Books read this week: The Later Middle Ages (George Holmes) 6/10, Princep's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, First Lord's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10
Books unfinished this week: England Under The Tudors (G.R. Elton) 7/10, A Brief History of the Tudor Age (Jasper Ridley) 2/10
Another slightly broken up week for me; I've just got back from holiday and there's lots still to do, so this entry will probably be quite short. So, this week's books. Princep's Fury and First Lord's Fury are the last two volumes in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera. They're pretty good, but I said pretty much everything I have to say about the Codex Alera last week.
The Later Middle Ages covers the period between 1272 and 1485 - so Edward I to Richard III. It's a good read, fairly accessible, interesting and (as far as I can tell) accurate. The period is covers has some of our least attractive and most incompetent monarchs (hello Richard II, Edward II and Henry VI), but also the Wars of The Roses, which I always enjoy reading about. One of the things about the Wars of the Roses which I don't think is properly appreciated, but which was shown very well in Game of Thrones (which is basically the Wars of the Roses, but with added dragons), is how much the war was caused because a small group of very powerful, extremely closely related people couldn't stand each other; we tend to expect wars to start for grand political reasons; to fight over resources or principles. We don't (nowadays) generally expect tens of thousands of people to die just because you can't stand spending another Sunday at your gran's with cousin Steve.
I've also listed two books I've started, but not quite finished yet. I read about 3/4 of Elton's England Under The Tudors while I was on holiday, but the book's not mine, so I've had to leave it behind. It is a very good book, and mixes political and economic history to give a well rounded portrait of the period. I often feel that Henry VII is very underrated; a cold, ruthless man, but given to political mercy and certainly a far more attractive figure than his psychotic manchild of a son. And frankly, you have to admire any king who insists on personally inspecting and initialing every single page of the country's accounts for his entire reign.
The book also gave me a renewed appreciation of the debt modern British government owes to Thomas Cromwell; Parliament, the Cabinet system and the role of the Secretary of State all owe their origins to him, as does the concept of a civil service that operates without direct and continuous input from the monarch. Of course, none of that stopped Henry VIII chopping off his head so that he could get married (again). It is truly amazing how much the modern British state is a result of the actions of the two Cromwells, Thomas and Oliver.
It is a strange thing how often you find that a dynasty with two good rulers and the balance made up of incompetents; for the Tudors we have Henry VII (good), Henry VIII (psychotic manchild), Edward VI (psychotic child), Mary (religious fanatic) and Elizabeth (good). With the Stuarts in England we have James I (competent), Charles I (fuckwit), Charles II (competent) and James II (fuckwit). The Julian dynasty in Rome: Julius Ceasar (genius), Augustus (genius), Tiberius (depraved fuckwit), Caligula (demented fuckwit), Claudius (fuckwit) and Nero (fuckwit with delusions of talent). Of course, it's not a hard and fast rule; just a useful rule of thumb.
A Brief History of the Tudors on the other hand is not a good book; the very first sentence informs me that "The Tudor Age began on 7 August 1483 when Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven". As any fule kno, Henry Tudor landed in Milford Haven in 1485 just before the battle of Bosworth. I read a couple of pages more, just to confirm that yes, the author is under the impression that Richard III reigned for exactly one month, and then I stopped. I doubt I'll ever look at the book again.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Roman Wizards, Plantagenet Dragons and Napoleonic Lasers
Books Read This Week: Game of Thrones (George R R Martin) 7/10, Academe's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, Consor's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, Captain's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, Torch of Freedom (David Weber and Eric Flint) 4/10
I've been on holiday this week, so I've had a little more time for reading, and as I'm trying to relax, the books I've been reading are a little lighter than usual. Graham Greene used to say his books fell into two classes; novels and entertainments. Of the five books here, only Martin's Game of Thrones rises to the level of a novel; Torch of Freedom barely classes as an entertainment.
It is also interesting that all five books can be described as X IN SPAAAAACE!; we have Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series; this is the Wars of the Roses WITH DRAGONS!, Academe's Fury, Consor's Fury and Captain's Fury are the next three books in the Codex Alera series; the Roman Empire WITH WIZARDS! and Torch of Freedom is one of the more recent books in the Honor Harrington series; Hornblower IN SPAAAACE!
The fact that each setting can be classified so simply, and with such direct reference to history is a clear indication that none of these books are A-list fiction. The best writers in science fiction look forward, and those in fantasy look sideways; a knowledge of history is always appreciated, and certainly a good writer should take inspiration from history, but I don't like it when they just copy wholesale. For example, the Rohirrim in the Lord of the Rings are certainly heavily inspired by the Anglo-Saxons, but they are not Anglo-Saxons. Similarly, the cut-throat politics in Frank Herbert's Dune are clearly based on that of the Holy Roman Empire, but the Padishah Emperor's Court is not that of the Habsburgs. This is not to say that you can just pick and mix bits of history, mash them together and hope to get something believable; this is the mistake Margaret Atwood makes in the Handmaid's Tale.
Let us consider the books individually. Game of Thrones has just been adapted into an HBO series, of which I was lucky enough to catch the first episode on Monday. The book opens (roughly) with the end of the reign of the fantasy equivalent of Edward IV; the heroic warrior king is, fifteen years after he seized his kingdom, old, fat and debauched and heading for an early grave. His in-laws scheme to keep his son on the throne, and his brothers scheme to keep him off. The only real change here is that we're rooting for the political equivalent of Richard III against the Woodvilles - exactly the opposite of the perspective typically taken in popular history (although this is primarily due to Shakespeare's influence). Our primary sympathies are with the Starks; Lords in the North - much like the Percies in real life and (I fear) with a similar knack for picking the wrong side in civil war. I would predict that ultimately the Starks will make common cause with the Targaerians - the family of the old, deposed kings - but that's primarily because I'm applying my historical knowledge to the books. I like reading about the Wars of the Roses, which is probably why I enjoyed Game of Thrones so much. I keep expecting a character to shout "God's Blood! Thy father slew mine and I shall slay you!" (compare: The Princess Bride and Lord Clifford).
The book also demonstrates that once you've deposed one king, every yahoo with a sword and a great-aunt who so much as touched a throne thinks they can become king as well. This is something you can see both in the Wars of the Roses and the Ottoman Empire and was ultimately one of the reasons for the development of primogeniture in Western Europe; sure it occasionally means that your head of state is a drooling imbecile who can't tie his own shoelaces or chew food, but at least it saves you from having a huge civil war every time the king pops his clogs. And besides, by the time the inbreeding is severe enough to stop your monarch tying his shoes, he's usually too dim to breed as well.
Jim Butcher's Codex Alera is much less subtle than the Game of Thrones; much more fighting, much less political manipulation. That said, it's not a bad series - I just think it a pity that after calling his hero Octavian ('Tavi')*, he then proceeds to make him an actual hero; a leader of men and an expert swordsman. This is something of a disservice to the character of the real Gaius Octavius, who became Augustus Caesar. He was one of the smartest men who ever lived (and the brightest thing he ever did was marry a woman even smarter than him) and at the age of 18 he could run rings round the best and most experienced politicians in Rome. But he was not a heroic man, nor was he a particular good general (he had Agrippa for that). I think the best image of Augustus is a short scene in Gaiman's Sandman; the elderly Augustus reminisces about Cicero; says that he was the last great politician of the Roman Republic (which is true); his companion asks what happened to him, and Augustus says "I had him killed.". A man like that would, I think, make a far more interesting protagonist than the cookie-cutter fantasy hero we are presented with here. Plus, I think I'm unlikely to see Tavi bang his head against a door, whilst rending his clothes and screaming "Quintilius Varus, where are my legions?" (my second favourite image of Augustus - and this on actually happened).
Torch of Freedom is part of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, which was conceived as Hornblower IN SPAAAACE!, primarily, I think, so that his main character could have enemies who were simultaneously French and Communists. It's not a particularly good book - the characterisation is paper thin, and everyone speaks like a thirteen year old. Sometimes Weber manages to inject enough tension and craft a sufficiently interesting story that the fact the characters are almost indistinguishable doesn't matter. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times - primarily because the story sprawls so much. There are dozens of characters, who all sound the same, and it's impossible to care for any of them. Weber has also fallen into the trap (very common with long series) where entire books go by which advance the plot of the series, but are not, in themselves, particularly interesting.
*n.b. When dealing with Romans, if your opponent is named Octavian, you might as well kill yourself now; it's quicker.
I've been on holiday this week, so I've had a little more time for reading, and as I'm trying to relax, the books I've been reading are a little lighter than usual. Graham Greene used to say his books fell into two classes; novels and entertainments. Of the five books here, only Martin's Game of Thrones rises to the level of a novel; Torch of Freedom barely classes as an entertainment.
It is also interesting that all five books can be described as X IN SPAAAAACE!; we have Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series; this is the Wars of the Roses WITH DRAGONS!, Academe's Fury, Consor's Fury and Captain's Fury are the next three books in the Codex Alera series; the Roman Empire WITH WIZARDS! and Torch of Freedom is one of the more recent books in the Honor Harrington series; Hornblower IN SPAAAACE!
The fact that each setting can be classified so simply, and with such direct reference to history is a clear indication that none of these books are A-list fiction. The best writers in science fiction look forward, and those in fantasy look sideways; a knowledge of history is always appreciated, and certainly a good writer should take inspiration from history, but I don't like it when they just copy wholesale. For example, the Rohirrim in the Lord of the Rings are certainly heavily inspired by the Anglo-Saxons, but they are not Anglo-Saxons. Similarly, the cut-throat politics in Frank Herbert's Dune are clearly based on that of the Holy Roman Empire, but the Padishah Emperor's Court is not that of the Habsburgs. This is not to say that you can just pick and mix bits of history, mash them together and hope to get something believable; this is the mistake Margaret Atwood makes in the Handmaid's Tale.
Let us consider the books individually. Game of Thrones has just been adapted into an HBO series, of which I was lucky enough to catch the first episode on Monday. The book opens (roughly) with the end of the reign of the fantasy equivalent of Edward IV; the heroic warrior king is, fifteen years after he seized his kingdom, old, fat and debauched and heading for an early grave. His in-laws scheme to keep his son on the throne, and his brothers scheme to keep him off. The only real change here is that we're rooting for the political equivalent of Richard III against the Woodvilles - exactly the opposite of the perspective typically taken in popular history (although this is primarily due to Shakespeare's influence). Our primary sympathies are with the Starks; Lords in the North - much like the Percies in real life and (I fear) with a similar knack for picking the wrong side in civil war. I would predict that ultimately the Starks will make common cause with the Targaerians - the family of the old, deposed kings - but that's primarily because I'm applying my historical knowledge to the books. I like reading about the Wars of the Roses, which is probably why I enjoyed Game of Thrones so much. I keep expecting a character to shout "God's Blood! Thy father slew mine and I shall slay you!" (compare: The Princess Bride and Lord Clifford).
The book also demonstrates that once you've deposed one king, every yahoo with a sword and a great-aunt who so much as touched a throne thinks they can become king as well. This is something you can see both in the Wars of the Roses and the Ottoman Empire and was ultimately one of the reasons for the development of primogeniture in Western Europe; sure it occasionally means that your head of state is a drooling imbecile who can't tie his own shoelaces or chew food, but at least it saves you from having a huge civil war every time the king pops his clogs. And besides, by the time the inbreeding is severe enough to stop your monarch tying his shoes, he's usually too dim to breed as well.
Jim Butcher's Codex Alera is much less subtle than the Game of Thrones; much more fighting, much less political manipulation. That said, it's not a bad series - I just think it a pity that after calling his hero Octavian ('Tavi')*, he then proceeds to make him an actual hero; a leader of men and an expert swordsman. This is something of a disservice to the character of the real Gaius Octavius, who became Augustus Caesar. He was one of the smartest men who ever lived (and the brightest thing he ever did was marry a woman even smarter than him) and at the age of 18 he could run rings round the best and most experienced politicians in Rome. But he was not a heroic man, nor was he a particular good general (he had Agrippa for that). I think the best image of Augustus is a short scene in Gaiman's Sandman; the elderly Augustus reminisces about Cicero; says that he was the last great politician of the Roman Republic (which is true); his companion asks what happened to him, and Augustus says "I had him killed.". A man like that would, I think, make a far more interesting protagonist than the cookie-cutter fantasy hero we are presented with here. Plus, I think I'm unlikely to see Tavi bang his head against a door, whilst rending his clothes and screaming "Quintilius Varus, where are my legions?" (my second favourite image of Augustus - and this on actually happened).
Torch of Freedom is part of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, which was conceived as Hornblower IN SPAAAACE!, primarily, I think, so that his main character could have enemies who were simultaneously French and Communists. It's not a particularly good book - the characterisation is paper thin, and everyone speaks like a thirteen year old. Sometimes Weber manages to inject enough tension and craft a sufficiently interesting story that the fact the characters are almost indistinguishable doesn't matter. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times - primarily because the story sprawls so much. There are dozens of characters, who all sound the same, and it's impossible to care for any of them. Weber has also fallen into the trap (very common with long series) where entire books go by which advance the plot of the series, but are not, in themselves, particularly interesting.
*n.b. When dealing with Romans, if your opponent is named Octavian, you might as well kill yourself now; it's quicker.
Monday, 11 April 2011
Bits and Pieces
Books read this week: The Popes (John Julius Norwich) 8/10, Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher) 7/10, From Alfred to Henry III (Christopher Brooke) 6/10, Byzantine Style and Civilization (Steven Runciman) 6/10
Wow. I really didn't realise I'd read that much stuff this week. Anyway: To work! My first book is John Julius Norwich's latest, The Popes. It is, as Norwich's books always are, an extremely entertaining and witty romp through the lives of the various occupants of the throne of St. Peter over the past two millenia. The book is not a history of the papacy, but rather a series of biographies of the various pontiffs; so we have relatively little theology, and very little on politics outside Italy. It is a fascinating survey of the good, the bad, the very bad, the mad and the ugly.
The first thousand years pass very quickly, mainly because there's very little information about the popes during that time, with a few exceptions like Formosus (who was dug up and put on trial by his successor) and Joan (who, if she was real, would have been the first English pope). Interestingly, according to this book, the incoming pope is not actually groped during the investiture ceremony to ensure that he is, in fact, male. Although there is a very entertaining historical account of just such an occurance: the pope-elect is groped, the groper shouts to the assembled clergy "He has testicles!" to which the congregation replied "God be praised!"
The outgoing pontiff does get his head smashed in with a silver hammer to make sure he's really dead, if that's an consolation (one gets the feeling that there was some kind of embarrassing not quite dead moment at some time in the past).
The most entertaing chapters deal with the historical low points of the Papacy; the pornocracy (yes, that is a real word) of the 10th Century, which reached it's nadir with John XII, who was ultimately arraigned on charges of murder, rape, arson and ordaining a deacon in a stable at the wrong time of year. I can imagine the court staring at the guy who made that last accusation: is that really the best you can do?
Not that the renaissance popes were much better; we have Il Papa Terrible, Julius II, Leo X ("God has given us the papacy; now let us enjoy it"), Alexander VI Borgia (how many Cardinals did you kill today?) and the first John XXIII (technically an Antipope). There is a wonderful passage in Gibbon, which Norwich quotes in full, on John XXIII; Gibbon says that the more scandalous charges were suppressed, so they just charged him with murder, incest and piracy. I don't know about you, but I now have an image of a bloke with an eye patch sat on the throne in St. Peter's saying "yaarrrr! Plenary indulgences for all me hearties!"
Of course, it was the prevalence of entertaining but morally bankrupt figures such as these which led directly to the reformation, and thence to the counter-reformation, where the Catholic church got it's act together; from that point on, Popes would at least pretend their illegitimate children were their nephews and nieces when advancing them in the church. There is an interesting binary in post-counter-reformation popes; they are either mad puritan inquisitors who want to ban every book written after 1200 and do things like ban nuns from keeping male dogs (seriously?) and support the Nazis, or sensible, moderate religious leaders trying to move with the times - and they seem to alternate. It's almost as if the conclave go "well, we've had a mad pope - let's try a sane one this time." and, presumably, vice versa.
I have to admit, I was quite shocked to find out that there is a movement to canonise Pius XII. It's generally a good rule of thumb that if you can be distinguish from other people who have held your position by being called "the Nazi X" you are not a good candidate for sainthood. Norwich does make a good argument that rather than being ideologically a Nazi, Pius XII was just massively anti-semitic and so paranoid about the threat of communism that he blinded himself to Hitler's greater evil. Not that any of that is anything close to either an excuse or an explanation.
Norwich also makes a strong case that had John Paul I not died under somewhat suspicious circumstances he would have reduced or even eliminated the Church's opposition to birth control. That's a very interesting might-have-been (and of course, might well be why there were "somewhat suspicious circumstances"). I have to admit, I also found his description of John Paul II's "berserk canonisation of everything in sight" absolutely brilliant.
Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon is the first book in his Codex Alera series. Butcher's other major series is the Dresden Files, which I have tried to get into a few times, but I've never really got it. Unlike the Dresden Files, which is the sort of post-modern magic series that Buffy made popular, the Codex Alera is proper fantasy, with wizards and swords and lost heirs. I'm not usually a big fan of fantasy (LOTR excepted, of course), having a strong preference for science fiction, but that's mainly because of the reactionary tendencies of a lot of fantasy fiction. There are always lost heirs and hidden swords and Destiny. Coming down heavily on the free will side of the predestination vs free will debate I always have problems with Destiny. I am an atheist, and so you wouldn't really expect me to have views on theology, but predestination is such an abhorrent doctrine that I feel you can't help but stand on the other side. An additional problem for me is that "strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government". Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the Furies of Calderon, and I'm looking forward to making my way through the remaining five books in the series. It's not Serious Literature by any stretch of the imagination, but it's entertaining enough; fairly light and fluffy and slips down well. I think I can guess at least one or two of the twists that are coming, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
From Alfred to Henry III is another piece of medieval history, quite interesting, but I discussed the middle ages a lot last week, so I'll keep this short. The only thing that really struck me, reading through the book, is that people tend to forget that in the argument between Thomas a Becket (sorry, St. Thomas a Becket) and Henry II "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Plantagenet that Henry II was right. The argument was basically that Henry II wanted "criminous clerks" (read: priests who killed people) to be subject to ordinary laws, and Thomas a Becket didn't. The fact that Becket was martyred shouldn't distract us from the fact that he was wrong, and Henry II was trying to deal with priest who could ride through towns conducting the 12th Century equivalent of drive-bys (ride-bys?) and get off scott-free.
Runciman is an excellent historian, and I have enjoyed his trilogy on the crusades, as well as his classic book on the war of the Sicilian Vespers (the only war, to my knowledge, begun as retaliation for cat-calling). Byzantine Style and Civilization is a short study of art in the Byzantine empire. There are lots of plates, so it's a fairly short book, but very lucid. I have to admit that Byzantine civilization is very alien to me: I can't understand a civilization willing to shed so much blood and ink over what look like theological trifles to me. Is it really that important whether Christ has two natures, or one or one nature but two energies or whether those natures are divine or moral? I have a similar problem with cathedrals from across Europe during the medieval era. Visiting cathedrals is something I really enjoy, and every one I have ever been to is a magnificent monument to human achievement, but I never leave without thinking about the artisans who built them. They constructed those magnificent prayers in stone using not that much more than hand tools, and they lived and died in huts made from mud and straw; if even one tenth of the effort that was put into the glorification of God had been put into improving conditions of ordinary people, they could have had clean water, decent housing, hospitals and schools. I never come away from visiting a cathedral without feeling that, beautiful as they are, it was a waste to build them when children were starving.
Wow. I really didn't realise I'd read that much stuff this week. Anyway: To work! My first book is John Julius Norwich's latest, The Popes. It is, as Norwich's books always are, an extremely entertaining and witty romp through the lives of the various occupants of the throne of St. Peter over the past two millenia. The book is not a history of the papacy, but rather a series of biographies of the various pontiffs; so we have relatively little theology, and very little on politics outside Italy. It is a fascinating survey of the good, the bad, the very bad, the mad and the ugly.
The first thousand years pass very quickly, mainly because there's very little information about the popes during that time, with a few exceptions like Formosus (who was dug up and put on trial by his successor) and Joan (who, if she was real, would have been the first English pope). Interestingly, according to this book, the incoming pope is not actually groped during the investiture ceremony to ensure that he is, in fact, male. Although there is a very entertaining historical account of just such an occurance: the pope-elect is groped, the groper shouts to the assembled clergy "He has testicles!" to which the congregation replied "God be praised!"
The outgoing pontiff does get his head smashed in with a silver hammer to make sure he's really dead, if that's an consolation (one gets the feeling that there was some kind of embarrassing not quite dead moment at some time in the past).
The most entertaing chapters deal with the historical low points of the Papacy; the pornocracy (yes, that is a real word) of the 10th Century, which reached it's nadir with John XII, who was ultimately arraigned on charges of murder, rape, arson and ordaining a deacon in a stable at the wrong time of year. I can imagine the court staring at the guy who made that last accusation: is that really the best you can do?
Not that the renaissance popes were much better; we have Il Papa Terrible, Julius II, Leo X ("God has given us the papacy; now let us enjoy it"), Alexander VI Borgia (how many Cardinals did you kill today?) and the first John XXIII (technically an Antipope). There is a wonderful passage in Gibbon, which Norwich quotes in full, on John XXIII; Gibbon says that the more scandalous charges were suppressed, so they just charged him with murder, incest and piracy. I don't know about you, but I now have an image of a bloke with an eye patch sat on the throne in St. Peter's saying "yaarrrr! Plenary indulgences for all me hearties!"
Of course, it was the prevalence of entertaining but morally bankrupt figures such as these which led directly to the reformation, and thence to the counter-reformation, where the Catholic church got it's act together; from that point on, Popes would at least pretend their illegitimate children were their nephews and nieces when advancing them in the church. There is an interesting binary in post-counter-reformation popes; they are either mad puritan inquisitors who want to ban every book written after 1200 and do things like ban nuns from keeping male dogs (seriously?) and support the Nazis, or sensible, moderate religious leaders trying to move with the times - and they seem to alternate. It's almost as if the conclave go "well, we've had a mad pope - let's try a sane one this time." and, presumably, vice versa.
I have to admit, I was quite shocked to find out that there is a movement to canonise Pius XII. It's generally a good rule of thumb that if you can be distinguish from other people who have held your position by being called "the Nazi X" you are not a good candidate for sainthood. Norwich does make a good argument that rather than being ideologically a Nazi, Pius XII was just massively anti-semitic and so paranoid about the threat of communism that he blinded himself to Hitler's greater evil. Not that any of that is anything close to either an excuse or an explanation.
Norwich also makes a strong case that had John Paul I not died under somewhat suspicious circumstances he would have reduced or even eliminated the Church's opposition to birth control. That's a very interesting might-have-been (and of course, might well be why there were "somewhat suspicious circumstances"). I have to admit, I also found his description of John Paul II's "berserk canonisation of everything in sight" absolutely brilliant.
Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon is the first book in his Codex Alera series. Butcher's other major series is the Dresden Files, which I have tried to get into a few times, but I've never really got it. Unlike the Dresden Files, which is the sort of post-modern magic series that Buffy made popular, the Codex Alera is proper fantasy, with wizards and swords and lost heirs. I'm not usually a big fan of fantasy (LOTR excepted, of course), having a strong preference for science fiction, but that's mainly because of the reactionary tendencies of a lot of fantasy fiction. There are always lost heirs and hidden swords and Destiny. Coming down heavily on the free will side of the predestination vs free will debate I always have problems with Destiny. I am an atheist, and so you wouldn't really expect me to have views on theology, but predestination is such an abhorrent doctrine that I feel you can't help but stand on the other side. An additional problem for me is that "strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government". Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the Furies of Calderon, and I'm looking forward to making my way through the remaining five books in the series. It's not Serious Literature by any stretch of the imagination, but it's entertaining enough; fairly light and fluffy and slips down well. I think I can guess at least one or two of the twists that are coming, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
From Alfred to Henry III is another piece of medieval history, quite interesting, but I discussed the middle ages a lot last week, so I'll keep this short. The only thing that really struck me, reading through the book, is that people tend to forget that in the argument between Thomas a Becket (sorry, St. Thomas a Becket) and Henry II "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Plantagenet that Henry II was right. The argument was basically that Henry II wanted "criminous clerks" (read: priests who killed people) to be subject to ordinary laws, and Thomas a Becket didn't. The fact that Becket was martyred shouldn't distract us from the fact that he was wrong, and Henry II was trying to deal with priest who could ride through towns conducting the 12th Century equivalent of drive-bys (ride-bys?) and get off scott-free.
Runciman is an excellent historian, and I have enjoyed his trilogy on the crusades, as well as his classic book on the war of the Sicilian Vespers (the only war, to my knowledge, begun as retaliation for cat-calling). Byzantine Style and Civilization is a short study of art in the Byzantine empire. There are lots of plates, so it's a fairly short book, but very lucid. I have to admit that Byzantine civilization is very alien to me: I can't understand a civilization willing to shed so much blood and ink over what look like theological trifles to me. Is it really that important whether Christ has two natures, or one or one nature but two energies or whether those natures are divine or moral? I have a similar problem with cathedrals from across Europe during the medieval era. Visiting cathedrals is something I really enjoy, and every one I have ever been to is a magnificent monument to human achievement, but I never leave without thinking about the artisans who built them. They constructed those magnificent prayers in stone using not that much more than hand tools, and they lived and died in huts made from mud and straw; if even one tenth of the effort that was put into the glorification of God had been put into improving conditions of ordinary people, they could have had clean water, decent housing, hospitals and schools. I never come away from visiting a cathedral without feeling that, beautiful as they are, it was a waste to build them when children were starving.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
A Green And Unpleasant Land
Books read this week: The Birth Of Britain (Winston Churchill) 6/10, Collected Poems (A E Housman) 6/10
You can always tell by the magisterial prose when a book was written by Churchill, and The Birth of Britain is no exception. The first volume of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples is one of his later works (completed 1956, after Churchill had suffered multiple strokes and handed the keys to Number 10 over to Eden). It covers the period from prehistory up until the battle of Bosworth (I don't know why we always date the end of the middle ages to the battle of Bosworth, but we do). Of course, for most of that period the British Isles weren't occupied by anyone speaking anything close to English, but Churchill doesn't let that stop him. Although inaccurate, I did find it quite refreshing; it's nice to see the Anglo-Saxons get some love. We tend to start English history in 1066, which means we miss some of the coolest names (Edmund Ironside, Ulfkill Snilling*) and most interesting events (St Brice's Day massacre) in history. The book is primarily designed to offer a popular introduction to British (well, mainly English) history; it leans heavily on kings and bishops - there's not much social history to be had. And it also tends to repeat romantic stories which are of slightly dubious provenance (Eleanor of Aquitaine offering fair Rosamund a dagger or a cup of poison, for instance). That, combined with the sometimes overbearing prose and a slightly cavalier approach to historical fact (Churchill was never one to let facts seriously get in the way of a good story - a perspective I can appreciate, but not condone in a history book) mean that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who didn't already know a lot about English history. If you do like English history, and you appreciate the prose style, it's not a bad way to pass an evening or two.
I was struck by a couple of things whilst I read through the book. One was the comparison between William the Conqueror and his sons and the Godfather; William I had three sons -Sonny Robert, the eldest, a superb soldier, but absolutely useless at everything else, Fredo William Rufus, the middle (and least interesting) sibling, reasonably competent in himself, but ultimately his younger, more cunning sibling Michael Henry feels compelled to send him on a boat ride take him on a hunting trip. To be fair, there are those that claim William Rufus' death was an accident. The best marksman in England mistook the king for a small deer.
It is also interesting that, although history is usually written by the victors, Harold Godwinsson gets a surprisingly good write up. Courageous, cunning, funny, there always seems to be a feeling that although William I won, Harold really should have. Partly, I think it's the typical English sympathy for the underdog (witness the passages in 1066 and All That about how the British army can only win when heavily outnumbered), and partly that he was the last actually English king England ever had. There is something sympathetic about him, violent warlord though he was. Of course, given that the alternative was William I, one of our more effective, but least sympathetic rulers, that's not hard. One cannot imagine William replying to a demand for his kingdom by saying "they say he is taller than other men, so I will give him seven foot of English earth, from his head to his feet." Nor, had William fallen at Hastings, would we have an image as enduring as Edith Swan Neck wandering the field, searching for her fallen lover.
There are some kings though, about which nobody has a good word to say. Churchill does point out that we owe the development of parliamentary democracy, and all our modern freedoms to our least competent monarchs. If every ruler we had was of the calibre of Henry II, we'd be living in an absolute monarchy now. Still, it's hard to warm to figures like Ethelred the Unready, Edward II or Richard II. It is unfortunate that modern English renders Ethelred Unraed as "Ethelred the Unready". In the original Old English, the pun is rather more subtle; Ethelred means "Noble Counsel" - Unraed translates as variously "No Counsel", "Evil Counsel" and "Traitorous Weasel" - all of which are quite appropriate. Trying to commit genocide is evil. Trying to commite genocide against the vikings? Stupid and evil. Trying to commit genocide against the vikings and murdering the sister of the king of all the vikings? Very, very stupid. And also evil.
Churchill's verdict on Edward II is that he was a "perverted weakling". The book is showing the prejudices of it's age there really; we've had other gay kings (off hand, William Rufus and Richard I for definite, and possibly James I). But it doesn't tend to get mentioned, because they were (for the most part) competent. Edward II was certainly weak though. One does tend to feel slightly sorry for Isabella ("The She Wolf of France") during the early stages of her marriage. On the other hand, murdering one's spouse isn't really behaviour I can condone. And any method of death which has a description including the words "hot" and "poker" isn't a nice way to go.
Churchill seems to be quite keen on Richard II however. I don't know why. The man was less trustworthy than Nick Clegg; once he says "villeins ye are and villeins ye shall remain" to the peasants who put their trust in him, all my sympathy for him dies. That said, Richard II does showcase one crucial feature of the English people. They will not pay a Poll tax. Not in 1385, and not in 1985.
There is something archaic about a lot of the language in A E Housman's Collected Poems. It's not a large book, but about half of it is filler. Basically, A Shropshire Lad is excellent - there both considering the individual poems and as a collection - and everything else is a bit crap. A Shropshire Lad felt similar in some ways to the Wasteland (by T.S. Eliot) to me; both are books of poems conceived as a single work, rather than just a collection; the Wasteland is technically a single poem, whilst A Shropshire Lad is clearly a collection, but in both the style and rhyme scheme of the poems changes rapidly and titles are sparse in A Shropshire Lad, giving the poems more of the feel of stanzas within a larger whole. The development of themes across the poems, and consistently through the book, also helps with that impression. Both Eliot and Housman make deliberate use of archaic (but very beautiful) grammatical constructions.
Housman's poems are very melancholy, but it is a Victorian melancholy (not surprising - A Shropshire Lad was published in 1896). Reading the poems, one can almost smell the fresh cut grass after rain, and see the old horse-drawn plough in the field. Many of the protagonists go to join the army, but it is the British army of 1815, rather than that of 1914 - or rather, I guess, the army of 1914 but not that of 1916; an army where you stand in line in a field in a red coat, and take a musket ball to the chest, fighting people you don't know for reasons you don't understand. If you die (and melancholy as Housman is, you almost certainly will), you die quickly, and are buried in a green field. No drowning in mud; no gas. It is a genteel death; in that Housman is far more romantic even than Kipling. For all his jingoism, Kipling knew well enough that battles are nasty, messy, scary places. I think the best comparison is actually with Tennyson's Maud (appropriately enough, a very maudlin poem), although Housman's characters are much further from top of the social pyramid; Tom, Dick and Harry drinking in the village pub, rather than Sebastian wandering his ancestral halls. And for that reason, they are far more sympathetic (to me, at least). Great Britain's attempt to steal the planet in the 19th Century was a bad thing; it had a lot of evil effects that we still feel today. That said, I've always felt sorry for the poor bastards in red coats who were sent somewhere east of Suez to do the stealing; they didn't plan it, they didn't get anything out of it (apart from possibly an interesting tropical disease) and, in an era before universal suffrage, it wasn't their fault their country was being run by thieving socipaths.
*If I ever have a child, I will be tempted to name them Ulfkill.
You can always tell by the magisterial prose when a book was written by Churchill, and The Birth of Britain is no exception. The first volume of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples is one of his later works (completed 1956, after Churchill had suffered multiple strokes and handed the keys to Number 10 over to Eden). It covers the period from prehistory up until the battle of Bosworth (I don't know why we always date the end of the middle ages to the battle of Bosworth, but we do). Of course, for most of that period the British Isles weren't occupied by anyone speaking anything close to English, but Churchill doesn't let that stop him. Although inaccurate, I did find it quite refreshing; it's nice to see the Anglo-Saxons get some love. We tend to start English history in 1066, which means we miss some of the coolest names (Edmund Ironside, Ulfkill Snilling*) and most interesting events (St Brice's Day massacre) in history. The book is primarily designed to offer a popular introduction to British (well, mainly English) history; it leans heavily on kings and bishops - there's not much social history to be had. And it also tends to repeat romantic stories which are of slightly dubious provenance (Eleanor of Aquitaine offering fair Rosamund a dagger or a cup of poison, for instance). That, combined with the sometimes overbearing prose and a slightly cavalier approach to historical fact (Churchill was never one to let facts seriously get in the way of a good story - a perspective I can appreciate, but not condone in a history book) mean that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who didn't already know a lot about English history. If you do like English history, and you appreciate the prose style, it's not a bad way to pass an evening or two.
I was struck by a couple of things whilst I read through the book. One was the comparison between William the Conqueror and his sons and the Godfather; William I had three sons -
It is also interesting that, although history is usually written by the victors, Harold Godwinsson gets a surprisingly good write up. Courageous, cunning, funny, there always seems to be a feeling that although William I won, Harold really should have. Partly, I think it's the typical English sympathy for the underdog (witness the passages in 1066 and All That about how the British army can only win when heavily outnumbered), and partly that he was the last actually English king England ever had. There is something sympathetic about him, violent warlord though he was. Of course, given that the alternative was William I, one of our more effective, but least sympathetic rulers, that's not hard. One cannot imagine William replying to a demand for his kingdom by saying "they say he is taller than other men, so I will give him seven foot of English earth, from his head to his feet." Nor, had William fallen at Hastings, would we have an image as enduring as Edith Swan Neck wandering the field, searching for her fallen lover.
There are some kings though, about which nobody has a good word to say. Churchill does point out that we owe the development of parliamentary democracy, and all our modern freedoms to our least competent monarchs. If every ruler we had was of the calibre of Henry II, we'd be living in an absolute monarchy now. Still, it's hard to warm to figures like Ethelred the Unready, Edward II or Richard II. It is unfortunate that modern English renders Ethelred Unraed as "Ethelred the Unready". In the original Old English, the pun is rather more subtle; Ethelred means "Noble Counsel" - Unraed translates as variously "No Counsel", "Evil Counsel" and "Traitorous Weasel" - all of which are quite appropriate. Trying to commit genocide is evil. Trying to commite genocide against the vikings? Stupid and evil. Trying to commit genocide against the vikings and murdering the sister of the king of all the vikings? Very, very stupid. And also evil.
Churchill's verdict on Edward II is that he was a "perverted weakling". The book is showing the prejudices of it's age there really; we've had other gay kings (off hand, William Rufus and Richard I for definite, and possibly James I). But it doesn't tend to get mentioned, because they were (for the most part) competent. Edward II was certainly weak though. One does tend to feel slightly sorry for Isabella ("The She Wolf of France") during the early stages of her marriage. On the other hand, murdering one's spouse isn't really behaviour I can condone. And any method of death which has a description including the words "hot" and "poker" isn't a nice way to go.
Churchill seems to be quite keen on Richard II however. I don't know why. The man was less trustworthy than Nick Clegg; once he says "villeins ye are and villeins ye shall remain" to the peasants who put their trust in him, all my sympathy for him dies. That said, Richard II does showcase one crucial feature of the English people. They will not pay a Poll tax. Not in 1385, and not in 1985.
There is something archaic about a lot of the language in A E Housman's Collected Poems. It's not a large book, but about half of it is filler. Basically, A Shropshire Lad is excellent - there both considering the individual poems and as a collection - and everything else is a bit crap. A Shropshire Lad felt similar in some ways to the Wasteland (by T.S. Eliot) to me; both are books of poems conceived as a single work, rather than just a collection; the Wasteland is technically a single poem, whilst A Shropshire Lad is clearly a collection, but in both the style and rhyme scheme of the poems changes rapidly and titles are sparse in A Shropshire Lad, giving the poems more of the feel of stanzas within a larger whole. The development of themes across the poems, and consistently through the book, also helps with that impression. Both Eliot and Housman make deliberate use of archaic (but very beautiful) grammatical constructions.
Housman's poems are very melancholy, but it is a Victorian melancholy (not surprising - A Shropshire Lad was published in 1896). Reading the poems, one can almost smell the fresh cut grass after rain, and see the old horse-drawn plough in the field. Many of the protagonists go to join the army, but it is the British army of 1815, rather than that of 1914 - or rather, I guess, the army of 1914 but not that of 1916; an army where you stand in line in a field in a red coat, and take a musket ball to the chest, fighting people you don't know for reasons you don't understand. If you die (and melancholy as Housman is, you almost certainly will), you die quickly, and are buried in a green field. No drowning in mud; no gas. It is a genteel death; in that Housman is far more romantic even than Kipling. For all his jingoism, Kipling knew well enough that battles are nasty, messy, scary places. I think the best comparison is actually with Tennyson's Maud (appropriately enough, a very maudlin poem), although Housman's characters are much further from top of the social pyramid; Tom, Dick and Harry drinking in the village pub, rather than Sebastian wandering his ancestral halls. And for that reason, they are far more sympathetic (to me, at least). Great Britain's attempt to steal the planet in the 19th Century was a bad thing; it had a lot of evil effects that we still feel today. That said, I've always felt sorry for the poor bastards in red coats who were sent somewhere east of Suez to do the stealing; they didn't plan it, they didn't get anything out of it (apart from possibly an interesting tropical disease) and, in an era before universal suffrage, it wasn't their fault their country was being run by thieving socipaths.
*If I ever have a child, I will be tempted to name them Ulfkill.
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