Customer Reviews

The Red Keep (Adventure Library)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Red Keep has strong positive role models for both boys and girls. It has good historical accuracy. Allen French was a Harvard historian who was interested in the roots of modern government. He wrote a series of children's books each focusing on a different time period and a different form of government. The story is exciting, with real villians, intrigue, suspense and last minute rescues. The hero shows some ethnic and class sensitivity within the context of the historical times. It is never forced or overly moralistic. All the lessons fit well within the framework of a well crafted plot.

Set in Burgundy in 1167, this novel combines excitement with a very real and deep knowledge of life in medieval France, especially in backwater areas. The rescue of the Red Keep involves learning about class differences, guilds, the treatment of Jews, and more, but the background is never forced, and neither are the moral lessons. It's all of a piece with the story. From another writer, it would've gotten 5 stars, but I wound up comparing this book to the same writers THE STORY OF ROLF AND THE VIKING BOW.

I read this book after purchasing it for my children to help them learn of life in the middle ages. I found myself so involved in the story I did not realize how much I was learning! It is a wonderful story with excellent moral lessons. It has interesting battle information that would keep a boys interest yet a little romance to keep a girls. I found it a wonderful resource.

The cover art for this book always intrigued me, so at last I decided to pick it up and read it. I was not disappointed. This is the story of the petty nobility of 12th century Burgundy. With the political system of the province in a state of flux thanks to the minority of the Duke, one family, the Sauval, amasses power and wealth by robbing travelers and raiding neighboring baronies. The Red Keep is the stronghold of one such barony. It is raided by the Sauval and the Baron is put to the sword--only his daughter, Anne, is rescued by the noble Baron Roger and his men, among them a young page named Conan. In the aftermath of the attack, the damaged keep is left abandoned--the bone of contention around which the story revolves.

The main character, Conan, is immediately sympathetic. He is strong, brave, and chivalrous to a fault, but young man that he is, he makes occasional bone-headed decisions that nearly cost him his life. As the story progresses, Conan's youthful naivete transforms into savvy adulthood as he carefully plans a strategy to thwart the Sauval.

The character of Anne is also appealing. Though she is presented in fighting trim throughout the book, she is not given unrealistic strength or the ability to strike down fighting men twice her size--a common but ludicrous feature of much modern literature. Anne's true strength lies in her courage, her determination to regain her father's fief and her willingness to step outside of the expected female role, even in the face of difficult odds, for the sake of justice. In this, I thought she resembled St. Joan of Arc.

Overall, I loved this book. The main characters were good and solid, and the antagonists were suitably detestable. The story itself and the writing are also first rate. Add to this the great black & white illustrations by Andrew Wyeth throughout, and you've got a real winner of a book, perfectly suited for kids 10 and up, but easily read and enjoyed by adults as well.

As an enthusiast of period adventure stories by the likes of Dumas, Stevenson, Sabatini, etc., etc., I found myself immensely entertained by this well-paced swashbuckler of the Middle Ages. I had never heard of Allen French, but he is the real deal. How refreshing to read a book designed for young readers that does not in any way talk down to its intended audience. Better written than most current adventure stories for adults, "The Red Keep" does an expert job of making palpable the hard realities of the distant past, and does so in a manner which does not soften the sometimes explosive violence. In fact, the body count in this book is rather breathtaking. The first time young Conan leaped, without hesitation, upon an assailant with dagger drawn, it actually startled me, and the multiple skull-shatterings and throat-slashings do not lose their impact through repetition.

If from my description "The Red Keep" sounds like an excruciatingly gruesome book, I assure you it is not. In fact, for all the backstabbing (both literal and metaphorical), it remains a satisfyingly romantic tale. It is rather old-fashioned in its sensibility, and I mean that in the most positive sense. I sincerely doubt any book for young readers, written today, would -- or could -- explore the questions of violence, religion, political intrigue, gender and race in remotely the same way. And certainly, the whole thing wouldn't be handled quite so literately. This is an adventure story for all ages, which recalled for me Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Black Arrow," right down to the odiously deformed villain.

"The Red Keep" originally appeared back in the late 1930s. I first learned of French's books when I saw them displayed, about a year ago, in an art museum gift shop, in conjunction with an exhibit of Andrew Wyeth's paintings. (Wyeth provides the illustrations, and his father, the great N.C., offers the totemic cover art.) Intrigued, I went home and added them to my Amazon wishlist. A year or so later, "The Red Keep" turned up under the Christmas tree. And as you can probably tell, it turned out to be a marvelous acquisition. I will be ordering "The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow" in the very near future.

"The Red Keep" is a very compelling adventure story set in the Middle Ages. The relationships Conan has with his friend and with the monks is very well developed. Any young boy would find the story lending to a lasting impression.
However, the book is not a good role model for "both boys and girls," for while it appears as if "the heroine" will be a major part of the story, she is not. The young girl is left out of all the fun stuff of secret passages and treasures and mystery. Instead, she is ignored in the story line and waits, like an obedient female, until her hero makes good at the end.
The book is NOT "culturally and ethnically sensitive," but rather relies on stereotypes of persecuted peoples that Conan always makes excuses for and rescues from "other" people's perceptions. While placing a person of "difference" within the story may have been, in its time, seen as acceptance and "sensitive," it truly is neither accepting or "sensitive," but full of stereotypes that do not need to be perpetuated.
Read it. Have your children read it. But be prepared to acknowldege what is there, and discuss how these sentiments are false and harmful to someone's identity, both from a personal as well as a societal perspective.