The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour
"The Walking Drum" by Louis L'Amour is a historical novel that marks a significant departure from the author's traditional focus on the American frontier. Set in medieval Europe and the Middle East, the story follows the protagonist, Mathurin Kerbouchard, as he embarks on a quest for revenge after the murder of his mother in Brittany and the forced servitude of his father in Mesopotamia. Throughout his journey, Kerbouchard transforms into a multifaceted character, honing a diverse range of skills that include sailing, horse riding, and warfare, while also becoming a merchant, scholar, and storyteller.
The narrative unfolds across various settings, including Spain, coastal waters, and the Byzantine and Turkish empires, incorporating themes of adventure, escape, and scholarly pursuits. L'Amour intricately weaves historical elements with action-packed sequences, allowing for a rich exploration of knowledge and culture through Kerbouchard's interactions with real-life scholars. The novel is characterized by its melodramatic plot and wide-ranging scope, ultimately reflecting a blend of action and intellectual inquiry. Unfortunately, L'Amour's passing prevented the completion of a promised sequel, leaving readers with an unfinished yet vibrant medieval adventure.
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The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1984
Type of work: Novel
The Work
The Walking Drum represents L’Amour’s serious effort late in his career to escape being labeled merely a frontier novelist. Cast in medieval Europe and the Middle East, it presents panoramic action far from the nineteenth century trans-Mississippi West.
The incredibly melodramatic plot of The Walking Drum defies adequate brief summary. At the outset, narrator and hero Mathurin Kerbouchard learns that his mother has been murdered in Brittany and that his father is now languishing in forced servitude somewhere east of Baghdad (in what was then called Mesopotamia) and south of Tehran (in what was then Persia). Young Kerbouchard begins a long journey in search of revenge and his missing father. He grows talented in ways surely unique in history and even in fiction. He becomes a sailor; a horseman; a fierce warrior; a merchant with caravans (“the walking drum” pounds out their marching pace); an acrobat, juggler, and magician; a fluent linguist in Arabic, Frankish, Greek, Hindi, Latin, Persian, and Sanskrit; a versatile scholar and scientist mastering botany, chemistry, explosives, geography, history, literature, medicine, military tactics, music, philosophy, and theology; and a storyteller. He is also a L’Amour-style lover. That is, he has several voluptuous girlfriends (Moorish, Spanish, French, and Middle Eastern) but indulges in no sexual activity.
The novel falls into unnumbered but obvious thirds, the last of which is the shortest. Each has radically different scenery: Spain and its coastal waters, territory from France to the Black Sea, and exotic regions of the Byzantine and Turkish empires. The action features countless fights, imprisonment and escape, theft and ransom and rescue, wounds and injuries aplenty (and a touch of torture), and, in between, much serene study. This last gives L’Amour an opportunity to parade his wide-ranging(if superficial) erudition, as he has Kerbouchard pause between wild acts to absorb wise lore, esoterica, and no little trivia, partly by sitting at the feet of several real-life European and Arabic savants. L’Amour’s death prevented him from writing a promised sequel to this glittering medieval adventure novel.
Bibliography
Bold, Christine. Selling the Wild West: Popular Western Fiction, 1860 to 1960. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Gale, Robert L. Louis L’Amour: Revised Edition. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Hall, Halbert W. Louis L’Amour: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.
Hinds, Harold E., Jr. “Mexican and Mexican-American Images in the Western Novels of Louis L’Amour.” Southwestern American Literature 10 (Spring, 1985): 129-141.
Marsden, Michael T. “Louis L’Amour.” In Fifty Western Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Fred Erisman and Richard W. Etulain. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Weinberg, Robert, ed. The Louis L’Amour Companion. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews and McMeel, 1992.