So what’s this book you liked so much?
It’s called The Dragon Waiting. It’s a 1983 novel by a guy named John M. Ford. It’s this erudite historical fantasy, or maybe fantastical history, that—
Wait, it’s called The Dragon Waiting? It’s like about dragons and shit? Dungeons and dragons?
There are dungeons, or really towers—the whole medieval motif of hostage-taking is part of the novel—but no, no dragons. Or, there is a dragon at the very end of the novel, but it’s essentially a shared illusion manifested by the dreams of an approaching army. The dragon manifests as this illusory spectacle, a spectacle based on lack and imagination—it’s kinda Lacanian, really, because—
Okay, so, is it a fantasy novel or not? I mean are there wizards and monsters and shit?
There are wizards. But really, they operate more like, I dunno, spies or chemists or thieves. One of the four main protagonists is a Welsh wizard named Hywel Peredur, and he isn’t like, doing sorcery so much as he’s trying to shape events by aligning personalities, throwing out political and personal gambits, heroic scheming, and—
Like Gandalf.
Yeah, like Gandalf I guess. Or Merlyn. But really, the stuff in The Dragon Waiting is like, reality-based, by which I mean history-based, or at least historical-fantasy-based.
So there aren’t any orcs or trolls or elves or whatever and the dragon is just a shared illusion?
There are monstrous people. Oh, there are also vampires, but they’re not all bad.
So it’s a vampire novel? A horror novel?
No, not a horror novel, although it has some gothic tinges, and definitely not a “vampire novel,” whatever that is—although one of the four protagonists is afflicted with vampirism. He’s a German engineer named Gregory von Bayern who specializes in artillery.
So he’s a vampire who makes guns and bombs?
Kind of, but that makes it sound silly.
And so he kills people?
Yeah, but not to feed on them, and not like, in general. He’s one of the heroes of the story, enlisted by Hywel to—
Hywel is the Gandalf?
Not a great analog but sure, Hywel is your Gandalf. And he kinda puts together this squad whose long-term goals are never really stated clearly, but they are essentially forming a Western resistance to the Byzantine Empire.
The Byzantine Empire?
Yeah. So, in the alternate reality of The Dragon Waiting, the Byzantine Empire is the great unified force in the East. And because of this, Christianity never emerges as a major religion, so instead there’s this plurality of all kinds of Gods worshipped—Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and son on. And the sort of background action of the novel is Byzantium encroaching into Europe, threatening Italy, which is a bunch of disunified city states, so even if the Medici are powerful, they still have their own internal opponents, that’s one of the major themes of the novel—political infighting. We see the political scheming thing most strongly in the novel’s dominant plot, which is Hywel’s gang’s attempt to get Richard the Duke of Gloucester on the English throne.
Richard the Duke of Gloucester—that was a real guy, right?
Lots of the characters in The Dragon Waiting are real guys from history, yes.
So what do I know Richard the Duke of Gloucester from?
He was Richard the III of England.
The hunchback guy? The winter of our discontent guy? The guy who killed his nephews?
That’s how Shakespeare depicted him in the play, yes. But Ford’s novel takes a different approach. He’s very human, and he has flaws, but he’s not a Machiavellian child-killing prick.
Okay, so all of this is taking place in like Byzantium and Italy and England and like, when? When is Richard III? 1600 something?
No, not Byzantium—that Empire is trying to spread west. No, the action takes place in Western Europe—Wales, Italy, France, Switzerland, England, and so on. And the dates would cover a few decades, but a lot of the prime action is happening at the end of the fifteenth century. Richard III was coronated in the summer of 1483, if that helps. But because Christianity never really takes off, the whole AD thing never happens, so those numbers don’t really show up in the book.
This sounds really complicated. Do I need to know a lot of European history, world history to understand what’s happening?
Oh, I think even if you knew a lot of the historical background very well you’d have a hard time understanding what’s happening.
Great. So why are you into this dragon book?
I love how it’s written; I love its themes, its layering, its construction. It’s a dense book that feels light; it’s serious and erudite but also psychologically drawn. Ford eschews exposition. In fact, at times he even sets the reader up to look the wrong way. And this fits with a lot of the themes and motifs and bits of the novels—illusionists, forgers, secret agents, disguises, spies, thieves, and so on. So it’s not just happening in the plot; it’s also happening at the rhetorical level. Like, for example, okay, so we get this kind of overture in the first three chapters, which establish three of our four protagonists: Hywel the Welsh wizard, Dimitrios Ducas, an exiled Greek mercenary, and Cynthia Ricci, an Italian doctor initially in the service of the Medici. And Ford’s camera sits close to their perspective, we get into their heads, get to know them a bit. And then all of a sudden we get to the book’s second section, and all of the characters are in disguise in this remote mountain inn, way up in the snow, using false names. And Ford never shows his hand, we just have to figure out what happens, who the characters really are, and how they relate to each other. And he sort of wedges this neat little murder mystery in there (in the snow in a hotel no less—reminded me of Crane’s “The Blue Hotel” or Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight). And Ford does this again and again, but in new ways—misdirection, disguise, illusion. I ended up having to read each chapter twice.
I bet the vampire did the murder!
Okay.
But so like there are vampires in this book, but that’s not, like, a thing?
The novel treats vampirism as a disease, not as a supernatural thing, and like many diseases, there is folklore and superstition that develops around the disease, some in common with our own concept of “vampirism.” The vampires in The Dragon Waiting are sensitive to light and they do have to consume blood, but they aren’t necessarily immortal, and to a large extent, they are shunned and feared. Although some of them become powerful.
And the vampire Gregory is good?
I guess. The motivations for the four main characters aren’t necessarily good or evil, per se, although the four of them are generally sympathetic to decency, humanity, and compassion over violence and raw power. But ultimately, they seem mostly motivated by the strange friendships they forge with each other.
That sounds corny.
It’s not.
Ok. So you like the writing, but what about the subject matter? I mean, I didn’t really think you were into historical fantasy fiction? Does a body have to know a lot of European history to get into this? I tried to ask you earlier and you deflected.
I think I answered just fine: No, not really. There’s a lot of English history in there, and a lot of it will be familiar (but strangely so) if you know Shakespeare’s plays on the Plantagenet kings—a cycle that ends with Richard III, obviously.
Obviously.
I think Ford knows his history really, really well, but part of his rhetorical technique is withholding certain clues, baiting and switching, reshuffling the deck, moving the cups quickly in a shell game…the story is really about shifting identities, shifting names, shifting allegiances, and so on. I suppose it might be easy to compare it to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, but, like better written, smarter, and trimmed of all the fat.
Rude.
That’s not what I meant. It’s sort of like Gene Wolfe’s New Sun novels. Although I’d really compare The Dragon Waiting to something like Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day or V.—those are historical fantasies too—or fantastical histories?—encyclopedic ones that frequently defer meaning and stun or bewitch the reader. There’s like a specter there in the prose, pushing out an illusion that the reader has to chase—
The reader has to chase the dragon?
Shush.
So you’re saying this dragon book is Pynchonian?
No, no. But many things I like in Pynchon—the paranoia, the showing of the parts while withholding the revelation of the whole, the dazzling encyclopediaism—I find that in The Dragon Waiting too. Ford’s style also reminds me a bit of Cormac McCarthy, who’s so good at simply showing actions while refusing to tell the reader what they mean—either to the characters or to the narrator or whomever. Things just happen and the reader has to sort it out.
But won’t I get confused?
I was confused but not frustrated. I was confused, but then I’d reread the chapter and realize I had been looking in the wrong direction or following the wrong thread. Again, rhetorical misdirection doubles the novel’s themes of political/magical misdirection.
But the history might get me all confused.
Okay, so, the names can cause confusion. Pretty much every character has multiple names or titles, and they all use aliases as well. And lots of the historical background characters, particularly the English ones, have the same names. Lots of Richards and Elizabeths and Edwards and Henrys in here. Ford provides a little overture of historical personages, and Wikipedia is always there. Oh, and there’s this really cool site called Draco Concordans which is a series of annotations on the novel.
Wait, I have to read annotations on a website to follow this book? Is this fucking Finnegans Wake or something?
No, and I only found the site after I finished the book. I might have liked to have used it when I reread each chapter though. But I would definitely recommend reading it the first time cold. I think the pleasure in the book is looking back to realize where you lost the thread, where you were misdirected. I’m sure I’ll consult the Concordans when I read The Dragon Waiting again.
So you’ll read it again?
Oh yeah, definitely. Loved it.
That sounds like a recommendation then.
It is. I highly recommend it.