Customer Reviews

The Saracen blade: A novel

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

 

 

I read the book for the first time when I was 12 or 13, and fell in love with Pietro. Through my late 20's every man I meant was compared to Pietro. They lost. Then I meant my own Pietro, and didn't read the book for a few years. I'm 63 now. I've lost my Pietro. I recently reread the book and enjoyed it all over again. Understand, the glimpse into the history of the times is wonderful. Certainly, the importance of a realistic picture of the 'Crusades' compared to the laundered picture of the crusades taught in history class when I attended school should not be dismissed. Also, Frank Yerby had a talent for placing you in the historical moment, letting you feel a little bit the actuality of watching your wife die from childbirth because the midwives wouldn't wash their hands, or seeing the brutality of retribution from the nobles for dreaming of freedom if you were a serf. You see the first development of a middle class, and how precarious that new found freedom was. Maybe history should be taught not by dates as much as by the individual lives led because of the political beliefs of the time.

The love story is tragic and wonderful, of course. Good book sex, although not detailed. What is inspiring is the perserverance in the face of terrible odds, conditions, betrayals, etc. Survival, in spite of overwhelming hardships. Who of us today is that strong, that determined, that brave? We can only try.

I first read this book when it was first published already a young Yerby fan having read all his books to that date and the later books to date.

This story of the Crusdes is the best ever fiction of the Holy war period. I did not put it down until finisjed. The story encouraged me to research the history and found it correct in all detail. His narrative of the chidren;s crusade, most sold into prostitutio as they traveled across Europe to the Holy Land is heart wrenching. Slavery today is thriving world wide and makes one wonder, "Have we progressed at all from the horrendous middle ages." It is true that Saladine the Saracen was a far more magnanamous leader and worrior than the Chritian Kings and knights of that era. Travel to King Richards castle at Famagusta, Cyprus, as I have as well as Jerusolem get the feel of how massive the armies grouped there to attack the Holy Land and the feroucity of the battles desribed in the book were faught.

I have reccomendeddd this book constantly to family and friends through the years as being Yearby's best. I am now eighty and his stroy has left a lasting impression on me,

James Taylor.

I first read this when I was in my early teens, and loved it. I mentioned the author to my mother. She said, "I think he's black."

I replied "No way!". In my experience, black authors did not write novels about 13th-century Sicily.

But she was right -- or half-right, anyway: he was the child of a black father and a white mother. But he left the United States in 1955 in protest against racial discrimination, moving to Spain where he remained for the rest of his life. He wrote many historical novels, extensively researched and often endnoted (as here).

Taken together, there is a certain repetitiveness in them. The protagonist always rises from poverty to great eminence and wealth; and there are always two women in his life: the true love who is good for him, and the beautiful enchantress who is bad for him. The present work certainly follow this formula.

But for my money, "The Saracen Blade" is easily the best of the bunch. Mr. Yerby may not be the world's greatest stylist, but he's a first-rate story-teller; and it's this that leads me to give the book five stars instead of four, despite one or two passages of rather purple prose. I don't agree at all with the reviewer who thought the historical detail got in the way: I thought it added wonderful colour. The characters, too, are brought vividly to life -- particular the enigmatic emperor Frederick II (the grandson of Barbarossa), who was in so many ways ahead of his time, yet almost comically superstitious.

I thoroughly recommend this book to all lovers of historical adventure.