Subject: Re: (urth) mostly OT: Herodotus
From: matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 11:17:05 +0100

On 07/09/2003 01:22:17 Lisa Schaffer-Doggett wrote:

>past, calls to mind an excellent book that I'd like to recommend:
>"Deus Lo Volt!  Chronicle of the Crusades" by Evan S. Connell. 

> Anyway, "Deus Lo Volt!" is
>categorized as historical fiction but what it really is is the
>shoehorning of a gazillion primary sources into a comprehensive
>narrative of the Crusades from the first to the last.  It's narrator is
>Jean de Joinville, a knight of Saint Louis, the last real Crusader.
>All of the conversations and monologues are paraphrases of recorded
>encounters.  It is a beautiful book, well written and engaging,

I found "Deus Lo Volt!" deeply irritating.  The faux-chronicle style 
maddening.  The inconclusive narrative frustrating, very far from 
comprehensive.

Particularly nauseating (although possibly not the author's fault) was 
it's publication by an imprint whose principal line is historical work and 
with publicity that downplayed its fictional aspect to the point of 
invisibilty:  go took at Amazon.co.uk which categorizes it as history, 
Europe, Vikings, Dark Ages, Medieval Europe 501-1500.

Matthew

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