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189 of 207 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Written So Well, Overcame My Lack Of Background On Subject, April 10, 2000
This review is from: Deus Io Volt!: Chronicle of the Crusades (Hardcover)
I picked the book as I enjoy History, and Historically Based Fiction. The latter genre allows the reader to enjoy a story based on History without necessarily being very well versed in the period. The cover of this book says "A Novel By...", not even close. Mr. Connell describes the book thusly "I think of this as a book about the crusades, not an "historical novel" a term that suggests imaginary experiences and unlikely conversations. Monologues and dialogues in the book are paraphrased or condensed from those in medieval documents. Every meeting, every conversation, every triumph or defeat, no matter how small, was recorded centuries ago..." I do not spend much time reading the book jacket/advertising, so I found myself with a History book on the Crusades, despite the publisher's comment "a towering work of the imagination". I wondered if the jacket and the book matched. Listen to the man who wrote the book. What makes this book special is that it is so well written that the result is highly readable, this is not a textbook of the Crusades, or at least does not read like one. So Jean, a soldier on the Christian side of this epic, takes the reader with him and shares the immediacy of a firsthand experience. There are maps provided so that those names of places and cities that have not survived the last 1000 years, can be found easily by reference. It's true that the more you know about the topic the more easily you may read through this work. However, if your knowledge is limited as mine was at page one, you still will enjoy the book. Novel, Historical Fiction, or History? From the standpoint of a reader's enjoyment, it matters little. The writing talent overcomes what the reader may lack, and the reading experience is excellent.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkable, but to what purpose?, March 20, 2002
In this book, Evan Connell has engaged in a masterful literary exercise. He has consolidated a great deal of historical material into a pseudo-chronicle covering all of the Crusades. But while I can appreciate the difficulty for a modern author to master the material and an archaic style of writing, I couldn't help wondering whether this exercise was more interesting for the author than the reader. Connell faithfully captures the tone of medieval texts as he combines his sources into a harmonious whole. But what's the point for the reader? There are scholarly collections of translated medieval documents available. There are better interpretive histories of the Crusades available. And there is informative and entertaining historical fiction involving the Crusades available. Connell's book is somewhere in between all these. His tampering with original texts makes it inadequate to the scholar. It offers little in the way of interpretation of events or elaboration on context, so it fails as a history textbook. As historical fiction, its lack of dramatic tension keeps it well away from the likes of 'Ivanhoe' or even Harold Lamb's classic 'Iron Men and Saints'. 'Deus Lo Volt!' rises to the challenge of imitating medieval European texts, but like such texts, it's not terribly exciting to read. In the end, regrettably, it just never really engaged me as a reader.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Should you read this? God Wills It!, July 25, 2000
This review is from: Deus Io Volt!: Chronicle of the Crusades (Hardcover)
This is a very thick and heavy book, and looking through it, I can understand how someone might be hesitant to read it - every page is packed with dense text. No dialog breaks up the long paragraphs; it's almost as if you're looking at a history book. And in some ways, that's all Deus Lo Volt really is. It's like the history book I always wanted to read. Whereas the texts you read in school were dry and boring, Connell has spiced everything up with gory battle descriptions and popular rumors of the day. Every Crusade is covered, but most attention is given to the First and Third, and later on the narrator's experiences in the last Crusades. What Connell has done is conglomerate a ton of historical texts on the Crusades, most notably that of Jean de Joinville, and expanded upon them. It's hard to categorize this book. It isn't a novel and it isn't history. I'd say it's something like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood; like that book, which was deemed creative nonfiction, I'd say Deus Lo Volt is creative historical nonfiction. It also has a healthy dose of Cormac McCarthy-type prose; even Blood Meridian wasn't this descriptive about war and death. I also got a good chuckle out of the narrator's zeal; anytime a Turk is killed, Jean is sure that his soul will go immediately to hell. And anytime a Crusader falls in battle, his soul immediately ascends to Heaven, even if he was in the process of pillaging and destroying. The sad thing is that these Medieval jokers really believed this was true; I don't think they really understood the hypocrisy of their war. In their effort to "serve" a Christ who preached peace, they murdered hundreds of thousands and razed most of the Middle East. But that's not to say the Turks were completely innocent. But anyway, that's a historical debate that's been going on for ages. The point is, I found this book very entertaining and rewarding. The entire First Crusade impressed me the most, especially when the battle-weary Franks would experience "divine visitations," which would increase their desire to capture Jerusalem. Particularly funny is when one of them discovers what is obviously a Saracen spear, but claims that a vision told him that it was really the spear which pierced the side of Christ. Also, the Templars are featured in the book, and that's always good. All things considered, I'd recommend this book, but only if you're into history, or if you really want to delve into another time and place. Because unlike most other "typical" historical novels, Deus Lo Volt isn't just a period piece, with characters much like us who just happen to live in the Middle Ages; it is much more realistic than that, and the characters who populate it and the bloody events that transpire are very indicitave of the times. I wouldn't say it's a fun book, but I got some laughs out of it, especially the Fourth Crusade, when the pilgrims skipped Jerusalem and pillaged Constantinople instead. Those crazy Crusaders. What will they do next?
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