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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
This book is certainly more scholarly than the marketing let on. It promised a book that gave us an intimate life of Charlemagne and his reign in a single volume -- while not quite pop history, the buzz around this book from mainstream media reviews indicated that this would be accessible to the non-scholar, and the author's own introduction stated the goal of this book would be to help us to understand Charlemagne the human being.
It doesn't quite achieve that. For one, it lacks the breezy writing and narrative strength of, say, a Barbara Tuchman or a John Julius Norwich (neither of whom, I hasten to add, are serious scholars of Nelson's mold, so perhaps it's an unfair comparison -- but they are competent storytellers who do bring us closer to their subjects, which was her stated goal, after all).
Most of her writing is plain and unadorned, minus her reliance on using certain Latin words/phrases instead of an English translation (the repeated use of "missi" comes to mind -- the word essentially means envoys -- while I understand the author's desire to be as precise with her language as possible, why not just say "envoys" and make things easier for her non-academic readers?).
In the intro, she talked about her goal of helping us to understand the man rather than the myth, and discussed the difficulty in doing just that, given the paucity of material to work with -- even if Charlemagne's reign was, by comparison, well documented for the time.
To her credit, Nelson has clearly done her research in studying the charters issued during his reign as well as other primary-source documents, and has extracted quite a lot of valuable information from them. But in spending so much time discussing these documents, I fear she lost sight of her original goal in bringing us closer to Charlemagne.
Who was he? What was he like? He won a number of military victories -- but how? We don't really know. She says he would split up his armies and then they'd win. He'd go raiding and beat the Saxons into submission, but never gets into any kind of detail in his military campaigns -- the size of his armies, the makeup, etc.
His oldest son led a rebellion against him -- why, and how? She doesn't really say, just that he was doing some palace intrigue with a few others. One day he plotted against his father and the next he was shipped off to a monastery. But why would he try to overthrow his father? Did they hate each other? Was the oldest son abused, or was he just stupid and greedy? How did his father really feel about this? Did it change his relationship with his other sons?
There are strides towards getting to know the man, and those are the strongest parts of the book. We know that Charlemagne liked to have his family close by; we know he liked to make jokes. We know that sometimes he had a volcanic temper, but that's only described via some of the charters. Was the temper, then, genuine or was it an affectation? We know that Charlemagne must have had a ferocious sex drive, because he had something like 19 children and multiple partners. But there's an odd section where it's hinted that he may or may not have been sexually active with his adult daughters -- Nelson never says it outright, but she skates close to the fact that there was something unusual about his court and his daughters.
And while I'm on sexuality, Nelson is oddly dismissive of the idea that his son, the Young Charles, may have been gay. She wrote there's basically no evidence to support this, but then later, casually mentions he was the subject of a poem where he was playing a flute for a man named Mochanaz, a play on the Arabic word for catamite. Flutes for catamites? Hmm. Young Charles was close to a man named Osulf (who might have been the inspiration for the catamite in the poem). And that the Young Charles never married or had kids. While it's true we can't possibly know for sure if he was gay, my gaydar was pinging like crazy and I wouldn't have been as dismissive as Nelson was. After all, she never provided any evidence to the contrary that the Young Charles was straight. She merely said that no serious scholar thinks that Young Charles is gay, and left it at that.
I'm sorry, but if you're the subject of a poem where you're blowing a phallic instrument for a gay kept boy, that certainly raises eyebrows and questions, and you've got to give us more than, "oh, nobody takes it seriously." It was shockingly tone-deaf in a book that was so well-extensively researched otherwise, and really felt like wilful denial on Nelson's part more than anything else. Again, I'm aware there's no way we can be truly sure of his homosexuality, but not to even attempt to provide any evidence showing otherwise for the Young Charles is what really undercut her blithe dismissal here.
Anyway, I was a little frustrated with this book, because the author's stated goal was to bring us closer to Charlemagne and give us a better sense of who the person was. Instead, I got a great sense of all the charters that were issued during his reign, but very little about the man himself. This book was very close to being very good, but Nelson's focus was on the academic structural underpinning of his life, rather than his life itself. And that made all the difference.
It doesn't quite achieve that. For one, it lacks the breezy writing and narrative strength of, say, a Barbara Tuchman or a John Julius Norwich (neither of whom, I hasten to add, are serious scholars of Nelson's mold, so perhaps it's an unfair comparison -- but they are competent storytellers who do bring us closer to their subjects, which was her stated goal, after all).
Most of her writing is plain and unadorned, minus her reliance on using certain Latin words/phrases instead of an English translation (the repeated use of "missi" comes to mind -- the word essentially means envoys -- while I understand the author's desire to be as precise with her language as possible, why not just say "envoys" and make things easier for her non-academic readers?).
In the intro, she talked about her goal of helping us to understand the man rather than the myth, and discussed the difficulty in doing just that, given the paucity of material to work with -- even if Charlemagne's reign was, by comparison, well documented for the time.
To her credit, Nelson has clearly done her research in studying the charters issued during his reign as well as other primary-source documents, and has extracted quite a lot of valuable information from them. But in spending so much time discussing these documents, I fear she lost sight of her original goal in bringing us closer to Charlemagne.
Who was he? What was he like? He won a number of military victories -- but how? We don't really know. She says he would split up his armies and then they'd win. He'd go raiding and beat the Saxons into submission, but never gets into any kind of detail in his military campaigns -- the size of his armies, the makeup, etc.
His oldest son led a rebellion against him -- why, and how? She doesn't really say, just that he was doing some palace intrigue with a few others. One day he plotted against his father and the next he was shipped off to a monastery. But why would he try to overthrow his father? Did they hate each other? Was the oldest son abused, or was he just stupid and greedy? How did his father really feel about this? Did it change his relationship with his other sons?
There are strides towards getting to know the man, and those are the strongest parts of the book. We know that Charlemagne liked to have his family close by; we know he liked to make jokes. We know that sometimes he had a volcanic temper, but that's only described via some of the charters. Was the temper, then, genuine or was it an affectation? We know that Charlemagne must have had a ferocious sex drive, because he had something like 19 children and multiple partners. But there's an odd section where it's hinted that he may or may not have been sexually active with his adult daughters -- Nelson never says it outright, but she skates close to the fact that there was something unusual about his court and his daughters.
And while I'm on sexuality, Nelson is oddly dismissive of the idea that his son, the Young Charles, may have been gay. She wrote there's basically no evidence to support this, but then later, casually mentions he was the subject of a poem where he was playing a flute for a man named Mochanaz, a play on the Arabic word for catamite. Flutes for catamites? Hmm. Young Charles was close to a man named Osulf (who might have been the inspiration for the catamite in the poem). And that the Young Charles never married or had kids. While it's true we can't possibly know for sure if he was gay, my gaydar was pinging like crazy and I wouldn't have been as dismissive as Nelson was. After all, she never provided any evidence to the contrary that the Young Charles was straight. She merely said that no serious scholar thinks that Young Charles is gay, and left it at that.
I'm sorry, but if you're the subject of a poem where you're blowing a phallic instrument for a gay kept boy, that certainly raises eyebrows and questions, and you've got to give us more than, "oh, nobody takes it seriously." It was shockingly tone-deaf in a book that was so well-extensively researched otherwise, and really felt like wilful denial on Nelson's part more than anything else. Again, I'm aware there's no way we can be truly sure of his homosexuality, but not to even attempt to provide any evidence showing otherwise for the Young Charles is what really undercut her blithe dismissal here.
Anyway, I was a little frustrated with this book, because the author's stated goal was to bring us closer to Charlemagne and give us a better sense of who the person was. Instead, I got a great sense of all the charters that were issued during his reign, but very little about the man himself. This book was very close to being very good, but Nelson's focus was on the academic structural underpinning of his life, rather than his life itself. And that made all the difference.
Amazing in both breadth and scope. The research was impeccable, and as the author writes in the conclusion, I do feel as if I have come nearer to Charlemagne. As a lay person, an armchair academic you can say, I appreciated the language and intensity of the research put into this book. Everything was presented so articulately and so well, it was a pleasure to read as someone intensely interested in history but with a majority of self-study in it. The medieval world is so often clumped together, and I believe this book does an excellent portrayal of how varied that time span is, with a focused eye on this particular man and empire he built.
Now this is an example of an impenetrably dense biography, full of academia's rigorous research with almost zero interesting prose to speak of. It's a helluva asset, and I'm glad to own it, but it is not for the faint of heart, and any intimidation you may feel at the thought of reading this is entirely justified.
slow-paced
it's a very cool exercise inasmuch as it tries to write annual histories of Charlemagnes life biographically and exposes the reader to the biases of the various sources that make up the accounts. It's really an interesting read.
A magisterial biography of the kind that only be written by someone who, like Janet Nelson, has spent decades immersed in the sources about its subject—in this case of Charles, king of the Franks, or Charlemagne, as he is more commonly known. King and Emperor is a tour de force in both biographical recovery and in taking the reader through the nuts and bolts of how historians do source analysis.
I’ve seen some reviews complaining that even in 500 pages, Nelson can only give us a very limited glimpse as to who Charles was as a person, but I think that misses the point—surely it’s impressive how much Nelson does recover about a person who predates the advent of photography, print, and the regular keeping of personal diaries by centuries. She wrings a lot out of generally impersonal and often stubborn sources, and tries to round out Charles as much as possible by situating him in the context of his family and other personal connections. (I particularly appreciated Nelson’s keeping an eye on the political importance of royal women during this period.) All that said, this will probably be a dense read for the average reader with a passing interest in the Middle Ages.
Still, if you stick with this book, you’ll probably find yourself agreeing with Nelson’s concluding words: “I have made a journey towards the Other. I have not found him — that would be ridiculously too much to hope for. But perhaps I have got nearer to him — and encouraged new generations of historians to get nearer still.”
I’ve seen some reviews complaining that even in 500 pages, Nelson can only give us a very limited glimpse as to who Charles was as a person, but I think that misses the point—surely it’s impressive how much Nelson does recover about a person who predates the advent of photography, print, and the regular keeping of personal diaries by centuries. She wrings a lot out of generally impersonal and often stubborn sources, and tries to round out Charles as much as possible by situating him in the context of his family and other personal connections. (I particularly appreciated Nelson’s keeping an eye on the political importance of royal women during this period.) All that said, this will probably be a dense read for the average reader with a passing interest in the Middle Ages.
Still, if you stick with this book, you’ll probably find yourself agreeing with Nelson’s concluding words: “I have made a journey towards the Other. I have not found him — that would be ridiculously too much to hope for. But perhaps I have got nearer to him — and encouraged new generations of historians to get nearer still.”
informative
slow-paced
I regret that this book did not work for me. Informative and deeply researched, but ploddingly written and poorly organized to the point of being nearly impenetrable.
Now this is an example of an impenetrably dense biography, full of academia's rigorous research with almost zero interesting prose to speak of. It's a helluva asset, and I'm glad to own it, but it is not for the faint of heart, and any intimidation you may feel at the thought of reading this is entirely justified.
informative
slow-paced