LA GRANDE INVERSION / THE GREAT REVERSAL Erik S. LARSEN invites you to discover his novel entitled LA GRANDE INVERSION. If you wish to read it in a free PDF version (French), please click on the flag on the right hand side of this page and go to "Media". There, you can also view a trailer of the novel (in French too). For a trailer in English, please go there : http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=24278241 For a paperback version of the novel, go to http://www.lulu.com/content/634214/ and follow the instructions. "THE GREAT REVERSAL" is an historical detective novel but it is also what specialists of literature would call a uchronia because what the novelist does there is revisiting Norman history. ABSTRACT : La Grande Inversion is a detective novel set in the Middle Ages, before and after the terrible year 1066. But here, the duke of Normandy William the Bastard is defeated at Hastings and does not become the famous William the Conqueror. Svenn, the hero of the novel, tries to understand what reasons have brought about this historical failure while an investigation takes place in a little Norman city (Coutances) about a series of strange murders. Warning : this novel, altough the first half of the narrative makes it look like one, is not a historical novel ; the facts that it describes are pure fiction as are most of its characters. However, some of the novel's characters do belong to history, such as Geoffroy de Montbray, the bishop of Coutances, or Odo of Bayeux, the bishop of that city and half-brother to the duke of Normandy, and Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury. But what they say in the novel is only due to the author's imagination. You will find below a few entries concerning the various themes developped in the novel : - Historical novel, uchronia and historical detective novel - The city of Coutances and Geoffroy de Montbray - The battle at Hastings - The Landwaster - The Bayeux tapestry - English Normandy - Norman identity Historical novel, uchronia and historical detective novel : how do these literary genres differ ? - "L'incipit introuvable" by Guillaume Ducoeur is a historical detective novel - "The Jester" by James Patterson is a historical novel - "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick is a uchronia An historical novel stages characters belonging to history with an accurate description of their actions when governing or taking part in major or well-known events. It also includes non-historical characters that contribute to the novelistic nature of the novel. In historical detective novels, the role of historical characters is usually to serve as a backdrop to main non-historical characters. Uchronias look like historical novels, and might take the form of detective novels too, as La Grande Inversion does, except that they revisit history ang give it an unexpected turn. For more details about uchronia, go to the excellent website of alternatehistory.com : http://www.alternatehistory.com/entry.html Coutances and Geoffroy de Montbray : The city of Coutances and bishop Geoffroy de Montbray are indissociable entities in so far as Coutances would never have become what it was and still is today without Geoffroy de Montbray's considerable contribution and also inso far as the bishop would never have had such a destiny if his family had not driven him to the ecclesiastical career in this part of Normandy. - For more details about the bishop, see here : http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1682918 or here : http://patp.us/genealogy/conq/mowbray.aspx - For more details about the city of Coutances, its history and cathedral : http://www.coutances.fr/ Geoffroy de Montbray is also connected to another city, in England, as he was also in charge of defending the city of Bristol after the Conquest. More details about his role there : http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/bristol/bcastle1.htm The battle at Hastings : La Grande Inversion offers a version of duke William and king Harold's battle where military events are in favour of the English king. But when you read the novel, you might wonder how this decisive battle took place. For more details about the true battle at Hastings and its main protagonists : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Hastings

The Landwaster :
La Grande Inversion mentions the presence of a Norse banner during the great battle at Hastings. On that day, there must have been more than one banner displaying magical creatures derived from the imaginary animal world of the Middle-Ages. However, the creature on the Landwaster banner, a big black raven with its open beak and wings wide open, is directly connected to the pagan beliefs of Northern Europe. It represents one of the holy birds of Odin, a character which, with Thor, was one of the most powerful gods of the Norse mythology. Now, given the involvement and commitment of the then duke of Normandy towards the Church and the Pope (from whom he had obtained a white banner as a sign of the blessing of the war he wanted to wage against king Harold - which made this fight a sort of "holy war"), one is tempted to question the very presence of the Landwaster banner in the ranks of the Norman army.
Jan Oskar Engene, from the North American Vexillological Association, holds, in an article published on the Internet (http://www.nava.org/Flag%20Information/articles/raven/raven_banner.htm), that during the events of A.D. 1066, not only was the Landwaster banner displayed by the warriors of king Harald of Norway when the latter attacked the English forces at Stamford Bridge, but also that it was displayed by William's men at Hastings. The Bayeux tapestry : In the second haf of La Grande Inversion, the narrative alludes to the design and manufacture of a hanging, in the city of Rouen, that reminds the reader of that which can still be seen today in the city of Bayeux, Normandy. But as the novel depicts the defeat of the Normans at Hastings, this hanging looks like an inverted Bayeux tapestry, in accordance with what the novel's title suggests. Should you wish to see the real Bayeux tapestry, go to : http://www.hastings1066.com/bayeux10.shtml English Normandy : The English Normandy described in the novel has indeed existed, but in a different period of Norman history. It was only after a long cultural and (quasi-)political independence within the framework of the Anglo-norman empire that took shape after the conquest of England that the duchy underwent, later on with the 100 years' war (from A.D. 1337 to A.D. 1453), the influence of new English masters and troops quartered on its territory. Here, what the novel proposes, among other things, is to imagine what Normandy would have looked like after duke William's defeat in A.D.1066 : would it have looked like this strange mixture of Normandy and England which, for instance, can be found in the Channel Islands today ?  Norman identity : How can XIth century Norman identity be defined, i.e. in the period described in the novel (before and after October 1066). In a novel entitled "Les Nörmands", French writer Ivan Brazov enhances the powerful divisions which opposed, at that time, the masters of Normandy, descended from the Nordic founders of the duchy, and the major part of the people and lower nobility directly descended from ancient Neustria and consequently still close, culturally speaking, to the Frankish populations living in the kingdom of France at that time. Ivan Brazov's novel raises several questions which La Grande Inversion also alludes to, as to how mixed these two peoples were within the borders of the Norman duchy, and what has remained from this mixture (or cultural cohabitation). See the pages of this interesting novel at http://www.lesnormands.com/accueil.php  Feel free to send me your questions and comments, it will be a pleasure to read them. Contact : Erik S. LARSEN (eriklarsen@free.fr) New novels ! : - La Seconde Bataille (site in French) - La Légende de Murat (available on lulu.com)