Neither fish, flesh nor fowl

According to a Yale professor, Eric Jager has invented a new genre with this book. I can see what he means. It’s not a novel, because the story is based entirely on the historical record; it is, however, told as a continuous narrative, with very occasional invention to fill in the gaps where the sources are silent. I’ve certainly never read anything in this style. But to qualify for so luminous an achievement as generic invention, it has to work, and unfortunately it doesn’t.

This is a pity, because Jager has chosen a fascinating subject. In 1386, a French knight challenges his rival to a judicial duel, accusing him of raping his wife. By law, the victor is proved innocent in the eyes of God, and the conquered guilty. So if the knight loses, his wife will die with him, burned at the stake for perjury. The tensions of this story are set against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, the Great Schism and the occasional madness of King Charles VI. Such a wealth of dramatic factors would perfectly suit either a novel, which could exploit the romance of the story, or a historical account, which could make a serious enquiry into the social and political nuances of the age.

But The Last Duel is neither one nor the other. Here is an example: ‘When Jean disembarked at Sluys — or Harfleur, or one of the other French ports …’ If this were a novel, Jean could have simply disembarked at Sluys and the narrative would not be interrupted. If it were a traditional historical account, Jager could have told us that we don’t know where Jean disembarked, or could have kept silent on the matter.