Previous epic saga about King Arthur and his knights was so pretty, enjoyable and poetic that I have decided to check out something similar, but from a French side. After all, life is too short to waste it on trashy celebrity biographies and to my biggest surprise I found myself getting truly involved while reading about heroic deeds from centuries ago - not for nothing was my childhood spent with Greek mythology - this is something I enjoyed even more than Sir Gawain and my head buzzed from all that fire and brimstone.
Absolutely fascinating - kind of "Iliad" but set in early days of French kingdom and instead of Greek Gods, St.Gabriel visits Charlemagne in a dreams to warn him about upcoming danger. Obscure poet Turold might or might have not been responsible for this masterpiece of epic saga that probably used to be recited out loud by the fires and to remind generations about heroic deeds by real people who actually fought at some point in history - naturally it is all embellished (Charlemagne was not two hundred years old, for the start) but names are real and yes, these people actually existed, lived and died very much as described here. So it could be taken as a historical document or poetic memory of something that occurred at the southern border of France. Names and historical figures abound - they can all be checked - focus is exclusively on warriors and their fights, horses and weapons so not much of romance and frills (two single female figures appear and they both faint while men are doing the fights) but fights are fierce and there is a blood everywhere - I am surprised Hollywood have not filmed this, because it reads as some swashbuckling spectacle made for big screen.
Its Christians against Muslims so naturally it reflects its time - I guess this was just around First Crusade - of course we read it differently now and have different sensibility than people back than, however it does describe even enemies as noble and brave in order to make them more dangerous towards our heroes - each knight is listed by name and we got detailed description of what they wore and their image, on both sides. It is not Muslims or their king but Christian lord Ganelon who is the ultimate villain and he gets classic, unforgettable treatment which by the way was quite popular back than.
Excellent - I enjoyed this so much that I might even re-visit it again.
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