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The Heirs of the Kingdom
La Joie des Pauvres is an historical novel about Peter the Hermit's calling of a popular crusade to liberate the holy land focusing on some of the poor who hearkened to it & what happened to them.
563 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
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347 people want to read
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 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 14, 2021
I'm surprised more people haven't read this classic book about the Crusades which I've rated 5 stars. Heirs of the Kingdom tells the tale of the poor French peasants who heeded the call of Peter the Hermit to liberate the Holy Land.
Her tale focused on the poor and their suffering - and there was certainly a whole lot of suffering!
The author's brilliant ability to bring the Crusades and its participants to life soon had me enraptured to the point that I was living and breathing this era - as well as suffering along with these poor peasants.
The main character Marie is very sympathetic as she faced one crisis after another. Her experience of giving birth while on the march is unforgettable in my mind and made me wonder if I really wanted to experience child birth.
The poignant and deep love between the newlyweds Marie and Jacques never faltered no matter how difficult their lives became.
There's a little something for everybody interested in reading about the Crusades.
Her tale focused on the poor and their suffering - and there was certainly a whole lot of suffering!
The author's brilliant ability to bring the Crusades and its participants to life soon had me enraptured to the point that I was living and breathing this era - as well as suffering along with these poor peasants.
The main character Marie is very sympathetic as she faced one crisis after another. Her experience of giving birth while on the march is unforgettable in my mind and made me wonder if I really wanted to experience child birth.
The poignant and deep love between the newlyweds Marie and Jacques never faltered no matter how difficult their lives became.
There's a little something for everybody interested in reading about the Crusades.
August 9, 2013
As an "historical" novel, The Heirs of the Kingdom uses the First Crusade as a structure or form for telling a "non-historical" story. This is the story of the faceless nobodies who live inside of history. In the case of this novel, the nobodies are the mass of the poor who, in the 11th century, were inspired to accompany the First Crusade at the urging of Peter the Hermit.
Ms. Oldenbourg does leave the reader with some sense of the pathos of the hardship, ignorance, and degradation of the historically anonymous members of the group. That is, to an extent, she involves us as fellow humans. She does this by creating fictional characters with names, minds, and relationships.
But this is only part of what she does. I think that, essentially, she presents us with an horrific image or mirror of a nihilistic or negative universe in which individuals are valueless. Her characters are important to themselves and to no one else, and often they abandon themselves to self-destruction. Their physical and spiritual degradation is relentless. In the novel's context, their lives have no historical or metaphysical value. They are born and then they are lost. This is certainly the case with the personal history of Marie or of Elie Le Grele', the two characters who were most compelling for me.
Ms. O has a fascinating gift to keep me interested in these characters in the midst of her nihilism. I do want to know what will happen to them. But my interest is in persons who are alien and act in interesting but repellant ways. I do not love or feel any warmth for them --- and this is fortunate because their lives and their passage out of sight by the book's end are bleak. I feel that negative lives, their oddness as specimens, their "unloveability" is intentional.
I feel that Ms. O enhances her special narrative power and multiplies the force of her sense of the pointlessness of life when she tells the stories of many people in a fragmentary way and intersperses the stories with, or incorporates into the stories, her descriptions of filth, starvation, sickness, privation, murder, and massacre. These descriptions plus the long rhetorical cries and rants of unidentified speakers --- a kind of chorus --- tell the reader that ultimately these interesting specimens, in the mass, do not have a chance.
Ms. O is good at presenting her characters as full members of a society or, really, a sub-class of the poor that is marked by impulsiveness and irrational views of the world. Their attitudes are expressed in emotional exaltation and guilt rather than in joy and responsibility. For example, much of the death and bestiality in the book is connected to a spirituality that is frantic, hysterical, and dependent on the emotions of the moment and, presumably, by the toll that hardship takes.
Ms. O's historical novels are compelling. I've read three of them and enjoyed each --- Destiny of Fire, The Cornerstone, and now this one. They are books that stay with me, maybe because they remind me that the world was, and still is, out of hand and that reliance on it and its rewards is not --- or had not better be --- an ultimate goal.
In closing, I'd add that the events that are the historical structure of the book did occur in the same chronology as the book's stories --- insofar as I could tell from skimming Steven Runciman's history of the First Crusade in parallel with reading Ms. O's book.
Ms. Oldenbourg does leave the reader with some sense of the pathos of the hardship, ignorance, and degradation of the historically anonymous members of the group. That is, to an extent, she involves us as fellow humans. She does this by creating fictional characters with names, minds, and relationships.
But this is only part of what she does. I think that, essentially, she presents us with an horrific image or mirror of a nihilistic or negative universe in which individuals are valueless. Her characters are important to themselves and to no one else, and often they abandon themselves to self-destruction. Their physical and spiritual degradation is relentless. In the novel's context, their lives have no historical or metaphysical value. They are born and then they are lost. This is certainly the case with the personal history of Marie or of Elie Le Grele', the two characters who were most compelling for me.
Ms. O has a fascinating gift to keep me interested in these characters in the midst of her nihilism. I do want to know what will happen to them. But my interest is in persons who are alien and act in interesting but repellant ways. I do not love or feel any warmth for them --- and this is fortunate because their lives and their passage out of sight by the book's end are bleak. I feel that negative lives, their oddness as specimens, their "unloveability" is intentional.
I feel that Ms. O enhances her special narrative power and multiplies the force of her sense of the pointlessness of life when she tells the stories of many people in a fragmentary way and intersperses the stories with, or incorporates into the stories, her descriptions of filth, starvation, sickness, privation, murder, and massacre. These descriptions plus the long rhetorical cries and rants of unidentified speakers --- a kind of chorus --- tell the reader that ultimately these interesting specimens, in the mass, do not have a chance.
Ms. O is good at presenting her characters as full members of a society or, really, a sub-class of the poor that is marked by impulsiveness and irrational views of the world. Their attitudes are expressed in emotional exaltation and guilt rather than in joy and responsibility. For example, much of the death and bestiality in the book is connected to a spirituality that is frantic, hysterical, and dependent on the emotions of the moment and, presumably, by the toll that hardship takes.
Ms. O's historical novels are compelling. I've read three of them and enjoyed each --- Destiny of Fire, The Cornerstone, and now this one. They are books that stay with me, maybe because they remind me that the world was, and still is, out of hand and that reliance on it and its rewards is not --- or had not better be --- an ultimate goal.
In closing, I'd add that the events that are the historical structure of the book did occur in the same chronology as the book's stories --- insofar as I could tell from skimming Steven Runciman's history of the First Crusade in parallel with reading Ms. O's book.
September 8, 2007
i liked this very much. after 40 years,i still am brought back to it.
life is hard.sad.unfair.
enjoy what you can when the moments are there.
life is hard.sad.unfair.
enjoy what you can when the moments are there.
July 15, 2014
All of Zoe Oldenbourg's novels are worth reading both for the stories they tell and for the historical hermeneutics they perform. A specialist in the European Middle Ages, her novels represent the period sympathetically.
The Heirs of the Kingdom, unlike her Cathar novels, deals with a topic it is hard to present sympathetically, viz. the first crusade called by Peter the Hermit against the infidel and for the liberation of the holy sepulchre. If you don't know much about the period, you might want to read her The Crusades, a straightforward history, first. This book manages to evoke the reader's sympathy by digging beneath the records of leaders, religious and secular, to some informed inferences about what motivated the masses of ordinary people who picked up stakes and trudged across Europe and the Middle East towards Jerusalem. Most of them, of course, never made it, though some few did after great suffering--most of it at the hands of their own people, not those of Islam.
The Heirs of the Kingdom, unlike her Cathar novels, deals with a topic it is hard to present sympathetically, viz. the first crusade called by Peter the Hermit against the infidel and for the liberation of the holy sepulchre. If you don't know much about the period, you might want to read her The Crusades, a straightforward history, first. This book manages to evoke the reader's sympathy by digging beneath the records of leaders, religious and secular, to some informed inferences about what motivated the masses of ordinary people who picked up stakes and trudged across Europe and the Middle East towards Jerusalem. Most of them, of course, never made it, though some few did after great suffering--most of it at the hands of their own people, not those of Islam.
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September 15, 2008Heirs 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.
August 13, 2015
The other reviews of this book will give anyone a good idea of what it's about. I will only say that unless you are interested in the first crusade, this book would be a long slog. However, if a person is interested in the time period or this crusade, you will find it a fascinating read.
January 6, 2016
The best historical novel I've read about the Crusades as told from the viewpoint of the common pilgrim and not the noble elite. A grueling account of hardship, blood and suffering.
December 16, 2020
Okay, so, this book.
Heirs of the Kingdom is a historical fiction novel about the first crusade told through the perspective of french pilgrims from the town of Arras. The ensemble of characters is huge, but there are a few ones the novel specifically checks up on. (Think of it kinda like les mis [the musical, i have not read the book] but in the crusades, with very similar themes about poverty, classism, and christianity.)
If you had described the plot of this book to me, I probably would’ve said “sounds like a bummer, no thanks.” I dont like books that are about miserable people being miserable. But somehow, I was enthralled. The characters will do stupid or cruel things, but you still completely empathise with them because Oldenbourg presents the context behind their upbringing and desolate situation. Oldenbourg does a fantastic job of illustrating the grandness and importance of christianity as a source of hope and motivation for these french peasants who are barely getting payed enough for their work.
The writing is pretty quick paced. Oldenbourg doesn’t dwell on describing scenery more than necessary, instead putting more emphasis on grandiose christian imagery and the interpersonal relationships of the characters. (Speaking of which, if you decide to read this book PLEASE KEEP A NOTE OF EVERY. SINGLE. CHARACTER. INTRODUCED. They’ll mention a character in passing and you think nothing of it and then 80 pages later THEY TURN OUT TO BE A PIVOTAL PLAYER IN THE STORY. Write down every character, you’ll thank me later!)
I think the fact that it was written by a woman also really helped. The crusades weren’t a fun road trip, and Oldenbourg doesn’t pull her punches in regards to the violence, racism, and misogyny of society. There are moments where rape is mentioned, but what I appreciate is that Oldenbourg doesn’t describe it in gratuitous detail, and doesn’t try to make it a spectacle. The most spectacular moments are likely the battles, and in the climatic battles Oldenbourg doesn’t hold back in regards to how truly horrific the Christian crusaders were.
I also quite enjoyed the female characters. The relationships between women are explored in detail, and in the end of the book the two most prominent female protagonists are defined by their agency or their fierce defiance to being controlled. The ending is by no means happy, but I feel it was definitely earned.
I think the reason im giving this book 5 stars is besides the great prose/imagery and the points made above, it made me realise an important distinction in media in regards to how to depict misogynistic societies or rape. Im often frustrated at fantasy franchises (think game of thrones, mistborn) who insist on keeping these misogynistic structures cause that’s what the society they’re basing it on was like. (to which I say you decide to have dragons but keep gender inequality? This may be a fantasy world for you, dear author, but it’s not really a fantasy for me). Oldenbourg, meanwhile, has a lot of credibility cause her whole academic field was about studying the crusades (she’s released a lot of non-fiction books about them from my understanding) so firstly I'm more inclined to trust her depictions of these unequal societies. And secondly rather than just having a passive “that’s just the way it was, nothing we can do” I personally think the way the book was written did a good job at showing why these inequalities freaking suck. The characters are on the cusp of realising it but don't quite get there, spurring the reader to contemplate why these structures were there to begin with.
Tl;dr: A heavy themed book but not difficult to read. If you want adventure and surprisingly relevant social commentary, give it a read!
Heirs of the Kingdom is a historical fiction novel about the first crusade told through the perspective of french pilgrims from the town of Arras. The ensemble of characters is huge, but there are a few ones the novel specifically checks up on. (Think of it kinda like les mis [the musical, i have not read the book] but in the crusades, with very similar themes about poverty, classism, and christianity.)
If you had described the plot of this book to me, I probably would’ve said “sounds like a bummer, no thanks.” I dont like books that are about miserable people being miserable. But somehow, I was enthralled. The characters will do stupid or cruel things, but you still completely empathise with them because Oldenbourg presents the context behind their upbringing and desolate situation. Oldenbourg does a fantastic job of illustrating the grandness and importance of christianity as a source of hope and motivation for these french peasants who are barely getting payed enough for their work.
The writing is pretty quick paced. Oldenbourg doesn’t dwell on describing scenery more than necessary, instead putting more emphasis on grandiose christian imagery and the interpersonal relationships of the characters. (Speaking of which, if you decide to read this book PLEASE KEEP A NOTE OF EVERY. SINGLE. CHARACTER. INTRODUCED. They’ll mention a character in passing and you think nothing of it and then 80 pages later THEY TURN OUT TO BE A PIVOTAL PLAYER IN THE STORY. Write down every character, you’ll thank me later!)
I think the fact that it was written by a woman also really helped. The crusades weren’t a fun road trip, and Oldenbourg doesn’t pull her punches in regards to the violence, racism, and misogyny of society. There are moments where rape is mentioned, but what I appreciate is that Oldenbourg doesn’t describe it in gratuitous detail, and doesn’t try to make it a spectacle. The most spectacular moments are likely the battles, and in the climatic battles Oldenbourg doesn’t hold back in regards to how truly horrific the Christian crusaders were.
I also quite enjoyed the female characters. The relationships between women are explored in detail, and in the end of the book the two most prominent female protagonists are defined by their agency or their fierce defiance to being controlled. The ending is by no means happy, but I feel it was definitely earned.
I think the reason im giving this book 5 stars is besides the great prose/imagery and the points made above, it made me realise an important distinction in media in regards to how to depict misogynistic societies or rape. Im often frustrated at fantasy franchises (think game of thrones, mistborn) who insist on keeping these misogynistic structures cause that’s what the society they’re basing it on was like. (to which I say you decide to have dragons but keep gender inequality? This may be a fantasy world for you, dear author, but it’s not really a fantasy for me). Oldenbourg, meanwhile, has a lot of credibility cause her whole academic field was about studying the crusades (she’s released a lot of non-fiction books about them from my understanding) so firstly I'm more inclined to trust her depictions of these unequal societies. And secondly rather than just having a passive “that’s just the way it was, nothing we can do” I personally think the way the book was written did a good job at showing why these inequalities freaking suck. The characters are on the cusp of realising it but don't quite get there, spurring the reader to contemplate why these structures were there to begin with.
Tl;dr: A heavy themed book but not difficult to read. If you want adventure and surprisingly relevant social commentary, give it a read!
August 22, 2014
"The Heirs of the Kingdom" is Zoe Oldenbourg's epic novel about the participation of common Christian folk in the First Crusade. Oldenbourg, who is a Russian born French native who is an expert on Medieval France, crafts this great tale of ordinary French Christians, tradesmen, peasants and others, who respond to the fiery sermons of such preachers as Peter the Hermit and answer the call to serve God and do penance by traveling to the Holy Land for the First Crusade.
Oldenbourg does a fantastic job in describing the folk and their times. Oldenbourg does not drink the Kool Aid that so many other authors of historical novels set in the Middle Ages seem to indulge, such as painting their characters as ignorant bumpkins who are incapable of reason and painting the society and the Church as some sort of medieval version of the East German Stazi. In fact, Oldenbourg's cast of characters is reminiscent of Chaucer's beloved characters in "The Canterbury Tales". Here we have the good and the bad, the hard working and the lazy, the devout and the scoundrels. Oldenbourg takes the reader through the world of the 11th Century, seeing the Balkans, the grand city of Constantinople and the various locations in the Middle East through the eyes of people who had never ventured more than 10 miles from their French villages before. She shows the reader the conflict between the pilgrims, whose purpose was solely to answer the call of the sermons and recapture the Holy Land for the Church, with the nobility and the leadership who seemed at times to be more concerned with attacking various cities for the purposes of plunder. The thing that I liked most about this novel was Oldenbourg's ability to show the piety of her characters without patronizing the reader, and simultaneously showing their faults and failings.
My only criticism of this novel is the rather shallow nature of the characters and the quick work she makes of some of the scenes. Sometimes thing happen in this novel that the reader almost misses because they pass so quickly, and at the end of the novel the reader does not have a good understanding of any of the characters.
Still, I would highly recommend this novel, particularly to those readers who are interested in novels about medieval Europe or the Crusades. In fact, I would be interested in the opinions of readers who liked Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and who read "Heirs of the Kingdom."
Oldenbourg does a fantastic job in describing the folk and their times. Oldenbourg does not drink the Kool Aid that so many other authors of historical novels set in the Middle Ages seem to indulge, such as painting their characters as ignorant bumpkins who are incapable of reason and painting the society and the Church as some sort of medieval version of the East German Stazi. In fact, Oldenbourg's cast of characters is reminiscent of Chaucer's beloved characters in "The Canterbury Tales". Here we have the good and the bad, the hard working and the lazy, the devout and the scoundrels. Oldenbourg takes the reader through the world of the 11th Century, seeing the Balkans, the grand city of Constantinople and the various locations in the Middle East through the eyes of people who had never ventured more than 10 miles from their French villages before. She shows the reader the conflict between the pilgrims, whose purpose was solely to answer the call of the sermons and recapture the Holy Land for the Church, with the nobility and the leadership who seemed at times to be more concerned with attacking various cities for the purposes of plunder. The thing that I liked most about this novel was Oldenbourg's ability to show the piety of her characters without patronizing the reader, and simultaneously showing their faults and failings.
My only criticism of this novel is the rather shallow nature of the characters and the quick work she makes of some of the scenes. Sometimes thing happen in this novel that the reader almost misses because they pass so quickly, and at the end of the novel the reader does not have a good understanding of any of the characters.
Still, I would highly recommend this novel, particularly to those readers who are interested in novels about medieval Europe or the Crusades. In fact, I would be interested in the opinions of readers who liked Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and who read "Heirs of the Kingdom."
August 2, 2022
Well that's a week of my life I'll never get back. Not really honest to say I read this, since I quit halfway through Chapter 6.
Up until this point, the book gave a starkly honest look at the life of the medieval French peasant, the piety of the times, and the daily life of a Crusades pilgrim. Their faith bore them through brutal stuff, but there was also hypocrisy and prejudice.....totally and wholly human.
But, in the middle of Chapter 6, it abandoned historical fiction and became religious focus pocus. The clergy discovers a long-lost relic....the lance that pierced the Lord's side he while was on the cross. And the priests somehow not only recognize it as that particular lance, but fully understand how it came to be hidden here, undiscovered this whole time. The pilgrims are waiting to see the holy relic, and the sky goes black, the lance glows white-hot in the sky over them, and then the bloody corpses of the martyrs start marching up the sky, over the pilgrims head. Also appear 4 beautiful priests who turn out to be St Andrew, St Jude, St Matthew, and St James, and these priests appear at 12 churches at the same time. WTF???
I kept reading, thinking it would be revealed that this was a fervid and desperate hallucination by one of the starving, sick pilgrims.....but nope. We're supposed to believe the pilgrims all saw this actual miracle.
Up until this point, it was a fantastic piece of historical fiction, presenting a realistic portrait of this hyper-intense period in history. As soon as it switched to religious fantasy, though, it became too tedious and ridiculous to continue.
Up until this point, the book gave a starkly honest look at the life of the medieval French peasant, the piety of the times, and the daily life of a Crusades pilgrim. Their faith bore them through brutal stuff, but there was also hypocrisy and prejudice.....totally and wholly human.
But, in the middle of Chapter 6, it abandoned historical fiction and became religious focus pocus. The clergy discovers a long-lost relic....the lance that pierced the Lord's side he while was on the cross. And the priests somehow not only recognize it as that particular lance, but fully understand how it came to be hidden here, undiscovered this whole time. The pilgrims are waiting to see the holy relic, and the sky goes black, the lance glows white-hot in the sky over them, and then the bloody corpses of the martyrs start marching up the sky, over the pilgrims head. Also appear 4 beautiful priests who turn out to be St Andrew, St Jude, St Matthew, and St James, and these priests appear at 12 churches at the same time. WTF???
I kept reading, thinking it would be revealed that this was a fervid and desperate hallucination by one of the starving, sick pilgrims.....but nope. We're supposed to believe the pilgrims all saw this actual miracle.
Up until this point, it was a fantastic piece of historical fiction, presenting a realistic portrait of this hyper-intense period in history. As soon as it switched to religious fantasy, though, it became too tedious and ridiculous to continue.
July 14, 2021
This is a very in-depth story about the poor who joined the arduous trek to Jerusalem on the First Christian Crusade during the Middle Ages. The story was originally written in French in 1970 and translated to English in 1971. I did have a few problems with some vocabulary and I blame some of it on the translation.
Overall, I truly enjoyed the story although I had to wade through way too much about religion. The author also has a strange way of expressing a character’s thoughts and conversations; the sentences will run together and sometimes I wasn’t sure who was speaking or whether I was reading thoughts instead of words! This book took a long time to read, partly because of so much going on in my life but also because it is not easy to read and I was only able to get through a few pages before getting too sleepy to continue.
Beware; there are some truly gruesome parts to the story. When the Christians are at war with the various races and especially once they reach Jerusalem. The details are very graphic and there is a lot of death. I found it extremely interesting though and didn’t mind the gore.
Overall, I truly enjoyed the story although I had to wade through way too much about religion. The author also has a strange way of expressing a character’s thoughts and conversations; the sentences will run together and sometimes I wasn’t sure who was speaking or whether I was reading thoughts instead of words! This book took a long time to read, partly because of so much going on in my life but also because it is not easy to read and I was only able to get through a few pages before getting too sleepy to continue.
Beware; there are some truly gruesome parts to the story. When the Christians are at war with the various races and especially once they reach Jerusalem. The details are very graphic and there is a lot of death. I found it extremely interesting though and didn’t mind the gore.
May 1, 2022
I chose to read this novel after helping my son with a school assignment on The First Crusade. A lot of the details were correct. Even the gory ones. However, I found the language somewhat stilted. I am not sure I could put it all down to being a translation either, as it read almost like a Bible. And I also found the ending somewhat unsatisfying.
September 6, 2018
Well researched series on Medieval period. An intimate portrayal of everyday life, values, troubles and trials of the Crusades, village life and the lives of the noble born. If you are interested in this period, Zoe Oldenbourg should be your go to for Historical Fiction.
August 6, 2021
Very graphic
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February 15, 2016I love to read about the crusades. This novel about the First Crusade was bloody and tedious.
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January 8, 2017Read pages only.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews