Where Kriemhild Gets Her Revenge

The Nibelungenlied by Unknown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In part, I'm rating the translation and additional material, not just the original text. I didn't love the book itself--maybe 3 stars--but the appendices and other essays at the back are really good, and I thought the translation worked fine.

Curiosity drew me to the story and carried me through to the end more than the story. Some of the action and the overall plot is interesting enough on its own, but learning something about beliefs and norms and attitudes in Europe 700 or 1000 years ago is entertaining in a different way. Also, this story (or the Norse version) inspired the Ring Cycle of Wagner, and I always kinda wondered about the original. (It must be mentioned: Wagner was a racist dickhead and inspired a whole generation of racist nazi dickheads who looked to these stories as a source of ethnic and racial pride which they turned into war crimes, and they can all burn wherever dead racists burn--but I don't think we can blame the anonymous poet who wrote this 800 years ago for their antisemitism and bigotry.)

I wondered these things: what kind of story was it really? Was it mostly a kind of fantasy with River Maidens and magic weapons? Or was it mostly military, with lots of Arthurian jousts? Or was it romance? (The answer is yes to all of those, it seems to me.) Also, what were the characters like? What was the society like? What did they value?

Supposedly based on oral traditions going back to the 5th or 6th century, written about the 12th century, it does feel a lot like King Arthur stories. Knights have a strangely aggressive code where some killing, even murder, is just shrugged at, and other killing, when it seems very reasonable under the circumstances, is treated as heinous. It creates strange conflicts, like when Rudiger, a vassal of King Etzel, is sent to fight the Burgundians near the end of the book, and he can't figure out what to do. His daughter is pledged to marry one of the party he is sent to destroy, and he himself entertained them at his castle, so he can't honorably fight them. But he is pledged to his lord and can't honorably refuse. It's a strange scene when they're all crying about having to fight each other. In general, I found the points of honor confusing, since the knights were so dishonest and unscrupulous so much of the time that it was weird to think they still considered themselves honorable men.

I'd say the fighting dominates the story, but it started as a love story about two couples (Siegfried and Kriemhild, Gunther and Brunhild) each falling in love and getting married before they come into conflict. And there is a decent amount of fantasy stuff mixed in, including Brunhild's superhuman strength, though it's not treated as remarkable. As far as genre, it's an epic, but calling it a courtly romance (like the Arthurian stories) seems pretty apt, too.

Like in the Iliad, the named characters are all fantastic warriors who can kill dozens without getting a scratch. It's only when great knights face one other that someone has to die. The battles are very unrealistic as a result, and I find it super annoying that a hundred regular guys can die without upsetting anyone, but when one famous fighter dies, everyone cries. I guess that's the class system showing itself even in such old literature--only the noblemen matter. And the higher the rank, the more we're supposed to care about them.

There's a lot to notice here and a lot to take an interest in. I found this old work compelling enough that I want to find copies of the sagas related to it, and see if other cycles (like the story of Dietrich, also known as Theodoric) are available in English outside of crazy expensive textbooks. We'll see.

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Where Rich Dudes Fight All of the Time

Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I by Thomas Malory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dude, I was trying to like this. I thought I was gonna. I mean, I did a little, enough for a 3/5 stars. But this was not a fun read.

I was hoping and expecting something like Ariosto's Orlando Furioso or Tasso's Jerusalem delivered, and there are similarities. But where those have a thread or two connecting everything, this retelling of King Arthur feels much more random.

The book has no direction, no real plot, no coherent storytelling. Sometimes you know what a character is feeling, if it's a strong emotion, but most of the time you just can't tell. The dialogue is wooden and trite, devoid of emotional content. Every character, in my head, sounded like Keanu as on Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Here's an exchange from Marhaus and Gawain after fighting almost all day:

"Sir Knight," said Sir Marhaus, "I have well felt that ye are a passing good knight and a marvelous man of might as ever I felt any, while it lasteth, and our quarrels are not great, and therefore it were pity to do you hurt, for I feel ye are passing feeble."

"Ah," said Sir Gawain, "gentle knight, ye say the word that I should say."

Motivations are occasionally clear, but most of the time they're opaque. They go on quests with no point. They refuse to tell their real name, sometimes. They'll fight over small things and then, on a whim, forgive huge injuries. Sometimes they act predictably, according to knightly norms, and other times nope.

And the form of the stories is super repetitive. Every story in it--since it's more like a collection of incompatible legends than a single narrative--feels like it's kicked off with generic story-starts (maiden at the crossroads crying is a favorite), has the middle bit assembled from a collection of stock phrases, and gets concluded one of several stock ways, as if the author rolled his D&D dice to decide what happened this time.

Some of the characters behave in an admirable way, and you feel like maybe Mallory is piecing the old stories together to give the impression that King Arthur's impact was to teach these knights how to be better men, to make the nobility more responsive to the needs of the people around them. That was my hypothesis partway through. But then the knights show no discernible sense of morality besides being considered a worthy fighter. In fact, almost every knight in the story is at times a horrible person.

The fighting is just stupid. So many knights fight for hours, causing horrible injuries, for no good reason, and then stop and become friends. Hey, fellas, how about you make friends first and quit fighting people you have no quarrel with? Brothers kill brothers by accident. Friends injure friends. Lots of men with promise die young. All of this is because somebody says "Wanna fight?" And then they always do. Launcelot says that "when men be hot in deeds of arms oft they hurt their friends as well as their foes." Ya think? Any ideas how to fix that, Launcelot? Sheesh.

And the setting is so weird. Story after story after story has a knight setting out and encountering some horrible knight blocking a bridge or attacking travelers or holding women hostage, and the way the story is told it sounds like all of these terrible places are about an hour outside of Camelot. Did nobody have a map? How could they all travel half a day and find castles they've never heard of with customs that are crazy? I guess this is kind of a fairyland or dreamscape where everybody apparently has terrible head injuries so that they know nothing about the country they all live in.

My recommendation, Arthur, is that you put aside finding the grail and instead have some guys do a real good survey of the country, noting castles where they kill travelers and stuff like that. It'd be super useful. Sending guys off in random directions is not a productive policy. Let's get organized!

Anyway, this was worth reading. I'm glad to get an idea of the original, or nearly original, stories about King Arthur. I was never interested in them as a kid and avoided every fantasy novel that was based on them because it seemed well picked over already. But my curiosity finally got me, and I'm glad to finish this volume. I may someday pick up the second volume of the book, but for now I have had my curiosity quenched.

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Where a Lawful Good Guy Politely Kicks Ass

The Way of the Shield by Marshall Ryan Maresca
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very satisfying novel in the Maradaine series. Like all the books (so far, anyway) in the series, it has interesting, round characters, a well imagined setting, an engaging plot, and lots of good action.

My favorite thing in books--which I've said elsewhere--is seeing awesome characters be awesome. Other people may like novels where the main character is a sad sack getting kicked around for the first 100,000 words, making everybody miserable, but I don't. I like to see the good guys using their gifts to do amazing things, which is how this novel works. That doesn't mean anything's easy here; Dayne's got real troubles, and things aren't going right for him. But he's an upstanding guy who uses his exceptional skill to protect and save those around him, and it's great fun to cheer for him and his allies.

With lots of action and sympathetic characters, this is a quick, fun read. Part of a group of interconnected series, the novel has a longer story arc that is not resolved here, but the central plot of this one has a satisfying ending with a hint toward future developments. That works for me.

Keeping it real, I only have one criticism. (A matter of personal preference.) I don't care for spending much time in the POV of the bad guys. I don't like them; I don't want to hang out with them. I know that's necessary to some degree, but it was the only thing that I didn't enjoy here. A little of that goes a long way.

Overall, though, it was a lot of fun, a pleasure to sit down with for half an hour here and there, and I'm encouraged to get the rest of the novels. Recommended.

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Excellent Violence

Knights of the Empire by Dan Abnett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This omnibus was my introduction to Warhammer novels. I hoped to like it (discussed in my review of the first novel in the omnibus) but didn't expect to. My experience with this sort of tie-in novel has been mostly negative. However, I kept seeing them in book stores, thinking they might be good, so I took a chance.

Who knew? They are good. Better than expected. There's some unevenness here and there, but I was surprisingly connected to the characters; I cared about what happened to them and found myself engaged in their stories.

The setting is elaborate and bigger than I could get a grip on, but I don't blame the series for that. You have to start somewhere. And yes, there's a lot of action here, a lot of fighting, but it makes sense within the context of the stories and the overall setting. Besides, I expected pretty continuous action. What surprised me most was how complete the novels and short stories were, how much other stuff was included. The novels and stories were unique and varied, each one its own bit of creativity, with complex characters who have comprehensible motivations.

In short, good stories, well-written.

Others may see it differently, of course, but I found this collection well worth looking into and will certainly try some others.

Recommended especially for lovers of sword-and-sorcery style fantasy.

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Where I Liked It Way More Than Expected. Good News!

Hammers of Ulric by Dan Abnett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this a lot more than most the reviewers I looked at. That's weird. I thought it would be the other way around.

I have tried many times over the years to get into one of those long fantasy game tie-in series with 100 or 150 titles--the kind written by multiple people--and I just can't do it. I'll sort of like one or two titles and try others, and I always end up thinking it wasn't worth my time, that they aren't fun, that they fall flat. They usually feel like imitation fantasy, with half the enjoyment and all of the tedium. It's disappointing, because I think if I did like them, I would have a huge library of stuff to look forward to. You know, if you were on a desert island and had to pick just one series, wouldn't it be good to get a really long one?

Not if they are no good.

I had never read any Warhammer ones but finally got curious enough to overcome my misgivings and take a look, and I really liked this first one. Good news! Then I read reviews and found most people didn't like it for the reasons I did.

So, like I say, weird.

Anyway, for my money, it works. I like how this novel begins as if it's a series of short stories. I like how they gradually come together as a whole novel. I like how I am interested in many of the characters. (That is ALWAYS the downfall for me with the other series--I never care about the characters at all. They're always universally horrible people or colorless, boring, and unsympathetic. Not my thing, obviously.) I like how the characters work together, supporting one another, becoming allies. I like how it's not all action, but has a little romance, a little horror, a little of this and that. I like how, when the action builds, it builds a lot.

Books out of multi-author series for me in the past have always been 2/5 stars, or 3/5. I had hopes this would be a 3 or even a 4. But I really liked it! It was fun! What else could I ask for? All the stars.

I thought it was clever. I enjoyed picking it up. Other people felt different. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. But since I bought one of those omnibus books with two more novels in it, I'm gonna try to do it wrong a couple more times.

Looking forward to it.

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Subversive Literature for Children

Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't know if anyone would call this book a classic, though it is by Howard Pyle, famous for his King Arthur books and others in the medieval romance genre. But I think it could be and deserves greater notice as a groundbreaking novel for young people.

One sticking point is its pseudo-archaic English, with "What dost thou seek?" and "Thou couldst live as some others do." It is used only in the dialogue, and the narration is in plainer English, but it still is an impediment to understanding for many.

The genre as well is one that has lost favor, though it lies near fantasy and historical fiction on the Big Map of Literary Types (don't google it; I just made it up). Even more in 2019 than in 1888, it is type of book that is not to everyone's taste. In addition, it is more or less a middle grade book (though such designations came into existence long after the novel) which means that most of those with the reading skills to comfortably read the novel are too old for it.

It is almost the opposite of the hi/lo genre--high interest books written at a low reading level for reluctant readers. This book might be used in a class setting, but the language would remain difficult for many students at the age it is aimed at. OTOH, I'm an old man, and I liked it, so it could meet success with somewhat older students. I think. :)

With those caveats, I still think this book should be read more widely, and I believe an attractive edition could find favor with some audiences even now. It's a fun action story of cold-hearted knights and impregnable fortresses and bravery and cruelty and daring rescues. (No one is murdered by pirates.) The main character is sympathetic, a gently-raised boy with a good heart, and his father, though not a good man, has an interesting arc that ends with the reader seeing the good in him. It's not long at about 25,000 words--it is, after all, a children's book--and so reads quickly.

I liked how the author subverted so many of the expectations of similar novels--including his own. Otto's father is a literal robber baron, a nobleman who robs and extorts those traveling through his lands. He is impatient, selfish, and only ethical within a narrow definition that made sense at the time but does not hold up now. The narrator explicitly points out the cruelty of the time, the immorality, the injustice; he shows how power was used to exploit the weak and the vulnerable. Partly, he does this by making his main character weak, or at least seemingly so. He's young, mostly raised in a monastery, and so good-natured and compassionate that he is considered simpleminded, but we know at the end he becomes (spoiler, I suppose--were you gonna read this?) a respected adviser to kings. He's not a fool. He's kind. To cruel men, those things look the same.

In effect, the author is saying, "Don't be fooled by chivalric romances. They disguise the brutality of that age as a period of righteousness and honor and call the oppression of the people by knights and nobles just and good." To my mind, this is very modern. This is the author admitting to impressionable young readers that we've lied to them, that we've sold them a pretty story, making them think that power systems like monarchy and serfdom are fair, the people are happy, when they were in fact typically brutal regimes with horrific oppression. To me, that kind of honesty in a children's book is badass.

[It's also illustrated by the author. That's a good thing, right? We need more of that, IMO.]

I found this novel entertaining and its message effective, and so I recommend it--even if you're old. :)

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I Finally Learn Who Roland Was

Swords of Anjou by Mario Andrew Pei
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an older book--1953--but it's written in the style of much older books, romances such as those Don Quixote would have read, and I enjoyed it.

It is the story, more or less, of Roland from The Song of Roland. Charlemagne and his army are leaving Spain after forcing Zaragoza to surrender, and as they reach the passes through the Pyrenees, the defeated army attacks the rearguard and kills them all, including the famous Roland. The main army returns and defeats Zaragoza once more. The author adds characters from other tales and invents a few more to add love stories and subplots, making them the main characters in the story, following a tradition (according to the author in the historical note at the end) of retelling the Roland story with embellishments and a change of focus. I like that kind of invention and retelling; I enjoy the many forms of Sherlock and Wizard of Oz and Robin Hood and Cinderella; I think that's a fun way to renew a story, and I think it works here.

The author keeps his characters true to the times, which sometimes is annoying. The misogyny and narrow-mindedness and religious bigotry of middle age men is wearisome. That's not his fault--people were horrible, then as now--but 2019 me wants them to learn a lesson. Alas.

It is a fun story, though, if we can overlook our heroes' painful flaws. They also have admirable strengths. The courage and loyalty on display here are as impressive as the chauvinism is disappointing. It is inspiring to see men (and women, in some cases) sacrifice everything for a principle. After seven years, I want to go home, but I will fight on. I will give up the love of my life to serve my nation. The reader has to wonder--would I be able to sacrifice so much for a vow I made, for a principle I believe in?

I dunno.

So--problematic characters seem to reflect problematic times, not a problematic author. But YMMV. I liked the book, the story, the history.

Recommended.

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