Zoé OldenbourgBesprekingen

Barro y cenizas es una novela que nos hace revivir la fecunda y heroica historia del siglo XII francés. La acción tiene por marco un castillo en los confines de la Champaña y la Borgoña; las pequeñas ciudades turbulentas; las aldeas y los campos; y, también, Tierra Santa y sus riberas inhospitalarias, Jerusalén y el Santo Sepulcro. La intriga se desarrolla a lo largo de la vida conyugal de la hermosa Aalais y de Ansiau, barón de Linnières: su amor, su separación, los numerosos hijos que les proporcionan alegría y preocupaciones a la vez, su senectud y su muerte. Pero sobre todo, esta novela es la iniciación, para el lector, a un modo de vida y a una moral que nos parecen extraños al principio, pero que conforme vamos leyendo se nos revelan justos y profundamente naturales, y en los que nos reconocemos, en fin, porque en Barro y cenizas se exaltan y apaciguan las pasiones humanas que comparten todas las épocas.

Russisk-fransk forfatter.
Intet årstall

I picked up this biography of Catherine the Great[1] the summer after I had done a middle school book report on Catherine. I never got around to reading it until now.

I'm kind of glad I waited because it wasn't that good of a book. The author clearly only wanted to write about the time before the Empress came to power. The first 275 pages of this 356 page book minutely cover Catherine's childhood, her time as Grand Duchess, and her rise to the throne. The last 80 pages cover everything else, and 20 pages of that is sent on a well-yes-but-aren't-you-belaboring-the-point-a-bit rant about the truly abominable treatment of serfs in Russia of this time period.

Overall, this book was not particularly worth my time. Hopefully Robert K. Massie's well rated biography of Catherine the Great will be a better read.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great

KBB-3

One of the very few works of fiction that I have read that, when I was done, I thought, "I wish I had written this"

At this point, a bit dated, but a well-written general history of the Crusades.

Although this book had a slow beginning, once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. Everything seemed very real and the people and situations will stay with me for a long time.

The World is Not Enough is set in France in the late 12th century. Opening with the marriage of Alis and Ansiau, the reader is immediately thrust into the lives of these characters and the time they lived in, right up through old age. The focus of the novel is on the Crusades, which Ansiau participates in, leaving Alis at home to manage the household and become a person in her own right.

The strength of the novel lies in the amount of detail with which the author provides the reader, but I thought that at times the detail bogged down the pace and progress of the story, making the book at least 100 pages longer than it really needed to be. We also get told a lot of things rather than have them shown to us, which made the novel much less interesting to read. The prose is also stilted, which may have more to do with the translation of the book (originally published in French) rather than the author’s actual style. In the end I found that I didn’t really like many of the characters or care about what happened to them, so I stopped reading at around 200 pages. I don't know how the author did it, but she even managed to make the Crusades seem uninteresting--and medieval history was my specialty in college.

If "Pride and Prejudice" is more than a historical novel then so is Zoe Oldenbourgs "The World is not Enough". Its about a family and society in their historical setting, in this case medieval France at the time of the crusades, and it very effectively captures the world of Ansiau de Linnières and his relatives from his birth to his old age.

This remarkable book is far ahead of anything I've read by Cecelia Holland or Rosemary Sutcliffe and I can't recommended it highly enough, particularly for the authors' portrayal of the women of Linnières.

Dans le Languedoc de la première moitié du XIIIe siècle, quelques hommes et quelques femmes paient de leur vie le refus de renoncer à leur foi. Ils font partie de cette minorité croyante et militante que sont les « hérétiques » ou les cathares ; ils luttent. C'est une lutte sans merci, ils n'ont pas le droit d'y renoncer et ne peuvent espérer aucune pitié.
Dans la guerre qui ravage leur pays, ces étranges combattants s'efforcent de rester pacifiques jusqu'au bout, avec la tranquille certitude de ceux pour qui l'héroïsme est un devoir quotidien et banal, ils gravissent l'un après l'autre le chemin qui les mène au martyre d'avance accepté. Ils passent par les tentations de la haine, de la violence, de la peur, mais restent fidèles à la loi qui leur impose l'obéissance jusqu'à la mort. Les Brûlés, c'est l'histoire d'une résistance ; c'est aussi l'évocation d'une religion qui a durement lutté et qui a été détruite.

Gives you the authentic medieval shivers.

Feels authentically horrible and beautiful. The Middle Ages were probably like this.

1515 The Crusades, by Zoe Oldenburg translated from the French by Anne Carter (read 25 Apr 1979) This covers the period from 1096 to roughly 1192, and hence covers only the first three Crusades. It actually spends little time on the Second Crusade (1147) but covers the First and Third quite thoroughly, and devotes much time to the Frankish kingdom established in Palestine. It is really a fascinating story, and sad. This book is not well organized like Runciman's three volumes. (which I read in November and December of 1974) but it was a good refresher of a fantastic era. I wonder what my ancestors did about the Crusades. How I would love to be able to trace myself back that far.½

Bellissimo affresco di vita medievale½

Bellissimo affresco di vita medievale½

This was in some ways a devastating book. It follows a crusade from the point of view of French weavers and their clergy who came with the poor. There was no resorting to the point of view of anyone else in the army, church, or government, so your view becomes in some ways as politically narrow and religiously grand as theirs. I did feel the ending was anticlimactic, as the endings to grand novels often are. But otherwise it was a throughly satisfying and thought provoking read.

Heirs to the Kingdom by Zoe Oldenbourg is a pretty fascinating read, a tale of a young French couple who get caught up in the First Crusade after hearing a charismatic sermon by Peter the Hermit. At the point I am at, they have taken the Cross and are bout to embark on their long trip to Jerusalem. From what I know of the People's Crusade it's all going to end rather badly. Some might consider this a dry read, but Oldenbourg writes with such a strange, dream-like intensity that you can't help but get caught up. I don't know much about the genre "magical realism" but I think that's the kind of duck I'm plucking here. There is little attention paid to linear storytelling, the present and flashbacks blend together but the narrative never becomes tedious. I must say that I'm learning quite a lot about Medieval life, particularly about the ins and outs of French weavers; there are many interesting tidbits about the garment-making industry and urban feudalism in general (such as the putting-out system of economics), what it's like to be of the poor merchant class in Tenth Century Europe.

I remember reading Oldenbourg's "The Crusades" for a tenth grade history presentation (late 1990s) and was quickly drawn into the socio-political portrait created by the author, the first history book to have ever interested me so thoroughly. Having forgotten the author's name (and with the plethora of other works with similar titles) I was unable to relocate it for years despite scouring the internet. It was only through LibraryThing that I was able to find it again by recognizing the original book cover design from the 1966 edition. Here, Oldenbourg is a very accessible writer. Some of the events described, such as the Children's Crusade, might be out of date in the face of more recent research. But on the whole, this account of the crusades manages to weave together various figures, their personal backgrounds and motivations, and how they fit into the overall history of the period. To this day I can vividly recall the imagery the author invoked when describing Emperor Alexius looking out upon the host of the western european forces arriving at Constantinople and realizing by their numbers that his request for aid against the border incursions of the Seljuk Turks had been used as a pretext to advance through his territory and to conquer Jerusalem. This is one of the most engaging historical texts I have read.

I first read this book when I was about thirteen. At the time, the book seemed impressive and instructive. I learned an enormous amount about Russian history prior to Catherine II's reign, as well as a wealth of material during her time.
Upon opening Oldenbourg's book as an adult, it seems too anecdotal and lacking in depth of analysis.½

NA

y, dj
First Printing

BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX; NOTES AND REFERENCES; APPENDICES: A CATHARIST RITUAL, PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE ADDRESSED TO THE POSTULANT BY THE ELDER, A CATHARIST PRAYER, REPRESSIVE MEASURES AND DECREES PROMULGATED AGAINST THE CATHARS BY COUNCILS BETWEEN 1179 AND 1246, SENTENCES OF THE INQUISITION, THE DEBATE BETWEEN IZARN AND SICART; CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE