Book Eight -- The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali

The Book of Saladin
by Tariq Ali
historical fiction
367 pages

As you might have guessed, I'm into medieval history. You can't be all that into medieval history and not know at least a little about the Crusades. In fact, I've read a fair number of non-fictional accounts of the various Crusades, but.... But, of course, they've all been about the European experience in the Holy Land, even when the author is not painting the Western knights as heroes.

One of the few Muslim leaders you hear about if you know even a little about the Crusades (even if your only exposure was, say, the historically inaccurate mess that was Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven*) is Sultan Yūsuf Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn ibn Ayyūb, better known to Westerners as Saladin. Sadly, aside from reading his wikipedia article, I know very little about Saladin from sources other than Western authors. In legend, he is, along with Richard I (of England, aka the Lion-Hearted) one of the great chivalrous leaders of the Crusades and the only "Saracen" respected by the other side. Since most of those legends aren't at all accurate about Richard, I tend to take them with a grain of salt.

The Book of Saladin is written from the point of view of Isaac ibn Yakub, a Jewish scribe selected by Saladin to write his biography. Along the way, ibn Yakub also talks to a couple of the women of Saladin's harem and Saladin's oldest friend. He also travels with the Sultan from Cairo to Damascus and finally, to Jerusalem, which Saladin takes back from the Christians. The result is a fascinating look at life on the other side of the Crusades.

Ali sticks to history when it comes to things like Saladin's accomplishments; the man's life really was remarkable and there isn't any need to embroider it. However, he invents the the various women in the book because medieval Islamic historical accounts don't even give us the names of the mothers of Saladin's sixteen sons. And while he does a good job at showing us how extraordinary Saladin was, you never really feel that you're getting into his head. He remains a distant figure for most of the book, while the invented women of his harem feel very real and interesting. In a way, however, the fact that Saladin is distant actually works; he is, after all, the Sultan, the figure around whom everyone else in the book revolves.

It's a good book and is a lot more readable than many historical novels; Ali is an excellent storyteller. Apparently this is the second of Ali's Islamic Quintet--although it certainly stands alone--and I intend to get my hands on the rest of them.

Next up, something that isn't historical fiction, probably either Keeping it Real by Justina Robson or Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch.

*Don't get me wrong, I love Kingdom of Heaven, as incredibly flawed as it is. Where else could you hear Liam Neeson say: "I once fought for two days with an arrow in my testicle."

Book Seven -- The Reckoning by Sharon Kay Penman

The Reckoning
Sharon Kay Penman
historical fiction
587 pages

And so I come to the end of Penman's Wales books. To be honest, The Reckoning is a bit of a disappointment. It picks up shortly after Falls the Shadow and deals with the conflict between Llewelyn and Edward I (also known as Edward Longshanks) over the ultimate fate of Wales. There's yet another woman involved, Simon de Montfort's daughter Ellen, promised to Llewelyn before her father died.

One of the problems with historical fiction, even if it's not technically a romance, is that the writers want us to believe that each match involving their main characters is a love match. In the first book, Here Be Dragons, there is some real evidence that Llewelyn the Great loved his wife Joanna; in a time when no one would have blamed him for divorcing her after finding her in bed with another man, instead, he welcomed her back into his life. But really, did Simon love his Nell? Did the second Llewelyn love his Ellen? Penman wants us to think so and I'll go with it, but after a while, you have to wonder.

That's not the only problem with the book, in fact, it's not even my major issue with it. My real problem is that it's anti-climactic. Not because I knew Edward was going to win, but more because I don't really find the second Llewelyn as interesting or as passionate as I found Llewelyn the Great or Simon de Montfort in the first two books. Nor is Ellen nearly as interesting as her mother Nell, or her great-aunt Joanna. There are moments when Penman tries to make Edward a sympathetic character, but she never really succeeds. Even the constant flip flopping of Llewelyn's brother Davydd--who went back and forth between siding with Edward and siding with his brother--and the part where pirates capture Ellen--something that really did happen--aren't enough to make the book work for me.

In the end, of course, rocks fall and the Welsh die. Ellen dies in childbirth, Llewelyn dies in battle and Davydd is possibly the first person to have been hung, drawn and quartered. Wales falls to Edward, who went so far as to give Llewelyn's title of Prince of Wales to his son, as all (or at least most) succeeding monarchs have done. In my write up of Falls the Shadow, I said that knowing the end doesn't really matter, and yes, that's true. But you have to have interesting people to get me to want to read the book, to engage me even though I know it'll all end badly. These weren't those people.

Book Six -- Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman

See, the problem with historical novels, particularly the ones about visionaries and rebels, is that even if you know little about the period or person, you can pretty much count on them ending badly. The author can also be a clue about the relative happiness of the ending and when you read Sharon Kay Penman, whose first novel was a sympathetic account of the life of Richard III, you can bet that she picked a heroic but ultimately tragic figure for follow.

Falls the Shadow is a tragedy, even the name gives it away. It follows the life of Simon de Montfort and Llewelyn of Wales. This isn't Llewelyn Fwar (the Great) who was one of the main characters of Here Be Dragons, rather, it's his grandson, who is trying to hold together his grandfather's dream of a free or at least a united Wales against the treachery of his brothers.

But for all this trilogy is ostensibly about Wales, the main character of this book is Simon de Montfort. He's one of those men who crops up in history from time to time, someone who is just plain ahead of his time in many ways. Penman shows us a man who truly believed that his God-given duty as a knight was to look after people more helpless than himself. In the course of his life, he managed to force the King of England--Henry III, son of King John and not much better a ruler than his father--to not only honor the Magna Carta but also the Provisions of Oxford, a much more democratic outline for governing.

Deposing a king was srs bizns back in those days and Simon claimed he did everything in the King's name, that his quarrel wasn't with Henry, who was his brother-in-law--Simon married Eleanor, Henry's sister--but with Henry's useless advisors. During Simon's period of control, the first elected parliament met in England. Granted, the only people who could vote were those men who held property worth 40 shillings or more, but still, we're talking about the middle of the 13th century here.

And in the end, of course, that was the problem. Instead of giving more power to the barons and other nobles, Simon's Provisions favored the very small, nascent middle-class--the Provisions of Oxford was the first legal document published in English since the Conquest. It was just too early for this kind of thing, plus, in the end, Simon faced a much more serious opponent than the dithering Henry: Henry's warrior son, Edward, later known as Edward I or Edward Longshanks.

And Wales? It gets very short shrift in this book, but at the end of the book, Llewelyn is still free and trying to hang onto his country. Even without reading it, I know that the next book in the series--The Reckoning--will see the end of his fight and not in a good way. After all, these days the Prince of Wales is an Englishman, not a Welshman.

So why read something when you're pretty sure going in that it'll all end in tears? To know how it happened, and to see one version of what the people involved might have been thinking. After all, look at how many versions of the Arthurian legends have been written and how popular Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is. Without Simon de Montfort and the Provisions of Oxford, which didn't last long after his death, the history of English democracy and eventually US democracy might have been very different. Which would be why, even though very few people have heard of him, there's a plaster relief of his head in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. I get the feeling that de Montfort, or at least Penman's version of him, would be honored.

Book Two -- Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman

Here Be Dragons
Sharon Kay Penman
Historical Fiction
700 pages

After reading crappy historical fiction, I wanted to read the good stuff, so I went for the first of Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh Trilogy, because I love her book The Sunne In Splendour which is about Richard III and the War of the Roses. Here Be Dragons is about an even more obscure period of British history--the end of the 12th, beginning of the 13th centuries. Yup...it's the Robin Hood era and this book is partly about Evil Prince John.

Actually, it's is about two very different rulers, John in England and Llewelyn in Wales, and--yes, I know this sounds like a movie ad--the woman who was forced to choose between them. John inherited the extensive Angevin Empire--all of England and half of medieval France--created by his father Henry II. Llewelyn inherited one third of Wales in a time when the Welsh princes had to swear fealty to the English crown. Quite the power imbalance and yet, an ambitious Welsh Prince could still make quite a lot of trouble for the English. So John looked for a way to get Llewelyn on his side and found it in an arranged marriage between Llewelyn and Joanna, one of John's many illegitimate children.

This is pure history, all these people existed. However because all we know of Joanna is that she was John's bastard daughter, that she married Llewelyn, had children with him, that there was a scandal and when she died, Penman has a great chance to invent a fascinating character and she makes the most of it. John only learns about Joanna after Joanna's mother dies and he rescues the young girl from poverty and obscurity. At that point in his life, she's his only daughter and whatever else history has to say about Bad King John, it tells us he was a devoted father to both his legitimate and illegitimate children. Of course, Joanna learns to love her father; she knows little of his personal flaws or the mistakes he's making as king of a kingdom beset with money issues and French enemies.

When John marries Joanna off to Llewelyn, who is 32 years old to her 14, she's understandably terrified. She finds herself in a country where very few people speak her language and most of her husband's subjects, including his son from an earlier liaison, resent her presence, both because she's English (although she rightfully points out that that's an insult; she's Norman) and because she's her father's daughter.

Penman could have gone the easy route and had Joanna and Llewelyn fall for one another immediately, but, although eventually they learn to love each other passionately, it takes them a while to get there. And even afterwards, it's hardly an easy marriage, particularly as Llewelyn's ambitions for Wales puts him more and more at odds with John. John for his part, is struggling and making bad decision after bad decision; he is, after all, the king who was forced to sign the Magna Carta.

And yes, it sounds kind of dry, but in spite of her habit to indulge in the occasional info-dump, Penman brings these people to life enough, makes them real enough, that you really do want to know what happens to them. That you learn things--like the fact that the Magna Carta went too far and took too much power from the Church, and so John had the Pope's backing in his war on the barons--along the way is cool, but you never lose sight that in the middle of all this history is a woman who is torn between her father and her husband. Joanna's not a passive character; she's got the family temper and she's intelligent. Watching as she faces the facts about her father is painful but it feels very real to anyone who's ever loved someone only to realize that they're not a good person.

And really, that's where historical fiction can shine and a good writer can keep their readers hooked. By making history about real people with motives and concerns we can understand, the novelist can take us past the dry facts and show us that, in the end, history isn't about forces we can't understand, but about sons whose parents didn't love them, daughters who have to make hard decisions and mothers who want the best for their children.

Next up? To Serve and Submit which is some kind of fantasy novel that promises to be both soft-core porn and a fascinating story about one girl's epic journey. It better deliver.

What?! A girl's gotta take a break from the weighty stuff and have a little fluffy fun.

Book One -- Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory

Earthly Joys
Philippa Gregory
Historical Fiction
500 + pages

Good God, this woman is a best-selling author who got one of her books made into a feature film? Okay so The Other Boleyn Girl was hardly a box office smash, but still, if the book was half as bad as this one, who the hell thought it would make a good movie?

Earthly Joys is the story of a gardener named John Transcendent who creates fabulous formal gardens for some of the most important people of the early Jacobean period. He starts out working for Robert Cecil, adviser/spymaster to Elizabeth I and James I, and eventually works for George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham and "favorite" of James I, and then, ends his life working for Charles I.

This should be right up my alley; I find the period fascinating and, of course, James I was one of several gay/bi (if I may apply a modern term that wasn't used at the time) monarchs of England. Also, John Transcendent is a totally great period name; it's one of the reasons I decided to read this book instead of one of her Boleyn books.

Sadly, Gregory is all about telling instead of showing. In the first five pages or so, we learn that John is not only Cecil's gardener, but also his confident. Not because she shows us, but because she just says so. And it just goes on like that for another 500+ pages as John wanders in and out of history and travels around Europe buying rare plants. He also marries Elizabeth, a truly boring Puritan, who pretty much exists as a character to be boring, which, when you think about it, is great for Gregory, who didn't have to work very hard to give the woman any real depth.

John eventually falls passionately in love with Buckingham, apparently just because Buckingham is gorgeous and has style. Frankly, I think the historical Buckingham, while indeed stylish and handsome after the fashion of the day, was an incompetent ass and Gregory's portrayal of him does nothing to change my mind. I can't see what John sees in him and she does nothing to really explain it. I'll give her credit for actually going there and writing the buttsecks instead of just having John pine for Buckingham, but that wasn't enough to save the book for me.

Although I knew it was crap pretty much from about page three, I stuck it out, because I'm like that; even with mediocre fiction, I tend to want to know what happens. In addition to the whole "telling not showing" thing, John's a pretty passive character and frankly, in the end, his death didn't have any real impact on me. God knows I have no interest in the sequel, Virgin Earth, which is about John's son, who, thanks to losing his Puritan religion when his wife dies, is a slightly more interesting character than Elizabeth. Still, I don't really care about what happens to him in Virginia.

I don't always like to judge an author by just one book, particularly one written ten years ago, but she's been writing for over twenty years so that's not really an excuse. So yeah, this one? It's a skipper and I won't be reading any more Gregory.