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A review by lukre
The Road to Jerusalem by Jan Guillou
2.0
Trip around the world book
Sweden is, as everyone knows, a country in the north of Europe. Its capital is Stockholm. It shares a land border with Finland and Norway. Its official language is Swedish. It is the land of Alexander (and other) Skarsgård(s), Dolph Lundgren, Alfred Nobel, and a smorgasbord of other cool people.
12th century Sweden consisted of two areas – Svealand and Götaland – which in that same century became one kingdom. This century in Sweden was marked by legendary warrior kings, landowners who would put their support behind their kings and sometimes even defied them. It was also a time of large estates that needed to be maintained by hard labour of the serfs (little more than slaves). It was also a time of large monasteries whose influence in the newly Christianized land was substantial. This was a time when familial allegiance and adherence to religious rules guided the everyday lives of men and women. (source: Britannica)
Jan Guillou is a Swedish author and journalist. He is famous for his spy fiction novels and his Templar trilogy The Knight Templar. He also owns a publishing company. As a journalist he exposed the secret intelligence organization in Sweden. So, he's presumably good at digging up interesting little tid bits – or so one would think.
SPOILER WARNING!
I chose this book mainly because it promised to show me the life of a Templar knight from Sweden. It also said it would show me the life in 12th century Sweden. Technically it showed me both, but not in the way I thought it would.
The book follows the life of Arn Magnusson, second son of an aristocrat in Sweden. As the second son, he wasn’t expected to inherit the estate, but neither was he expected to become a priest – but that is exactly what happened after he miraculously survived an accident.
Arn is sent to the monastery where he is taught by priests. He learns everything, from the Scripture to how to cook food to fighting and taming horses. And here is where the book becomes a bit less believable. Notice that this unbelievability did not start with the miracle of Arn’s survival following the accident. It should tell you something.
So, Arn learns everything practical so very very very fast. He's simply amazing! He is a bit slow intellectually however – he has trouble with certain religious dogmas, with the problem of happiness and satisfaction, with the idea of sanctity of human life….
He leaves the monastery to go back home, to spend some time back home before he can make a decision whether he really wants to become a priest. And while outside the monastery he is accused of abducting a bride on her wedding day and is forced into a duel where he kills a man with almost a single movie, is seduced by a girl (in a very confusing section of the book), and falls in love with her sister. At the same time he makes such changes at his father’s estate that one might thing he’d spent years implementing them, and not just a couple of months.
The fact that he’d slept with two sisters is a big no-no at that time and Arn is sentenced to become a Templar knight and to serve 20 years with them.
In addition to all this, the book’s plot is interrupted by frankly unnecessary accounts of royal intrigue, fights for power and expeditions of kings in Sweden. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against a little bit of history in a HISTORIC novel, but I would prefer those historic events to be of some importance to the main character’s story. The only importance those events have for Arn are that he gets to call different people his king.
So, to sum it up, the story unbelieveable (this poor kid must be a little Mozart or something), the plot is a bit watered down, and the side history is re-told in such a way that even a history buff like myself has trouble not falling asleep while reading it. (Just for comparison sake, I once even read a Dictionary and had a blast, and this one was too dry for me.)
If you think this is a bit harsh, I invite you to look at the Goodreads page of quotes from this book. I challenge you to find more than one quote worthy of that name.
I have to make a confession, however.
I think that my biggest problem with this book, and the reason why I didn’t like it, is the fact that I expected the book to take place in the Holy Land, with Templar knights going on raids and stuff. Not to be set in a monastery in the middle of nowhere Sweden. The reason I expected the former and was disappointed to get the later is the Goodreads blurb for the book:
IT TELLS THE ENTIRE STORY OF THE BOOK!!!!!
A blurb should just set the scene, not give the whole damn thing away. I, naively, believed that the things described in the blurb would take place in the first third of the book and then I’d be in the Holy Land, reading about knights and oases and harsh desert sun…. What I got was waste-water management in Swedish households of 12th century!
What I want to do to the author of the blurb
Now, as with ever other freakin’ book that comes out, this is just the first in a series of novels about Arn, but I will not be reading the rest of them. I think I’d be better off just sticking with proper history books when I want to satisfy my history cravings.
Sweden is, as everyone knows, a country in the north of Europe. Its capital is Stockholm. It shares a land border with Finland and Norway. Its official language is Swedish. It is the land of Alexander (and other) Skarsgård(s), Dolph Lundgren, Alfred Nobel, and a smorgasbord of other cool people.
12th century Sweden consisted of two areas – Svealand and Götaland – which in that same century became one kingdom. This century in Sweden was marked by legendary warrior kings, landowners who would put their support behind their kings and sometimes even defied them. It was also a time of large estates that needed to be maintained by hard labour of the serfs (little more than slaves). It was also a time of large monasteries whose influence in the newly Christianized land was substantial. This was a time when familial allegiance and adherence to religious rules guided the everyday lives of men and women. (source: Britannica)
Jan Guillou is a Swedish author and journalist. He is famous for his spy fiction novels and his Templar trilogy The Knight Templar. He also owns a publishing company. As a journalist he exposed the secret intelligence organization in Sweden. So, he's presumably good at digging up interesting little tid bits – or so one would think.
SPOILER WARNING!
I chose this book mainly because it promised to show me the life of a Templar knight from Sweden. It also said it would show me the life in 12th century Sweden. Technically it showed me both, but not in the way I thought it would.
The book follows the life of Arn Magnusson, second son of an aristocrat in Sweden. As the second son, he wasn’t expected to inherit the estate, but neither was he expected to become a priest – but that is exactly what happened after he miraculously survived an accident.
Arn is sent to the monastery where he is taught by priests. He learns everything, from the Scripture to how to cook food to fighting and taming horses. And here is where the book becomes a bit less believable. Notice that this unbelievability did not start with the miracle of Arn’s survival following the accident. It should tell you something.
So, Arn learns everything practical so very very very fast. He's simply amazing! He is a bit slow intellectually however – he has trouble with certain religious dogmas, with the problem of happiness and satisfaction, with the idea of sanctity of human life….
He leaves the monastery to go back home, to spend some time back home before he can make a decision whether he really wants to become a priest. And while outside the monastery he is accused of abducting a bride on her wedding day and is forced into a duel where he kills a man with almost a single movie, is seduced by a girl (in a very confusing section of the book), and falls in love with her sister. At the same time he makes such changes at his father’s estate that one might thing he’d spent years implementing them, and not just a couple of months.
The fact that he’d slept with two sisters is a big no-no at that time and Arn is sentenced to become a Templar knight and to serve 20 years with them.
In addition to all this, the book’s plot is interrupted by frankly unnecessary accounts of royal intrigue, fights for power and expeditions of kings in Sweden. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against a little bit of history in a HISTORIC novel, but I would prefer those historic events to be of some importance to the main character’s story. The only importance those events have for Arn are that he gets to call different people his king.
So, to sum it up, the story unbelieveable (this poor kid must be a little Mozart or something), the plot is a bit watered down, and the side history is re-told in such a way that even a history buff like myself has trouble not falling asleep while reading it. (Just for comparison sake, I once even read a Dictionary and had a blast, and this one was too dry for me.)
If you think this is a bit harsh, I invite you to look at the Goodreads page of quotes from this book. I challenge you to find more than one quote worthy of that name.
I have to make a confession, however.
I think that my biggest problem with this book, and the reason why I didn’t like it, is the fact that I expected the book to take place in the Holy Land, with Templar knights going on raids and stuff. Not to be set in a monastery in the middle of nowhere Sweden. The reason I expected the former and was disappointed to get the later is the Goodreads blurb for the book:
IT TELLS THE ENTIRE STORY OF THE BOOK!!!!!
A blurb should just set the scene, not give the whole damn thing away. I, naively, believed that the things described in the blurb would take place in the first third of the book and then I’d be in the Holy Land, reading about knights and oases and harsh desert sun…. What I got was waste-water management in Swedish households of 12th century!
Bad blurb! You should be ashamed of yourself!
What I want to do to the author of the blurb
Now, as with ever other freakin’ book that comes out, this is just the first in a series of novels about Arn, but I will not be reading the rest of them. I think I’d be better off just sticking with proper history books when I want to satisfy my history cravings.