A Booke of Days: A Novel of the Crusades (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This intriguing historical novel is a standout in the genre. Rivele (coauthor of the screenplay for Oliver Stone's Nixon) structures his fiction debut as a journal kept by Roger, Duke of Lunel, an 11th-century French nobleman who joins thousands of knights, soldiers and pilgrims on the First Crusade against Turkish forces occupying the Holy Land. Roger enlists in the pilgrimage to atone for guilt he feels over his illicit courtship of the "dark and handsome" Jehanne, whom he marries after the death of her first husband, Eustace of Valdevert. But he discovers that the price of remission of a sin may be far greater than the sin itself. As a chronicle of war, the journal works effectively, distilling the immense scope of the Crusade through the filter of Roger's perspective as knight and pilgrim. His recounting of battle scenes may not rise to the grandeur of traditional historical epics, but his record is all the more personal and moving since it contains the weary, often disillusioned thoughts of an officer at the end of a long day. The diary also describes the fierce rivalry, even treachery, among military and church leaders, as well as the obstacles of disease, starvation, desertion and alien landscape. Suffering is not the whole story, however, for Roger is a man of contemplation and reflection who continually questions the true motives of the pilgrimage. His European-bred prejudice against the Turks dissolves when he observes them, especially in light of the ever increasing barbarism of his fellow Christians. Then his views of religion, duty and love are altered forever by his relationship with Yasmin, an educated Turkish woman. Roger's honest, tenacious quest for redemption in the midst of the Crusade's inhumanity and ignorance makes this an absorbing and intelligent look at a remote period of history.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Rivele, who coauthored the screenplay for Oliver Stone's film Nixon, has written a structured story of the Crusades. Highly detailed, it is told in diary form by Roger, Duke of Lunel, apparently an ancestor of Rivele. Roger, whose character is priggish in the extreme, joins the First Crusade to liberate Jerusalem from the Turks and leaves his wife and home in Provence. He travels across many lands and meets many people, most of them very unfriendly to him and his cause. After many gory adventures and having spurned many acquaintances as unworthy, he surprisingly falls in love with a woman who is his polar opposite, a young Muslim poet. Love does not make him any more likable, and his affair ends sadly. Eventually, with much sturm und drang, he ends up back home, worse off than before. This work is exquisitely detailed with interesting annotations on many of the pages, but the story never really takes off. It reads like nonfiction, and tedious nonfiction at that. Recommended only for serious students of the Crusades.?Lesley C. Keogh, Bethel P.L., Ct.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 436 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (February 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786703482
• ISBN-13: 978-0786703487
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,186,917 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The devastating effects of war on an honorable man., April 23, 2000

By	Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Booke of Days (Trade) (Paperback)

This powerful novel of a young officer's maturation in the crucible of war is most notable for the conflict it describes. Not a war most Americans might otherwise be familiar with - the American Revolution, or the Civil War, or Second World War, or Viet Nam - but rather that exercise in barbarism, treachery and brutality commenced in the name of God in the Year of Our Lord 1096 - the First Crusade.

Roger, Duke of Lunel, is a minor French noble in the army of his overlord, Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse. Roger's "Booke", a diary, is a record of events as he follows Raymond across Europe, to Constantinople, and into the Middle East. Along the way, he participates in various battles and slaughters of the overt enemy, the Moslem Turks and Egyptians - most notably at Antioch and Jerusalem respectively - and witnesses and survives the treachery of Raymond's supposed Greek and European allies. Enduring the most profound hardships, Roger discovers "himself", faith, honor, love, disillusionment and, finally, loss. After four years, he returns to France in the same state as he found the Holy Sepulcher - empty.

Despite the unhappy ending, this is a truly wonderful and instructive book, especially for anybody who is generally interested in the general subject of the Crusades, but seeks a more specific knowledge. As near as I can tell, the author has recounted with reasonable accuracy the events of the First Crusade. While some license has undoubtedly been taken with the major historical characters - Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond of Taranto, Godfrey of Bouillon, Bishop Adhémar of Puy, Pope Urban II, Baldwin of Boulogne, Robert of Normandy, Peter the Hermit, Emperor Alexius I - it does not, I think, distort the major brushstrokes of history.

More than anything, this novel describes the emptiness left in a man's soul after all of life's efforts are focused and expended on one goal, worthwhile or not, to the exclusion of all others. It is an eloquent argument for a Balanced Perspective.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fictional history is not a recent invention, January 4, 1998

By A Customer

I'm rather surprised in reading some of the other reviews at the confusion some are experiencing in deciding whether or not this book is a factual account of the Crusades. Well, be assured this book is fictional. The single biggest hint is the reference in the opening page after the dedication that this is "a novel".

The next most obvious indication is that there isn't a single facsimile of the original - this would be a virtual requirement in any book purporting to be a translation of an historical record.

Finally, there are a few errors of fact. For example: Roger's reference to sacred musical polyphony that came from the St. Martial monastery at Limoges is about 50 to 100 years too early. The first records of this polyphony date from the 12th Century. In addition, he makes the mistake of assuming that this practice had become widespread. Unfortunately, the use of such practices was really quite slow to catch on.

And easily the most striking feature of the manuscript is it's conversational tone. I can't think of any book before 1600 that takes on quite such an air of familiarity with the reader. Even a casual glance at someone such as Montaigne would reveal this.

However, full marks for Rivele for trying to give us a view of the 11th Century through a 20th Century lens. I'm not sure that we shared quite so much in common with the Crusaders as he would like us to believe, but the story had its moments of poignant sentiment.

The obvious model for such books is Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" which hasn't really been bettered here. For something even more fanciful readers of such books might enjoy his more recent, "The Island of the Day Before".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why are you guys so grumpy?, August 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Booke of Days (Trade) (Paperback)

I liked this book alot, and can't understand why many of the other reviewers are so surly about it. It's A NOVEL. It is not required to be precise or truthful. I liked the premise, loved the main character, who seemed to me to be very realistic, and I enjoyed reading about the sieges and hardships of the 1st Crusade. I didn't want to put it down, and neither did the several people to whom I lent this book. Read it, enjoy it, and relax: there's no history exam to follow.