Where Constantinople Almost Gets Sacked

Count Robert of Paris: The Works of Sir Walter Scott by Walter Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I see others are more likely to give this a 3 or lower, but I almost gave it a 5. My most honest ranking, though, has to be 4. I'm a fan, so I like almost everything Sir Walter Scott writes; that's a given. And I liked this quite a lot. But it just misses for me, and it misses by more for a lot of readers.

[I am putting aside the intrusive racism of the time. Others may not be able to do that. The author makes it clear when it shows up in the story that the people of the time were prejudiced--using that very word--so he seems aware of the issues with racism, but it wasn't clear to me this time, as compared to his other books, that he didn't mostly agree with their sentiments. I hope not.]

It's a good setting--Constantinople at the time that Western European crusaders are on their way to Jerusalem. The Franks and their allies don't much understand the Greeks and their whole vibe, and vice versa. I found that very interesting. The empire is coming under attack on all sides, and they have to buy people off, like these crusaders, so that they don't get sacked. It's okay, though, because they've got the money. What they don't have is fighters.

But here's the other cool part--they do have Varangians. I had thought they were mostly Vikings out of Scandinavia and their relatives, the people of Kievan Rus. But here it's clear that many were Angl0-Saxons or Anglo-Danes fleeing from England after the Norman invasion. One of the main characters, named Hereward, is one of those men, a soldier serving in the emperor's Varangian guard, and he hates the Franks and the Normans who are coming through. Like the Franks, the Varangians (as they are portrayed here) are warlike in a way that is useful to a rich empire without a strong warrior class.

The novel has some great intrigue, with an ongoing conspiracy to take down the emperor that Hereward learns about. It becomes entangled with a separate intrigue between one of the conspirators and one of the leaders of the crusaders--Robert of Paris, who the novel is named for--when he kidnaps the man's wife. (She's awesome--I would have liked more of her. She's a strong warrior in her own right.) All of the intrigues are coming together in a joust between those two men at huge event that will be the beginning (and ending, theoretically) of the uprising.

Unfortunately, it gets tied up in bits and pieces after that, and we see less of the noble Hereward and more of the emperor gathering up the conspirators and deciding what to do with them. There's an old rival brought out of the dungeons who looks like he's gonna play a really cool part, but then he gets sorta written out. The joust goes forward, in a different form, but the uprising is pre-empted. Hereward ends up going with the crusaders for a very important reason (the only spoiler I'm not revealing). And that's cool. But we stop seeing any of the events from the eyes of the best characters, and I was disappointed.

It's still good. It just had too much of the drama siphoned off at the end. It's mostly a true story, so there are constraints, but I feel like Scott stumbled at the conclusion and made an amazing novel just good.

Well, that's good enough. I still enjoyed it. As is so often the case, it's only really recommended for those who already like Sir Walter Scott, or maybe those interested in the setting.

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Where Tasso Reads Like Fantasy

Jerusalem Delivered: An English Prose Version by Torquato Tasso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I definitely liked this more than I expected to.

This English version of the 16th Century Italian epic is in rendered in prose, which I always prefer, and the translator has made it both wonderfully comprehensible (compared to say, The Faerie Queen in the original quaint English) and decently poetic. That makes it simple to enter into the narrative, and I found that really engaging.

Naturally, an account of the First Crusade from the perspective of a Christian author in the 1500s will be partial and prejudiced, inclined toward a double standard and committed to religious bigotry. Yep. It is all that. No avoiding it. In some ways, though, Tasso does a decent job of portraying the Muslim characters, the villains and enemies in the story, as humans just as capable of greatness and honor and sacrifice and love as the heroes. This is at least a little corrective for the inevitable chauvinism.

As far as plot and action, the poem is awesome and strangely modern. It unspools so much like speculative fiction that it's impossible to miss the through-line from epic poetry and romance to epic fantasy, and I found myself reading it much like I would JRR Tolkien or Tad Williams. In addition to castles and palaces, pitched battles and single combat, hidden vales and lonely beaches, fallible heroes and love at first sight, warrior women and soothsayers, it has sorcerers and demons and enchanted forests and magical islands. It's a fun story with a thousand creative touches.

Like Paradise Lost, some of the most exciting and compelling parts involve the spirits of hell who are called for a time to harry the crusaders. Satan, here referred to as Pluto, is described this way in canto 4:

A fearsome majesty in his fierce countenance increases the terror and makes him even more proud: his eyes burn red, and his gaze glowers infected with poison like an ill-omened comet; his huge beard envelops his chin and shaggy and thick comes down over his hairy chest, and like deep-yawning maelstrom his mouth stands open, filthy with black blood.

And here is the scene when he calls the spirits of hell:

The piercing sound of the Tartarean trumpet calls up the inhabitants of the eternal shades. The black capacious caverns tremble and the blind air echoes to that reverberation; nor ever so strident plummets the lightning from heaven's supernal regions nor ever so stricken trembles the earth when she locks up vapors in her pregnant womb.

Straightway the deities of the Abyss in various troops come running from all sides to the lofty portals. Oh how strange, oh how horrible the shapes! how much of terror and death is in their eyes! Some print the earth with beastly tracks, and on a human head have twining snakes for hair; and behind them writhes an immense tail that like a whip coils and uncoils itself.

There are many other exciting supernatural touches in the story, but there are also many human moments, quieter moments, when individuals are trying to decide what to do, whether to fight or to search out a lost love, whether to indulge in private disputes or put aside pride to commit to a greater cause. Despite the miraculous events and supernatural intervention, there is still a core of humanity in the epic, telling the story of men struggling with the competing demands of desire, conscience, faith, and frailty. Tancred and Godfrey and Armida and Erminia and Argante and Solyman and many others are quite human, filled with their own wishes and desires even while they're competing in a terrible war to control Jerusalem.

It is certainly a useful view into the minds of men 500 years ago, but it's also an entertaining bit of art that, despite its flaws, stands on its own as an absorbing work of imagination.

Historians and fantasy nerds can both find a lot to engage them here. Recommended.

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Where Sir Kenneth Screws Up

The talisman./ Sir Walter Scott; by Walter Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sir Walter Scott most often sets his historical novels (or romances in the action-adventure sense) in England or Scotland. Here, though he still has English and Scottish characters, he has set the novel in Palestine during the Crusades. It seems a perfect fit for him. Lots of room for lots of action. I was looking forward to it.

However, to my disappointment, it's not that kind of novel. It's more a novel of courtly manners (including bad manners) and intrigue. The main conflict revolves around the bickering between the King of England and other royals from France, Austria, and elsewhere, especially when they disrespect his banner. The larger conflict of the crusade to retake Jerusalem comes into play, along with a couple subplots, but it was primarily about a single incident when Sir Kenneth was lured away from his post watching the banner and someone steals it. I kept thinking, with its narrow focus and slight action, that it could have been a play. There's movement, but the great majority of action and dialogue takes place in tents and pavilions and caves, all of which could be done on a stage. Additionally, there's a lot of Shakespearean touches, like characters in disguise, prophecies from a holy man, and star-crossed lovers.

There are a few action scenes, though, and they are important, especially the trial by combat in the last few pages. (The first encounter between Sir Kenneth and a Muslim soldier, both alone in the desert, was very similar to the scene in The Kingdom of Heaven, when Balian faces Imad in single combat near a lonely oasis. As in that scene, it mostly establishes character, showing that both men are honorable despite being mortal enemies.) I'm not sure how one could stage either battle, but there are tricks to get around such difficulties.

Sir Kenneth is a typical hero--good guy, full of pride, slightly flawed--and he's easy to like. His love interest is a relative of the king, and she's alright, but doesn't appear too much. Saladin features in the novel, and he is a very cool character (portrayed much like he is in The Kingdom of Heaven--I'd like to ask Ridley Scott and the writer if they read this novel). King Richard the Lionheart is interesting--capable, proud, and courageous, but too rash and too hot-tempered for his own good--and I found him much less likable and sympathetic. That's fine--I think that's probably historically accurate. :)

A few lines are regrettable. The author usually does a good job of limiting expressions of the kind of religious intolerance and racism that was common in the 1800s when he wrote his novels, but he doesn't do so well here. When the knights are super intolerant of Islam and Muslim customs, the reader has to allow for it, and when they say racist things about the African characters (and ugly things about the little people found in the novel), we kinda understand, as that was the unfortunate way people saw the world 800 years ago. But when the narrator joins in, I'm put off and disappointed. He wrote 200 years ago, sure... but he usually seemed to rise above it more than here.

:(

Putting that aside, or at least in context, it's otherwise an entertaining, well written novel, and as it's not quite as long as some of his books it's a quick read. I also liked the ending, which helps.

This is more for readers of Sir Walter Scott than for general readers, though who knows--others might find something here that interests them. So--a qualified recommendation.

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