Jan. 23rd, 2004 04:33 pm
Novel views of the Middle Ages
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muckefuckAbout the only exertion I allowed myself while recuperating this week was reading. I finally finished off The good men by Charmaine Craig--a very satisfying novel overall, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't come away with a sack of quibbles. In fact, I first picked it up some months ago but couldn't get past the fact that she was using Gallicised forms of anthroponyms and toponyms. (The story is set in Languedoc some two centuries before Occitan lost its position as official language.) In fact, some of the action occurs in Catalonia and she even Gallicises some Catalan names, like Segre and Miquel. Grrr...
Yes, I know, Linguo-Boy sure has funny hangups, don't he? But there are non-linguistic missteps, too. For one thing, people read and write too much (generally for dramatic convenience). For instance, a corrupt mountain priest stumbles across a scroll of a sermon he wrote down years earlier and has a moment of--yes, that's what I said: It's 1300 and some goat-roper from Bumfuque-in-the-Pyrenees is writing down his sermons? (Of course, he never does seem to lack for money and luxuries, no matter how impoverished the village becomes, which I find strange.) One of the main characters finds a deathbed confession addressed to him by his mentor, years after the old man's death, and vows never to--yes, a monk is writing out his shameful past in a ledger to be discovered and read by a 15 year-old oblate. Another character reads Ovid silently in bed until his mute wife begs him to read aloud.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu and I discussed it, and it's not totally implausible, since the man has reason to hide his educated past and so might have taught himself to read silently. But the author doesn't even seem to realise that such behaviour is extraordinary for the time.
Some of the gaffes she makes out of striving too hard for dramatic effect. In one scene, the mountain priest is racing around to save his beloved during a thunderstorm. Meamwhile, our silent reader arrives after having seen the village "in the moonlight". Since the two accounts are separated in the book, I thought she might simply have forgotten, but she goes to write that he shelters from the rain in the church and then sees patterns of moonlight on the floor. Which is it? Is it storming or is the moon out? Other mistakes are clearly a product of approaching the subject from the outside. (She's part Burmese and was drawn to the subject of the Cathars, she says, because she's fascinated by a duality that doesn't exist in her mother's animist heritage.) At one point, the mountain priest writes the inquisitor to tell him that the entire village will be assembled "on the Feast Day of the Virgin". If you were brought up Catholic, you're laughing with me now--which feast day of which virgin? (As you might expect, Montaillou has its very own, Notre Dame des Carnesses, whose charming story should be very familiar to anyone who had to sit through a filmstrip about Our Lady of Fatima or Lourdes.)
But she excuses herself by saying that she's writing fiction, not historiography, and I can't argue with that--especially when she produces such fluid, glowing prose. I sometimes had the feeling that the characters were too much the same--they all explore their faith through carnal thoughts and seem to get off in the same way by communing with God's green earth. However, that feeling was dissipated by the conclusion, since they all meet their diverse fates in ways that emphasise their differences. There aren't enough novels out there that are satisfying reads and get you interested in exploring the history of a very particular place and time. In fact, there's so much on 14th-century Montaillou available--even on the web--that I lost a little respect for her research--she's working a well-harrowed field--even as I gained respect for her authorship.
That respect only grew when I picked up In a dark wood wandering (the English translation of De woud der verwachting), whichmonshu had bought and cast aside. It's an epic novel of Charles VI of France's court--that is, if one's using "epic" not in the sense of "characteristic of an epos" but "overstuffed with historical detail". You spend the first score of pages tripping over one noble name after another, with background on the court conflicts supplied in shoehorned flashbacks. The narrative better come to fore soon or this is going back into the dusty pile I pulled it from.
Yes, I know, Linguo-Boy sure has funny hangups, don't he? But there are non-linguistic missteps, too. For one thing, people read and write too much (generally for dramatic convenience). For instance, a corrupt mountain priest stumbles across a scroll of a sermon he wrote down years earlier and has a moment of--yes, that's what I said: It's 1300 and some goat-roper from Bumfuque-in-the-Pyrenees is writing down his sermons? (Of course, he never does seem to lack for money and luxuries, no matter how impoverished the village becomes, which I find strange.) One of the main characters finds a deathbed confession addressed to him by his mentor, years after the old man's death, and vows never to--yes, a monk is writing out his shameful past in a ledger to be discovered and read by a 15 year-old oblate. Another character reads Ovid silently in bed until his mute wife begs him to read aloud.
monshu and I discussed it, and it's not totally implausible, since the man has reason to hide his educated past and so might have taught himself to read silently. But the author doesn't even seem to realise that such behaviour is extraordinary for the time.Some of the gaffes she makes out of striving too hard for dramatic effect. In one scene, the mountain priest is racing around to save his beloved during a thunderstorm. Meamwhile, our silent reader arrives after having seen the village "in the moonlight". Since the two accounts are separated in the book, I thought she might simply have forgotten, but she goes to write that he shelters from the rain in the church and then sees patterns of moonlight on the floor. Which is it? Is it storming or is the moon out? Other mistakes are clearly a product of approaching the subject from the outside. (She's part Burmese and was drawn to the subject of the Cathars, she says, because she's fascinated by a duality that doesn't exist in her mother's animist heritage.) At one point, the mountain priest writes the inquisitor to tell him that the entire village will be assembled "on the Feast Day of the Virgin". If you were brought up Catholic, you're laughing with me now--which feast day of which virgin? (As you might expect, Montaillou has its very own, Notre Dame des Carnesses, whose charming story should be very familiar to anyone who had to sit through a filmstrip about Our Lady of Fatima or Lourdes.)
But she excuses herself by saying that she's writing fiction, not historiography, and I can't argue with that--especially when she produces such fluid, glowing prose. I sometimes had the feeling that the characters were too much the same--they all explore their faith through carnal thoughts and seem to get off in the same way by communing with God's green earth. However, that feeling was dissipated by the conclusion, since they all meet their diverse fates in ways that emphasise their differences. There aren't enough novels out there that are satisfying reads and get you interested in exploring the history of a very particular place and time. In fact, there's so much on 14th-century Montaillou available--even on the web--that I lost a little respect for her research--she's working a well-harrowed field--even as I gained respect for her authorship.
That respect only grew when I picked up In a dark wood wandering (the English translation of De woud der verwachting), which
monshu had bought and cast aside. It's an epic novel of Charles VI of France's court--that is, if one's using "epic" not in the sense of "characteristic of an epos" but "overstuffed with historical detail". You spend the first score of pages tripping over one noble name after another, with background on the court conflicts supplied in shoehorned flashbacks. The narrative better come to fore soon or this is going back into the dusty pile I pulled it from.Tags:
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Silent reading
In the Confessions Augustine reports his surprise that Ambrose did not read aloud (when reading to himself):
Confessions 6.3 (AD 397-98):
When he read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart explored
the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was
still. All could approach him freely, and it was not usual
for visitors to be announced, so that often, when we came to
see him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he
never read aloud. We would sit there quietly, for no one had
the heart to disturb him when he was so engrossed in study.
After a time we went away again, guessing that in the short
time when he was free from the turmoil of other men's affairs
and was able to refresh his own mind, he would not wish to be
distracted. Perhaps he was afraid that, if he read aloud,
some obscure passage in the author he was reading might raise
a question in the mind of an attentive listener, and he would
then have to explain the meaning or even discuss some of the
more difficult points. If he spent his time in this way, he
would not manage to read as much as he wished. Perhaps a more
likely reason why he read to himself was that he needed to
spare his voice, which quite easily became hoarse. But
whatever his reason, we may be sure it was a good one.
Much has been made of this, but more research would be called for to draw any hard and fast conclusions.
See also:
http://www.chelationtherapyonline.com/anatomy/p145.htm