Book Review: The Land Beyond the Sea.
Taking a break from posting about world affairs, the various movements and politics in general, I thought I'd do a post about the various books I've been reading during the lockdown. Perhaps you would be interested if you find the time. First up, Sharon Kay Penman's "The Land Beyond the Sea":
I am a big fan of Penman's historical novels set in medieval England and Wales. This one - set in the crusader state of Jerusalem in the 12th century - is just as good. As always, she develops the characters well and really immerses you in the world of the historical setting.
The main focus of the story is Baldwin IV, the "Leper King" of Jerusalem. His life was so amazing it really is a case of truth being stranger than fiction. The man managed to lead armies, defeat numerically superior opponents, and be a competent king of a state constantly on the brink of crisis, while suffering from the horrific disease of leprosy, for which there was (and is) no cure. And he only had crude medieval medicine to ease his suffering. An interesting question is whether the crusaders could have held on to Jerusalem had Baldwin NOT had leprosy, and therefore was less hampered and didn't die young, to be succeeded by mediocrities.
This book - like Penman's other historical novels - really drives home the point that we are lucky to live today and not in the past. As she describes, it was very common for even members of the political and social elite to die young of disease and/or injury.
Penman tries hard to humanize both the crusader rulers and their Saracen opponents (Saladin and his brother Al Adil), and to try to get the reader to see their point of view. She's very good at it, and it may well be that Baldwin and Saladin were less awful than other rulers of the era. But awful they still were, routinely killing and enslaving innocent civilians, among other atrocities. Reading this made me even less sympathetic than before to either the Christian OR Muslim claims to rule the Holy Land. And it's not because I'm a big believer in any exclusive right of Jews to rule the land, either. But I promised to stay away from current politics, so I will.
While we tend to think of the era of the Crusades as a straight-up conflict between Christians and Muslims, in reality, as the book makes clear, Crusader rulers often made alliances with some Arab Muslim rulers against others, and the latter were often happy to get the support of infidels against their more immediate enemies. Religion regularly played second fiddle to power politics. In that respect, the medieval world was less different from our own than it might seem.
In sum, if you like historical fiction, and have any interest at all in the Crusades or in the Middle Ages generally, I recommend this book - and Penman's other books, too.