Customer Reviews

The Holy Grail

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Surely, after reading this entire book, I deserve some sort of prize as reward for my efforts. Undoubtedly, reading this book requires an uncommon effort on behalf of the reader. Goodrich employs a writing style even more idiosyncratic and unwieldy than my own. I don't think she is a terrible writer, all the same, and I must praise anyone who is able to get an editor to accept passive sentences. Nonetheless, there are sentences that, no matter how many times I read them, do not seem to be sentences at all, just expressions that often make no sense. On a broader level, many passages in the book either do not seem to relate to the topic at hand, namely the Holy Grail, or else they only make sense if the reader already knows much of the information that the author assumes her readers know (doubtless, she assumes we have already read her books on Arthur, Merlin, etc.). I never really grasped the relevance of Esclamonde in the story, even though the author devotes a lengthy chapter to her. There are some sections, I must say, that are interesting and less arcane, particularly the section about the innately interesting Knights Templar. A remarkable sentence in this section leaped out at me (as no other sentence did, I assure you). When alluding to the tortures inflicted on the Knights Templar in France, she writes "No woman, it is certain, can believe that any man alive would torture another man in such ways." Regrettably, to my morbid tastes, she doesn't really detail these horrible acts. What makes this sentence so interesting is the fact that Goodrich's feminism is clearly evident throughout the whole book. In fact, some sections seem to degenerate into a feminist diatribe bearing almost no relation to the Grail quest. I guess the sentence referenced above means that women are less bestial than men; if not, it sounds like a Victorian sentiment about the daintiness of women. In the end, I can't really recommend this book to the general reader. You just aren't going to find a lot of substantive information about the Holy Grail here, at least not the kind of information I was looking for. Maybe an expert in mediaeval literature would find this book much more stimulating and relevant than I did. If you want to prove to yourself that you are truly an intellectual, though, this may be the best test I can think of for you. Good luck.

This book displays some of the worst writing I've seen since editing my elementary school newsletter. I can't believe this thing made it through an editor. Bad grammar, twisted logic, and non-sequiters abound, and I didn't even make it to page 50. It would be pointless to try to address how well the author conveys her thoughts, because if those thoughts are present in the book at all, they're unreachable. Pick up something by Baigent and Leigh if you're interested in actually learning about the Grail legend.

Reading contrary interpretations or views of historical events and influences often means mining for facts, for bits of intellectual insight which enable the reader to reassemble the necessary sequences to distinquish cause from effect. The reader's mining of such information from this book is tedious, laborious and minimally productive. The text is full of fits and starts, restarts and redundancies, and so many non sequiturs that it approaches comedic proportions. I kept reading in hopes of finding something worthwhile or substantive, with little actual result. I kept wanting to throw the book across the room in frustration. Don't study it and hope to retain your sanity for long.

For all of Dr. Goodrich's energetic prose, she understands neither the medieval Arthurian Grail tradition nor the variant forms of the Grail tradition as they existed in medieval culture. Judging by the visual arts, a form of the Grail history was known possibly as early as 200 C.E. with the tradition exploding in popularity during the Middle Ages. Variant Arthurian tales (most of which bring the Grail to Europe in the time of Joseph of Arimathea, the first century C.E.) can be accounted for by historical impact from the Sanct Sang traditions, by legends of sacred treasure, and by folk traditions, some of which still flourish today. The Grail story is Continental in origin and transmits to the British Isles well after the dates it appears in the Rhine region, Brittany, and southern France. Dr. Goodrich weaves an eminently believable fantasy that she misrepresents as historical fact and that is doing her readers a grave disservice.

I came searching for this book on Amazon because I checked it out from my library & don't want to give it back. Other opinions seem to indicate that the book is unreadable; however I find it much more readable than the usual fact-filled scholarese that's so dry it can't be choked down into consciousness. I'm just starting on my own Holy Grail quest, so mayhap my opinion should be considered 'beginner', but I've found this book interesting, easy to understand, with a great bibliography for further study. I also appreciate her liberal use of timelines, quotations & citings to break up the monotony of page after page of fact-filled text.

Overall, I'd rate it 4+; barely missed being a 5, because I think there IS a place for humor, even scholarly humor, in anything & everything.

Save your money. i found this book to be pure fiction & garbage very little research was done by the author. Its an Alice in wonderland tale.
credroadster@aol.com
R. P . C.