Customer Reviews

The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller

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

 

 

Giles Milton, in The Riddle and the Knight, goes (as per the sub-title) in search of Sir John Mandeville, the world's greatest traveller. This book came out before the author's more successful Nathaniel's Nutmeg and the dazzling Big Chief Elizabeth and has been reissued in the wake of these two wonderful books. This book in much different. It stills has the spicy and, often, humourous writing but the approach is not what one might expect. This book is about the author's adventures as he travels the same ground as the medieval knight, Sir John Mandeville. It is not a history of the medieval period although the middle ages do occasionally enter into the story at times but rather a look at continuity through the ages. It is interesting to see what changes and what does not and why. Giles Milton is an entertaining guide in this adventure and despite his constant prescence, this reader never got tired of him. Those expecting a book solving the mystery of Sir John Mandeville and examining his famous book of travels in detail will be dissappointed but those looking for a guide to the remaining Christian sites in the Mid-East are in for a treat.

Even more than Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville was considered the most renowned traveler and chronicler in medieval Europe. In 1322, Mandeville left England on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, returning over three decades later. Sir John claimed to have journeyed to the Holy Land, India, China, Tibet, and modern day Indonesia. He detailed his trek in "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" that became the Kerouac of his generation. However, Mandeville was written off in the nineteenth century due to his vivid descriptions of encounters with monsters and strange peoples that were at odds with Darwin.

Giles Milton chronicles his own journey that traces the steps claimed by Sir John. Readers will sense that Mr. Milton wants to believe in his "hero" by finding historical items to support Sir John's claims. The travels through Europe and the Middle East will fascinate those fans of historical travelogues as Mr. Milton supports the notion that Sir John was there, but he stops short of visiting China and Indonesia. Instead, Mr. Milton seems disappointed that he must agree with the Victorians that Sir John never made it to the Far East. The writing at that point loses its enthusiasm as Mr. Milton rationalizes that the latter part of "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" is a comparative allegory on Christianity. Overall this book will interest those readers who enjoy a historiographical look back at an influential fourteenth century person whose writing has gone out of favor.

Harriet Klausnr

A fairly irritating book about an important subject, this book is loaded with a collection of traveling non-sequiturs that are collated and vaguely related to findings of the author as he makes the same trip that Sir John Mandeville made starting in 1322. Mandeville wrote a book after his 34-year journey called The Travels that influenced many important people after him. For example, Christopher Columbus, influenced by Mandeville's book, proposed his voyage to the new world to Queen Isabella of Spain and was turned down. Months later, after Isabella had read Mandeville's book she was approached again by Columbus and she changed her mind, funding his history making voyage to the new world. Mandeville's book was used by many others as a reference for hundreds of years until somewhere in the 1800's when he and his book were discredited and Mandeville generally became known as a fraud, never having actually traveled to the places he claimed to have visited. In The Riddle and the Knight, Milton's trip to all the same places starts off with the promise of getting to the bottom of a very old debate, "Did Mandeville actually take the trip he claimed he took? By actually making the same trip today, what could be found to either prove or disprove Mandeville once and for all?" That's a great idea but the writer got bogged down including almost everything that happened to him on his 20th century journey whether it added to proving Mandeville's journey or not. On page 189, Milton is staying in a monastery in Egypt and two U.N. peacekeepers stumble upon the ancient institution. One of them is an American who is remarkably like Gomer Pyle. Halfway through this jewel, I paused and thought, "This episode will have no bearing whatsoever on what Milton is doing with his story." True enough, it didn't. It was simply a loud and colorful, intrusion into the quiet life of the monastery Milton was staying in. "What the heck. Let's put it in the book." Milton was fair in citing the frequent number of times that almost every ancient author would plagiarize one another and that Mandeville was not much different. Unlike the book's title, The Riddle and the Knight, any references to a riddle somewhere in the book were sparse, casual, and hugely unfulfilled. The author also missed the opportunity to properly observe that all early discoverers and travelers were at some point liars who all knew that keeping the attention of those who listened would sometimes require mention of the strange men foreign lands who have no heads, or really giant women from another distant land or strange elixirs that have remarkable healing powers. It's all part of giving the audience what they want or need to hear, from P.T. Barnum to Ripley's Believe It Or Not to the nightly news.

Though once one of the most famous men and influential authors in all of Christendom, Sir John
Mandeville's reputation has been in decline for roughly five hundred years. His book of Travels,
published in the mid 1300s, detailed his 34 year journey (1322-56) through the Near East, Middle East
and Far East, successively. For Europeans who knew little or nothing of these regions, his tales of
fantastic animals and of the legendary Prestor John seemed plausible enough and the book was
assumed to be true in its entirety. In fact, Shakespeare and Milton were influenced by his work and
Columbus is purported to have used it as the basis for his decision to try sailing to China by heading
West.

But then the great European explorers began to actually arrive in the places that Mandeville claimed to
have visited and, particularly when they reached the Far East, many of his more colorful observations
proved to be quite fanciful. Subsequent investigations by literary critics revealed that great swaths of
the book had been lifted from the writings of others, a practice that was not so uncommon in that
earlier day, but which necessarily raised further doubts about his veracity. The backlash against
Mandeville ultimately grew to the point where the very notion that he ever traveled came to be
doubted and even his existence was questioned by some.

According to Giles Milton, the more charitably inclined critics argued that the whole thing was
intended as a literary riddle, but one to which we had lost the key. Mr. Milton himself, who first came
upon the book when it literally fell off the shelf of a Paris bookstore, was so captivated by
Mandeville's prose that he set out to retrace his travels and try to vindicate his name. This book
recounts the journey, provides much background on Mandeville's, and offers Mr. Milton's solution to
the riddle.

Retracing Mandeville's footsteps, whether actual or fictional, takes Mr. Milton throughout the Middle
East, from Constantinople to Cyprus on through Syria, Jerusalem and the Sinai. An Englishman
abroad in a variety of Muslim states--featuring varying levels of paranoia and suspicion--Mr. Milton's
adventures and misadventures make for a very amusing and frequently fascinating read. It is
genuinely amazing how many of the sites that Mandeville "visited" still exist and it is very funny that
in nearly every one of them, no matter how remote the setting or how anti-Western the nation, Mr.
Milton seems to find a monk from somewhere in England. More germane to the book, he also finds
fairly compelling evidence that Sir John must have, or at least may have, truly seen them in person.
Gradually, Mr. Milton builds a case for both the genuine existence of Sir John and for the authenticity
of his travels through the Near and Middle East, though even he is dismissive of the possibility of Sir
John traveling to the Far East.

Thoughout, Mr. Milton is a companionable guide, his enthusiasm for Sir John infectious, and his
solution to the Knight's Riddle well defended. One assumes that this book is being republished
because Mr. Milton's subsequent books have done so well, both with critics and with general readers.
But, by happenstance, it also covers territory--the Islamic world--that we are all interested in right
now. This fortuitous timeliness is merely one more reason to check out a terrific book.

GRADE : A

What a disappointment . After reading one of Milton's other books I was excited to get this for Xmas. The book is a soft introduction to some of the history of both the Middle Ages, the Middle East, but thats it . I felt that the author had stumbled onto a possible winner but in the end it didnt pan out but had to publish a book to justify his travels ( and perhaps his advance ). Best I can say about the book is the bibliography. This alone was worth one star , otherwise I would have only given a rating of one star. Not a recommended buy

This book wears two faces: 1) a travel book, and 2) an attempt at some serious historical research. The author, Giles Milton, a professional writer/journalist, sets out to retrace the path of the legendary fourteenth-century traveler and writer, Sir John Mandeville. Milton's ostensible goal is to rehabilitate Mandeville's controversial reputation.

Sir John Mandeville was the alleged author of one of the most famous early-renaissance books. From about 1350 to 1800, his "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" was incredibly popular and influential, rivaling the Bible and Euclid's Elements. Then, about 1800, scholars began to question whether "Mandeville wrote Mandeville" -- or indeed whether there ever was such a man. His book is still in print (see Penguin Classic, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville), and is even making something of a comeback,

Mr. Milton is a good writer, and as a travel book his work is quite entertaining. Minimally, it gives us a chance to compare the Middle-East-now with what it was in Mandeville's time. For those who like travel books, that might be enough to make the book worthwhile. Some woodcuts taken from a 1481 edition of Mandeville are real gems. (Penguin should have included these.)

But as serious historical research I have problems with the book. Mr. Milton tries to convince us that Sir John Mandeville really did exist. The historical evidence he presents is weak, at best, and consists chiefly of a barely legible epitaph in St. Albans Abbey. But even here some rigorous scholarship is missing. (What is the earliest mention of this epitaph? To whom is it attributed? Have other scholars noted the inscription, and at what dates? What are their opinions regarding its authenticity?)

My overall impression is that Mr. Milton was not able to gather the evidence he was hoping for, and so had to temporize. I was particularly disappointed that the second edition does not address any of these weaknesses.

A fascinating read! The satisfaction comes not in finally putting to rest the historical debate whether Sir John Mandeville ever made his epic pilgrimmage but rather in going along with Milton as he makes his journey. Settle into your favorite armchair and take off on a most engaging travel narrative. Along the way you will decide for yourself the truth about Sir John's narrative, which is exactly the way all such quests should be pursued.

It is rare that travel writing is able to expertly blend eyewitness accounts with something philosophical that sticks to the ribs. Pico Iyer can do it and Mark Jenkins gets there with his story on Burma, but Milton does it here in a book length presentation that covers thousands of years as gracefully as it covers thousands of miles. He gets us to reflect on things both personal and historical (what do we really know of what we THINK we know; how does the unintended sometimes outweigh the studied and deliberate?) He has no easy answers, but rather than causing frustration, it makes his impressions and directions that much more appealing. Other reviewers have commented that this book is different than his previous releases, but I cannot compare since I haven't read those (yet).

In some ways, it reads more like a travellogue that a history book, which is certainly in keeping with it's subject: a book written by 14th century knight Sir John Mandeville, who claimed to have travelled as far as China and returned to England.

Milton is a good writer and some of the passages related to his own experiences in search of Mandeville are quite interesting, but the book is at its best when it's giving you information about what Mandeville's age looked like in cities like Constantinople (now Istanbul), Damascus, and Jerusalem. Interesting as well are the descriptions of monastic life in Orthodox monasteries such as St. Catherine's on Mt Sinai.

This is exactly the sort of book that I wish came with an appendix featuring the unedited text of the literature it discusses. Including a copy of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville would've made this book a treasured item in my library. Milton does include tantalizing representations of woodcuts from the book, which only make me want to see the original more.

He does offer a sound theory as to Mandeville's veracity, though he doesn't seem to really offer up much in the way of new evidence (much of what he finds ends up amounting to little or nothing). I almost wish he would've moved his conclusion to the front of the book. Why is Mandeville important? He may or may not have travelled everywhere he said he did, but enough people believed it that he ended up having a major impact on the voyages of discovery which were to follow.

This book was awesome! So much adventure and neat information. I liked how Giles Milton included his travels in following Sir John's book to find things -- it was like being on a scavenger hunt from the past. The only thing that would have made this a better book would have been some color pictures of the churches visited! It was a slight disappointment that the Mandeville book was not real...but a fun to follow!