Ethan Hawke’s Rules for a Knight: a new book w/ 500-year-old wisdom

Ethan Hawke’s Rules for a Knight isn’t just a nice book, it’s a nice-looking book.

Apparently based in truth, Rules for a Knight is a letter from one of Ethan Hawke’s 15th Century relatives to his wife and children. A knight on the eve of a battle, Ethan’s relative is pretty sure he’ll die the next day.

Hawke says that he’s had the 500-year-old letter translated by a scholar, since English from hundreds of years ago isn’t exactly the same as modern English. He’s also updated the stories to be more relatable to Ethan’s own kids.

The book cites “other knights” in a sort of bibliography as far afield as Muhammad Ali, Emily Dickinson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vonnegut, Lawrence Fishburne and, of course, King Arthur. But the book is not simplistic. Quite the contrary. It’s leaden in its gravity yet astonishingly simple to read.

You don’t even need to read it in order to follow along or benefit from the prose. Sometimes I just read a single page or one preciously short chapter and thought about it for a while.

Solitude, Honesty, Grace, Pride, and so on are addressed, and each is built around story lines more familiar to a modern audience. Influences range far and wide from chivalric ideals to Buddhism. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read. And if you’re a parent, the book has a deeper reach.

Small and printed on nice paper with one of those bookmark ribbon things, Rules for a Knight includes lovely endpapers and art drawn by Mrs. Hawke that matches the look and feel of the overwhelmingly interesting story.