1770-1832; he worked hard all his life, that’s why he died so young.

The novel is taking place somewhere late in the 12th century. It’s about a crusader who has returned back to England from a crusade. He is in love with a woman, some evil knights kidnap the woman and he must save her. Unfortunate is he hurt during the saving of the woman, whose name is Rowena. But his friends help him, and so did king Richard of Lionheart. Kidnapped at the same time, as Rowena was also, Isaac the Jew and his daughter Rebecca.

The main characters in the novel are Ivanhoe and Front-de-Boeff. You can say that they represent good and evil. Ivanhoe is noble and fights for his lady. Front-de-Boeff is the one who kidnaps Rowena. In the beginning of the novel, Ivanhoe is called “the disinherited knight”, and one does not know, that he his Ivanhoe, until about 150 pages later. And king Richard is not called by name until the end of the novel, one does just know him as: The Black Knight.

The setting of the novel is very well described, the novel is overall very much description. Every person, every place must be described. But, it is a bit difficult to understand all his descriptions, as the language in the book was very tough. There is one place in the novel, when Scott describes an arena, where a tournament takes place; it’s about three pages, just describing the setting. The title, well it is quite obvious, I can’t come up with a better one. It’s short and has got something to do with the novel.

I would recommend this book to someone who is good at English, because it wasn’t an easy language. I struggled many times when I read it. And I had to use the dictionary lots of times; unfortunate I didn’t had the chance to learn all the words, even though I learned a lot. But, it is a very good novel, which does not have a lot of boring parts. It was quite exciting from the beginning till the end. And I liked it.

My most memorable scene was when Front-de-Boeff threatened Isaac. He said that he would fry him over open fire. He describes how one of his slaves shall maintain the fire beneath Isaac and the other will pour oil over him, and roast him. Unless he doesn’t pay a thousand silver. But Isaac surrenders, so one does not get to se him get roasted.