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henry_michael03's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.0
casparb's review
3.0
A peculiar endeavour but interesting. Much prefer it to the highly repetitive Morte D'Arthur (at least, the 800+page one. Sure there are better Arthurian texts). Roland is repetitive in such a way that could possibly grate upon the modern reader, but the brevity of the three stories is such that it doesn't ruin the experience as a whole.
Roland himself is rather Achillean in the first narrative - the titular Song. Plenty of the battle scenes seem to owe something to the Iliad or Aeneid but perhaps that's just how one thought of battles at the time. Also Biblical things happening - Books of Samuel are useful. Daniel too. I've been going over the Bible lately anyway so just happened to notice.
An awful lot of tonal variation between the three stories too! The last narrative, wherein Charlemagne et al go to Jerusalem is Pythonesque - wonderfully so. The boasting scene is an all timer.
Anyway! I think this will be a divisive one, but it's highly accessible and at times quite fun. Certainly a major achievement of its era.
Roland himself is rather Achillean in the first narrative - the titular Song. Plenty of the battle scenes seem to owe something to the Iliad or Aeneid but perhaps that's just how one thought of battles at the time. Also Biblical things happening - Books of Samuel are useful. Daniel too. I've been going over the Bible lately anyway so just happened to notice.
An awful lot of tonal variation between the three stories too! The last narrative, wherein Charlemagne et al go to Jerusalem is Pythonesque - wonderfully so. The boasting scene is an all timer.
Anyway! I think this will be a divisive one, but it's highly accessible and at times quite fun. Certainly a major achievement of its era.
bored_and_confused's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
1.25
audryt's review
2.0
Thank God our species has evolved since this was written. Not by much, but thank God anyway.
deltabelta's review
2.0
The first of the French Songs of Deeds, this book is mostly interesting in elucidating what the crusader states thought of muslims, or “paynims”. They apparently didn’t know much about them, believing they worshipped Roman gods and practiced sorcery. Yet fascinatingly, they also seem to reverse muslims as brave, noble and respectable, and repeatedly the author declares they’d make perfect knights “if only they were Christian”. I’m sure this book remained popular for centuries partly due to the middle ages’ ambivalence about and fascination with Muslims, particularly after details spread of Saladin’s magnanimity during the Third Crusade.
paulinetete8's review against another edition
3.0
« Il a appris beaucoup, celui qui a beaucoup souffert. »