Rutherfurd's Forgotten Character Connections

Rutherfurd’s Forgotten Character Connections
Starting at the bank of Thames, from 54 B.C. to present day, the historical novel London, by Edward Rutherfurd, charts the two-thousand year old tale of families through ever-shifting fortunes and fates in England’s capital from the time of the Druids to the occurrence of the Blitz. The novel follows the family history of seven fictional families who interact with one another throughout the novel as a way to depict the events that have made English history for more than two millenniums. The families stem from Celtic, Anglo-Saxon,Norman, and Danish decent, creating a diverse culture within London.Furthermore, Rutherfurd intertwines the lives of these fictional families with appearances from historical

figures, such as Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare. Although painting an amazing picture of London, Edward Rutherfurd fails to successfully distinguish between the 131 characters that fall under the seven families. He does differentiate between a couple of the families by including minor physical descriptions of them, but he does not clearly define who is a descendant of each family nor does he create a smooth transition between each new chapter.
In London as a whole, there is a vast amount of over 130 characters, including decedents of the seven families as well as the intertwined major historical figures such as Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare.

To try and keep the reader from being overwhelmed by all the new characters consistently being introduced, Rutherfurd gives certain families distinct characteristics to help label them to their ancestors. The specific depictions begin when the reader first meets Segovax in “The River.” The first feature he portrayed was “On the front of his head...grew a patch of white hair… Such hereditary marks were to be found amongst several families dwelling in the hamlets along that region of the river” (6). The second feature he rendered when he spread his fingers was “a thin layer of skin”, that looked like “the webbing on a duck’s foot”(6). Further along in the novel, in the chapter labeled “The Conqueror” the next character from the same decent as Segovax, Alfred, is introduced. He is welcomed as “The boy with the white patch in his light brown hair”(178). In these two examples, you can clearly distinguish that Alfred comes from the same line of decent as Segovax. Another prominent example of these familial attributes across generations can be found in the Silversleeves family. When the Silversleeves family is first introduced to the reader in “The Conqueror”, Rutherfurd goes into great detail to describe the Norman as having a “long”, “rounded at the tip”, and “shiny” nose

emerging from his “pale, oval face”(170). Later in the novel, Rutherfurd goes on to give a similar description to other descendants of the Silversleeves family. Although for these two families there are distinct physical attributes which distinguish the family in which they belong to, this is not the case for each family. With a family lineage, like that of the Dorkes, their name changes from Dorkes to Carpenter during the novel. In a case like this, it evolves to be extremely confusing to keep track of who is related to who in the novel.
In addition to the vast number of characters resulting in confusion, each of the chapters covers a different era, making it more like a chain of short stories rather than a novel with an ongoing story. This feature was an issue because it deterred the plot and characters from truly developing. In chapter one, for example, Rutherfurd starts out explaining how The River was formed. Slowly, through excessive description, we learn about Segovax and his family and how they are dealing with the looming war. By the time the chapter comes to a close, the reader has been given only slight information of his grief due to his fathers death and is left wondering what comes to be of Segovax after the Roman invasion. Following this chapter, is “The Londinium” which begins, like the previous chapter, with description about the setting. This chapter tells the story of young Julius and Martina and the obstacles they endure while on their way to their final destination of marriage. Similarly to “The River”, as the reader begins to get insight into the characters of the chapter, it ends. This leaves the reader with questions that sometimes are answered in further readings and sometimes are not. This setup of the novel adds to the confusion of the characters because each chapter, all though vast in length, only briefly touches upon the characters before ending and moving on to another chapter.
In summation, although beautifully stringing together words to portray the amazing London, Edward Rutherfurd failed to clearly distinguish the ample number of characters that are introduced under the seven families throughout the novel. In addition, each chapter seems to be its own story, with no transition to further chapters or the characters found within them. The confused reader is lead to the question of why? Why write the novel in this specific way without many connections between characters and chapters? Perhaps Rutherfurd was unaware that his readers did not grasp each character as fully as he had hoped or as he had thought they would.