Neutiquam Erro's profile

All Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, December 7, 2008

To say that the History of the Franks is a grisly and bloody first-hand account of life in the early middle ages would be an understatement. In this book you will meet all four horsemen of the apocalypse, get to know their names, become acquainted and eventually feel like they are old friends. It frankly seems impossible that anyone could have survived this period in history and still retained their sanity to boot.

That said, Gregory of Tours seems like a remarkably level head in the face of pestilence and war, famine and flood, invasions and intimidation by all and sundry and the chance of torture, death and damnation at the whims of the so-called Frankish Kings. His tale… Read more

For your head, not your coffee table, November 12, 2008

The Pelican History of Art series is full of surprising gems and this book is no exception. It's value lies in the numerous photos and drawings which do not so much accompany the text as provide it with a ground substance on which the author hangs his words. Blunt, former Cold War spy though he might have been, writes with eloquence and verve directly to the artwork. Every picture seems carefully chosen to illustrate his points. Of course, in my older (1973) edition of this book, the pictures are in black and white so this isn't exactly a coffee table book but it's an excellent resource for learning about French painting, sculpture and architecture.

Considering that Blunt may… Read more

A Thousand Tales of Derring-Do, September 26, 2008

Orlando Furioso, translated in two parts by Barabara Reynolds, is a sprawling work. A romance of the Renaissance period (first published in 1516 but written over 25 years), it covers the chivalrous and not-so chivalrous deeds of a huge cast of characters. The themes of the book are love, war and chivalry although one suspects Ariosto, the author, might have just enjoyed telling a good yarn, one tale leading to another in a vast jumble which, while not entirely undirected, only moves gradually towards a rather dimly seen goal.

Ariosto picks up from Boiardo's Orlando Innamoratto and assumes the reader has some knowledge of that poem, alluding tangentially to it throughout the… Read more