It’s 1348, two years after England’s victory over France at the battle of Crécy, which led to the capture of the French port of Calais. And it is to Calais that we are headed in James Meek’s latest novel, in the company of a large and diverse group of characters.

First, there’s Lady Bernadine, a young noblewoman betrothed to a man her father’s age. Dreaming of the sort of love described in her favourite poem, Le Roman de la Rose, Bernadine has run away from her home and her arranged marriage in pursuit of the man she hopes to marry instead, the knight Laurence Haket. Haket has raised a band of archers to send to the English garrison at Calais and they are all on their way to Melcombe in Dorset where their ship awaits.

The newest recruit to the company of archers is Will Quate, a young bondsman from Bernadine’s village, Outen Green. Will hopes that Bernadine’s father, Sir Guy, will grant him his freedom in return for serving with the bowmen. The other archers are rough, battle-hardened men who were together at Crécy and are not the most pleasant of people, as Will quickly discovers – but it seems that they will not go unpunished for the crimes they have committed.

Finally, we meet Thomas Pitkerro, a Scottish proctor who has been working at the papal court in Avignon and is returning there after carrying out a commission at Malmesbury Abbey in England. The Abbot has asked him to travel with the archers and to listen to their confessions as the nearest thing to a priest they will have. And they certainly have a lot to confess!

To Calais, in Ordinary Time doesn’t have a huge amount of plot – the whole story consists of the journey through the south of England towards Melcombe, but there’s still a lot going on. We get to know more about the archers and the girl known as Cess who has come back with them from France; the characters find themselves asked to perform in a morality play; and there’s an exploration of identity and gender through the story of Hab the swineherd and his ‘sister’ Madlen. Meanwhile, unknown to the characters, every step they take towards Calais is taking them closer to the Black Death, the great pestilence coming in the opposite direction. The choice of Melcombe as the point where they will embark for France is significant because Melcombe will become known as the ‘Plague Port’ – one of the first locations where the Black Death would enter England. You can find parallels with modern catastrophes (James Meek has said that he was thinking of climate change) but any comparisons are lightly drawn and they are more something to keep in mind rather than an important part of the story.

But the most notable aspect of this book – and one you’ll probably either love or hate – is the language. Meek uses three very distinct styles to convey the different backgrounds and social classes of each of the three main characters or groups of characters. Thomas Pitkerro’s narrative, mainly in the form of letters to his friends in Avignon, is written in very formal prose with long sentences and big words, evoking the Latin used by the clergy at that time. As an English noblewoman in the 14th century, Bernadine would have spoken a form of Norman French, so this is indicated by peppering her speech with words like the French negative ‘ne’ (‘you ne understand’, ‘ne speak his name’). The others – Will, Hab and the archers – speak in their local Cotswold dialect (‘they say steven in place of voice, and shrift and housel for confession and absolution, and bead for prayer’). They also say neb for face, which I found quite jarring as where I live it means nose!

While I appreciated the imaginativeness and cleverness behind all of this, I have to admit that I just found it a distraction. Ironically, instead of helping to immerse me in the setting and the story, it kept pulling me back into the present day and reminding me that I was reading a modern work of fiction. As I’ve said, though, I’m sure other readers will love the use of language and so will probably enjoy this book a lot more than I did. It’s the sort of book I would expect to see being nominated for awards; it just wasn’t right for me personally.

Bernadine is fleeing a marriage that she does not want when she falls in with a band of archers heading to the coast to catch a ship to France. Amongst them are a young man looking to buy his freedom from serfdom and the pig-boys' 'sister'. As they journey from the Cotswolds to the port of Melbury they are unaware that a greater peril is travelling in the opposite direction.
Set at the onset of the Plague in the 1340s this is a book which warrants reading. The language is difficult, written in historical style rather than modern English but the rich cast of characters make this worthwhile. The rough nature of war is prevalent, as is the second class nature of women in the Middle Ages, but the looming terror of the Plague overshadows the tale as life will be changed forever.

Fantastic, compelling account of medieval England under the threat of plague. A group of archers are travelling through southern England to meet a boat. They fought at Crècy but are barely clinging on to their status as a team, with the biggest split over one man's kidnapping of a young woman they met in France. A young man is sent to bolster their ranks, under the promise of freedom, whilst a young wealthy woman is also on the road running away from a forced marriage. The story alternates between narrators, reflecting the changing English language. There's frequent references to the "villains" not having a clue what the elite are saying in "French" (much more recognisable English).
Through the very different characters, the author weaves into the narrative understandings of courtly love, medieval Christianity, controls on rural workers and the horrific effects of such a devastating disease when there was no understanding of how it was caused or why some survived. I've never read anything like it, but would love to read more.

There's probably a great story in here but I couldn't get past the Ye Olde Tea Shoppe language. Sorry, DNF.

To Calais In Ordinary Time is the story of a group of travellers journeying across England at the outset of the Black Death. The entire novel is written in semi-medieval English and told from three different perspectives: that of a scribe whose language is studded with Latinate terms; that of a young noblewoman whose diction is marked by Norman French; and that of a ploughman whose vocabulary is more clearly Saxon.

James Meek depicts a world in the process of huge transformation. Social norms are being rewritten overnight as a result of the rapid and relentless progress of the plague that is sweeping across the country and leaving whole communities devastated in its wake. The individual travellers, whether or not they succumb to the disease, are obliged to respond to the new circumstances, to make adjustments and accommodations at an instinctive level and on y retrospectively to begin to understand and articulate their new positions.

It's a challenging read but an enormously enjoyable one because the language creates and sustains the world of the narrative. Far more than description of landscape or customs, it is the melting-pot of the dialogue with its competing sets of vocabulary, and all the embedded cultural baggage that these imply, that gives the story its vitality.

Strikingly original and gloriously ambitious, To Calais In Ordinary Time is a rare treat in a publishing world too often preoccupied with copycat best-sellers.

Historical fiction at its best!
I loved how well this book is written, the character development and well researched historical background.
It made me travel in time and I couldn't put it down as the plot is gripping and engaging.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Love, Romance, Catastrophe

Bernadine, a damsel fated to an unwanted marriage, flees her father’s manor in pursuit of a romantic ideal; Will, a young herdsman, is sent to join a company of archers as part of the king’s levy; Thomas, a failed scholar, is assigned to the company of archers in lieu of a priest to take confession. All make their way together with the bowmen, battle-hardened at Crecy, to Melcombe in Dorset in order to take ships to Calais. Coming in the opposite direction is the pestilence known as the Black Death.

This is a quite brilliant novel which sets so many challenges to the reader and succeeds on so many different levels. In historical fiction it seems to me quite unique: its closest companions might be Eco’s The Name of the Rose or Hodd by Adam Thorpe. Before beginning to read you need to know that much of the novel is written in a (simplified) form of Middle English, while other sections, when Thomas is narrating, are written in an elevated form of Latinate English – indeed these sections are to be imagined as actually written in Latin. So, for example, the Black Death is the qualm among the common English speakers, but pestilence among the educated. Now I enjoyed this immensely, but I am not sure how many others will do so.

There is a lot going on in the plot also: a sustained conceit involving the mediaeval romance Le Roman de la rose, the breaking down of social hierarchies in the wake of plague, gender swapping and confusion of sexual identity, as well as a tale of retribution for a crime committed by the bowmen in France years earlier – and of course the cataclysm of the plague itself creating havoc among the certainties of the times. Is it too much to read into the arrival of the plague from Europe a foreshadowing of our own impending catastrophe at the precipice of Brexit? Certainly, despite the antiquity of its language, this novel reads surprisingly modern in so many ways.

In conclusion, I found the narrative quite outstanding, a contender for my novel of the year.

This ARC was courtesy of netgalley - all thoughts and opinions are mine and unbiased

Loved this - this is very much my genre.

Very evocative and descriptive, you really do need to pay attention but I read this on a horrible, rainy day snuggled in a chair with blanket and I feel, able to really immerse myself which, I think, enhanced the whole experience for me

If you are looking for a real epic of a novel, this one is definitely for you

This is a book that requires your full attention, going very slow through pretty, almost prosaic scenery filled with indepth characters and dialogue. It is set in the 1300's and the language, although proper English, follows the spoken word of that day. The chapters are extremely long.
I love historical fiction and really tried to get into the story, but in the end I couldn't find the patience to continue and thus have shelved it for now.

Thank you Netgalley and Canongate for the ARC.