Rosemary Sutcliff’s Blood Feud historical novel was TV series The Sea Dragon

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Blood Feud coverI have been researching the Rosemary Sutcliff  historical novels and retellings for children’s books which have been turned into TV and radio programmes. Sea Dragon was a version of Blood Feud made for TV in 1990. The TV series gets an average  8.1 (of 10) rating from users at ImDB. The essence of the plot is this: sold into slavery to the Northmen (Norsemen) in the tenth century, a young Englishman becomes involved in a blood feud which leads him to Constantinople and a totally different way of life.

The United States newspaper the Washington Post commented, when the book was first published in 1976, that:

Sutcliff’s gift is to recreate an era, in this case the 10th-century voyages of the Northmen and the rise of Byzantium, so convincingly that her readers accept without question the different mores of another time. The violence of the blood feud between two families set off by an accidental killing seems inevitable. No writing down here, no anachronisms, just a glorious sense of history, a sense of knowing how it was.

The Director of the TV film was Icelander Ágúst Guðmundsson; the adaptor David Joss Buckley. The lead actors were Graham McGrath (as Jestyn), Bernard Latham (as Gyrth) and Janek Lesniak (as Thormod). Other cast members were: Baard Owe as Haki; Øystein Wiik as Thraud; Pat Roach as Aslak; Trine Pallesen as Ayrun; Lisa Thorslunde as Thormod’s Mother; Eiry Palfrey as Sister Gytha; Holly Aird as Ffion; Lasse Spang Olsen as Herulf; Martin Spang Olsen as Anders; and  Anna Massey (who sadly died  in 2011) as the  Prioress.

David Hockney the picture maker | Rosemary Sutcliff the story maker

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Listening to a fascinating interview with David Hockney on radio with Andrew Marr. (On BBC Radio 4). He describes himself as a “picture maker”. It immediately made me think that I am wrong always to say that Rosemary was a ‘story teller’. She was a story maker.

Villa Molina: Los lobos de la frontera (1980), de Rosemary Sutcliff

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Novela histórica de la saga que Sutcliff escribió sobre el tiempo de dominación romana de Britania. El protagonista vuelve a ser un descendiente de la familia de los Aquila: Un joven oficial que cae en desgracia por una decisión desacertada y es enviado como consecuencia a la frontera escocesa, al mando de unas tropas un tanto asilvestradas.

La trama es bastante sencilla y equilibrada. La autora hace ver que la actuación de los individuos repercute en los grupos sociales, pero también los personajes se ven arrastrados por problemas sociales (y los que eran amigos, por ejemplo, pasan a enfrentarse).

Para chicos (protagonista masculino, aventuras militares, virtudes castrenses…). Me ha gustado bastante. 4/5.

Más reseñas de la saga en este blog aquí, aquí, aquí y aquí. (¡Me ha dado fuerte, eh!)

via Villa Molina: Los lobos de la frontera (1980), de Rosemary Sutcliff.

Translation from Google of this blogpost:

Historical novel of the saga that Sutcliff wrote about the time of Roman occupation of Britain. The protagonist is again a descendant of the family of Aquila: A young officer who falls from grace by a misguided decision and sent as a result of the Scottish border, troops commanded by a somewhat feral. The plot is fairly simple and balanced. The author shows that the impact performance of individuals in social groups, but the characters are drawn by social problems (and they were friends, for example, are to face). For boys (male lead, military adventures, military virtues …). I liked a lot. 4 / 5.  More reviews of the series on this blog here, here, here and here. (I have it bad, eh!)

The ‘Inside A Dog’ blog enthuses about old favourite Rosemary Sutcliff

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Groucho Marx, Sig Ruman and Margaret Dumont

Groucho Marx  once said: ‘Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read!’. Hence one blog about books:  Inside a Dog. The blog’s author recently caught up with The Eagle film in Australia, which prompted him to enthuse about Rosemary Sutcliff  “all over again”.

Today I finally got to see the movie based on Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle Of The Ninth. That’s made me think about her books all over again – I love them!  I think she’s the greatest writer of historical fiction for children and teens in the twentieth century. In fact, judging by what I’ve read in the last eleven years, maybe the best of this century too.

Source: Rosemary Sutcliff – an old favourite | Inside A Dog.

Rereading Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth

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Rosemary Sutcliff's famous novel was first published in the UK in 1954Around the time of the release of the film The Eagle, Charlotte Higgins wrote in the Guardian: “Not just a rollicking adventure, Rosemary Sutcliff‘s The Eagle of the Ninth … is a touching true story about love and loyalty”. She enjoyed looking back on a childhood favourite that she had reread many times.

I call it a children’s story; my copy, with its gorgeous line drawings by C Walter Hodges, bears my name on the title page in barely joined-up handwriting. But Sutcliff claimed her books readable by anyone from nine to ninety, and she was right. In an interview in 1992, the year she died, she said: “I don’t write for adults, I don’t write for children. I don’t write for the outside world at all. Basically, I write for some small, inquiring thing in myself.” I have read The Eagle of the Ninth dozens of times; and as the reading self changes, so does the book. When I last read the story, it was the quality of the prose that delighted, the rightness with which Sutcliff gives life to physical sensation. A battle fought through the grey drizzle of a west country dawn is illuminated by “firebrands that gilded the falling mizzle and flashed on the blade of sword and heron-tufted war spear”. Perfect, too, is a set-piece in which Marcus, on a stiflingly hot day, puts his British hunting companion’s chariot-team through their paces. “The forest verge spun by, the fern streaked away between flying hooves and whirling wheels . . . Then, on a word from Cradoc, he was backed on the reins, harder, bringing the team to a rearing halt, drawn back in full gallop on to their haunches. The wind of his going died, and the heavy heat closed round him again. It was very still, and the shimmering, sunlit scene seemed to pulse on his sight.” Sutcliff, tellingly, has those black chariot ponies – “these lovely, fiery little creatures” – descended from the royal stables of the Iceni, the tribe who had almost cast Rome out of Britain. It is a delicately inserted hint of danger to come.

Whole article at Rereading Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth | Books | The Guardian.