(no subject)

[skygiants]

My library books are overflowing my shelf! I have been trying so hard to keep my return rate higher than my check-out rate, so I went to the library and returned four books yesterday on the way to my dance class . . . and walked out with five. In my defense, two of them are extremely short! Um.

Anyways, booklogging: I forget where I heard the existence of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes mentioned, but since I still have a whole slew of Crusades facts buzzing around in my head from the class I took my final semester at school I was definitely intrigued. And rightfully! I had read several of the Arab sources on the Crusades that he uses in class, but it was very cool to have someone string them all together into a coherent narrative, focusing mostly on the time period from the First Crusade through the Fourth. Admittedly I got a little confused between all the different sultans and emirs, but that is because one of them was assassinated literally every other page, which made it somewhat tricky to keep track. The levels of infighting were fascinating and ridiculous, on both sides. The author also has a giant crush on Saladin, but it's hard to blame him, because really who doesn't? (He has his own animated TV show in Malaysia!)

I do wish Maalouf had used even more of the primary source material than he did, but I am spoiled; my favorite Crusades text is still Jean de Joinville's Chronicles of the Crusades, which is a primary source narrative from the Fourth Crusade and awesome. I do get the impression Maalouf interpolates more primary narrative than a lot of history texts do. I also really liked his epilogue, in which he delves a little bit into the possible consequences of the Crusades for contemporary relations, and I sort of wish he'd had the room to go into that more. Anyways, recommended for anyone who has an interest in medieval history.

Comments

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

(He has his own animated TV show in Malaysia!)

I know the dude who writes that! :D I promised to nominate it for Yuletide next year, haha. I don't think it's out yet, though.

[skygiants]

!!! Seriously? Dude, that's so awesome, I would totally read Saladin Yuletide fic! And, you know, actually watch the show. We saw the trailer in the Crusades class I took, and I hunted around for it afterwards and somehow got the impression that it was out but not in English.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

For serious! Is it sort of Disney-influenced animation and characters with mid-Atlantic accents? 'Cos if it is, it's the same one (and I'm finding it hard to imagine that there's more than one Saladin animated TV show in Malaysia, anyway *g*). And it was definitely written in English, though I don't know if they are planning to dub it for release in different countries.

[skygiants]

It is! I think maybe the trailer I found online had been dubbed into a different language or was being promoted by someone with a youtube account in a different language or something, which is what confused me. I am so so so hunting it down when it comes out though.

(YOU NEVER KNOW, Saladin is possibly just that awesome!)

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Have I told you to read Catherine Jinks' Pagan Chronicles yet? Because I can 100% guarantee that you will ADORE them. I babbled about them a bit here (http://fahye.livejournal.com/452644.html) and then had a minor continued squeefest in the comments to the post.

[skygiants]

I remember seeing your babble and making a mental note to acquire them/eyeing them every time I was in the bookstore and then forgetting to read them because I was at school at the time with no YA books in the library! And now I am in a place with MULTITUDES of YA books on the library, which means that now I have been reminded I am going to go put them on my request list now. :D

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I am really looking forward to seeing what you think of them :) I also think you'd like -- if you can find it, it's quite old and difficult to locate -- Linnets & Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge, which reads kind of like Diana Wynne Jones by way of Enid Blyton and Jane Austen's lovechild. Siblings! Magic! I reread it this year and immediately started writing very bizarre fic for it.

[skygiants]

. . . wow, that sounds like something that is 100% up my alley. Fortunately the New York Public Library is a place of miracles! They seem to have two reference copies and one for-real copy that is currently out but will be mine once whatever person has it now brings it back.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! If you like it, I also recommend The Little White Horse by the same author -- fewer siblings, but more wacky subplots to do with curses and pirates and unicorns and imaginary friends who turn out to be real (it was my ULTIMATE comfort book at a child. it also describes food in long loving detail, that way older English children's books do). Both of them are about children coming to a place and having to fix it somehow, usually through learning about the mistakes made in the past and doing something to being balance.

[skygiants]

Oh how I love books that describe food - I used to read the Narnia tea-party scene right before dinner every day when I was little to make me hungry!

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Oh, you'll LOVE Elizabeth Goudge :D

I also feel I should inform you that the first Pagan book, Pagan's Crusade, contains some pretty awesome Saladin-fanboying on the part of the protagonist.

[skygiants]

*giggling* You are so very not helping with the problematic library intake/outtake ratio mentioned at the top of my post!

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Pfff, you can get through these books pretty quickly!

[avariel-wings.livejournal.com]

The author also has a giant crush on Saladin, but it's hard to blame him, because really who doesn't?

I know I do! Seriously, even the less-rabidly-bigoted Crusaders thought he was awesome.

[skygiants]

I know! And even some of the nastier ones - I find it hilaroius how Richard the Lionheart also had a ginormous mancrush on him (in an enemies sort of way, obviously) and spent all this time trying to meet with him during the Third Crusade, and Saladin was like "um we do not have dinner while you are trying to invade my lands, that makes for awkwardness. You can have my brother to hang out with you, if you insist."

[avariel-wings.livejournal.com]

There's this story about how a Western woman's baby was stolen and sold as a slave and when she took it up with Saladin, he bought the baby back for her. Admittedly, that seems to be a Muslim writer, but monks talked about his chivalry in the chronicles.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that story was actually related in the book! And apocryphal or not, it's better than ever got related about any of the European kings even by their own chroniclers. (Admittedly, the European chronicles often tended towards a kind of frat-boy "WHOO YEAH, we resorted to cannibalism, BECAUSE WE ARE THAT HARDCORE!!!!" so, you know.)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Richard the Lionheart had ginormous mancrushes on lots of people.

[skygiants]

So true! Where by 'giant mancrush' you mean 'historically probable hot gay sex' in many cases. (Although probably not with Saladin.)

[ceitfianna]

I have the same problem. I think I always have at least two books out, possibly one on hold since the library here is small.

That sounds really interesting, I love that era which is partially why I'm such a Robin Hood fan.

[skygiants]

My big problem is that I have two library systems now - so whenever I get it into my head to reserve something, I check if it's at one and then at the other, and then I end up reserving like ten things at each, and then they all come in at once and I end up with six books out from each library. :O

It was definitely interesting - I mean, don't go in expecting a romanticized version at all but it's a fascinating story all the same.