Where I Liked the History but Not the Novel

FLOR DE LIS Y EL LEON, LA: LOS REYES MALDITOS VI by Maurice Druon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[I read this--very slowly--in Spanish. My review will be in English. Someday I'll risk writing in Spanish.]

There's a lot to like in this book, and I can see why a lot of readers give it a better rating than I do. I would give this, as a source of historical information, a 4 or 5. But as a novel to read for pleasure, I can only manage a 3.

This series of books tells a part of the history of France (and England) and it may well be that you get a whole story if you read them all. I only happened to find this one book, and so I read it as a standalone, and IMO it doesn't work like that. TBH, I suspect the whole series is kinda the same, even read as a whole, but just on a larger scale. It's a history, not a novel. It's about a whole nation, so there's no one character here who has a main conflict driving the series. Maybe you can devise a way to look at it where that is true--make the throne of France the main character, or maybe the Spirit of France, and think of her as a person searching for stability for the nation, and she's played by many actors over time. But that's pretty esoteric.

If you want a novel, a normal novel, which I did, where the plot revolves around a character who tries to achieve some goal, then the closest you come is Robert of Artois attempting to recover his lands and titles. However, his story gets less and less attention and finally runs out about 80% of the way through. It's a poor fit, and as a novel I found it disappointing.

It's easy to see how this influenced George R.R Martin and his Game of Thrones. It's not just the setting and the violence, though those are quite similar. It's also the arc of the story, the way the person you like and cheer for might just die. The good guys might win for a bit, then the bad guys do. Then they're all bad guys. Just like in the books, nothing is guaranteed, and the ending might not be what you want. It just is.

Anyway, it doesn't work for me as a novel. But I think it's well written and clearly has a lot of fans. IMO, the easiest way to view this work is as a vivid representation of history, maybe even a companion to a course in French history. In that guise, this is very useful, very entertaining, and vibrant with detail. There's no normal arc to the plot, but that's okay because history doesn't have a plot. There is sound and fury in abundance, but there's no significance, and you just have to shrug and let it go its way. Stuff happens. People die. The throne is passed on. Pretenders fail. It's a bummer because that's what really happened.

So don't do what I did, reading a piece in the middle. Maybe read the whole set, beginning to end. Or read this as you watch movies or take a class about the time period covered (the 14th century, pretty much). Or start with a different mindset. I think more than anything, it's a nice companion to learning.

That's my take. My 3 stars puts me in the minority, so it's just one opinion.

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