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Las ciudades carnales
En los albores del siglo XIII, en Occitania tuvo lugar uno de los más tristes episodios de las fratricidas luchas religiosas del medievo. Ese escenario, uno de los más bellos paisajes del Mediterráneo, salpicado de imponentes castillos donde la vida cotidiana transcurría en cortes del amor en las que reinaba la caballerosidad y resonaba la poesía trovadoresca, también se libraban turbulentas y brutales batallas en las que se dilucidaba el dominio político y religioso.
Roger de Montbrun, fiel caballero cristiano, se enamoró en mala hora de la dama cátara Gentiane de Aspremont. En mala hora porque se vería obligado a elegir entre dos lealtades: su amor por la dama o su lealtad al juramento de defensa de la fe católica. En mala hora, sobre todo, porque el Santo Oficio no estaba dispuesto a tolerar la menor insinuación de herejía.
Zoé Oldenburg reconstruye con pulso firme y exhaustiva documentación un amor imposible en esa época trágica, enmarcada por la sangre y el fuego. Una novela que, sobre el fondo del conflicto cátaro, es también un canto a la tolerancia y al amor, a lo que podría haber sido y no fue.
Roger de Montbrun, fiel caballero cristiano, se enamoró en mala hora de la dama cátara Gentiane de Aspremont. En mala hora porque se vería obligado a elegir entre dos lealtades: su amor por la dama o su lealtad al juramento de defensa de la fe católica. En mala hora, sobre todo, porque el Santo Oficio no estaba dispuesto a tolerar la menor insinuación de herejía.
Zoé Oldenburg reconstruye con pulso firme y exhaustiva documentación un amor imposible en esa época trágica, enmarcada por la sangre y el fuego. Una novela que, sobre el fondo del conflicto cátaro, es también un canto a la tolerancia y al amor, a lo que podría haber sido y no fue.
574 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Zoé Oldenbourg
39 books31 followersZoé Oldenbourg (Russian: Зоя Серге́евна Ольденбург) (March 31, 1916–November 8, 2002) was a Russian-born French historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars.
She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.
With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 at the age of nine and graduated from the Lycée Molière in 1934 with her Baccalauréat diploma. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and then she studied painting at the Académie Ranson. In 1938 she spent a year in England and studied theology. During World War II she supported herself by hand-painting scarves.
She was encouraged by her father to write and she completed her first work, a novel, Argiles et cendres in 1946. Although she wrote her first works in Russian, as an adult she wrote almost exclusively in French.
She married Heinric Idalovici in 1948 and had two children, Olaf and Marie-Agathe.
She combined a genius for scholarship and a deep feeling for the Middle Ages in her historical novels. The World is Not Enough, a vast panorama of the twelfth century immediately put her in the ranks of the foremost historical novelists. Her second, The Cornerstone, won her the Prix Femina and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny of Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to the Middle Ages she knew and loved so well.
She won the Prix Femina for her 1953 novel La Pierre Angulaire.
She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.
With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 at the age of nine and graduated from the Lycée Molière in 1934 with her Baccalauréat diploma. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and then she studied painting at the Académie Ranson. In 1938 she spent a year in England and studied theology. During World War II she supported herself by hand-painting scarves.
She was encouraged by her father to write and she completed her first work, a novel, Argiles et cendres in 1946. Although she wrote her first works in Russian, as an adult she wrote almost exclusively in French.
She married Heinric Idalovici in 1948 and had two children, Olaf and Marie-Agathe.
She combined a genius for scholarship and a deep feeling for the Middle Ages in her historical novels. The World is Not Enough, a vast panorama of the twelfth century immediately put her in the ranks of the foremost historical novelists. Her second, The Cornerstone, won her the Prix Femina and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny of Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to the Middle Ages she knew and loved so well.
She won the Prix Femina for her 1953 novel La Pierre Angulaire.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 16, 2015
La primera cruzada albigense, las intrigas políticas/ eclesiásticas, la implantación de la orden de los predicadores en el Languedoc, el convulso siglo XIII ...
Pero sobre todo, la libertad irrenunciable, la permanencia de la individualidad, la fidelidad al verdadero amor y a la propia esencia, todo ello narrado con una voz que parece directamente extraída de los textos de la época. El interés histórico es imprescindible para afrontar la lectura de este libro, que partiendo de esa premisa, a mí me ha parecido grandísimo.
Pero sobre todo, la libertad irrenunciable, la permanencia de la individualidad, la fidelidad al verdadero amor y a la propia esencia, todo ello narrado con una voz que parece directamente extraída de los textos de la época. El interés histórico es imprescindible para afrontar la lectura de este libro, que partiendo de esa premisa, a mí me ha parecido grandísimo.
Read
May 3, 2015I quit this book as unreadable for me. I think it's a translation, but even so, it was incomprehensible to me. Couldn't follow the timeline and didn't care about the characters (when I could figure out who was who). Worst of all, it didn't appear that things would improve. So many books, so little time, not going to waste it on something I couldn't get into.
abandonados
April 17, 2022Me rindo. Lo dejo habiendo leído 120 páginas.
July 1, 2015
My volume was translated from the French by Anne Carter. I do not know for sure but feel that my dislike for this book was do to the translation. A friend read the French edition and liked it very much. There were lots of interesting happenings but the writing was so choppy for me, It was Like the translater was not reading what she was writing. It was very difficult for me to read, I kept hoping it would improve but it did not. I should add that I had tried to read this book 3 time before , first time being over 20 years ago. I kept thinking it was me and not the book to be the problem, it still may be me but I am done with it.
July 15, 2014
The edited review from Time Magazine basically tells the story. Unlike the unnamed reviewer, I found the contrast between the world-historical destruction of the culture of Provance and the personal lives of two of its inhabitants to be effective in bringing me, a romantic along lines similar to those inaugurated there, into the story.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews