It is a benefit of wokery that it prompts one to look anew. I was always slightly ashamed that I had never read a novel by Walter Scott. Over Christmas, however, it was reported that Warwick University’s English department had issued trigger warnings to students against ‘offensive’ passages in Ivanhoe about ‘people of colour’ and the attribution to Muslims of anti-Semitic sentiments. I blew the dust off my Victorian edition and read it.
Almost needless to say, the warning makes no allowance for the fact that the novel is set in the Middle Ages and fictionalises the attitudes of that time, rather than merely reflecting Scott’s own views. But the much more important point is that the most gripping part of the narrative is its vivid assault on anti-Semitism, personified in the superb character of Rebecca, daughter of the usurer, Isaac of York – sexy, brave, strong yet modest, loving a Gentile (I won’t tell you who), but faithful to her Judaism.
I have rarely read a more truly anti-racist novel. Of this, the Warwick woke wardens make no mention.
Read this short account in The Spectator’s Notes by Charles Moore.