Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

3.5/5

In times such as these, what is the most important consideration? To survive here as best we can, or to rethink the last five hundred years of our existence and plan our future accordingly?

Of late, thanks to a certain online group, I've formulated a habit of creating monthly themes of reading to help both narrow down and guide my choices for a limited time. This month is half Women in Translation, half first in the various series that have been lying around, the latter mostly so that I can start weeding out potentials, deciding which I can commit to and which I can afford to pass by. This work is also, perhaps fittingly, half and half. On the one hand, it is written very much in the vein of The Moor's Account in telling a part of history, awareness of which being of vital importance when it comes to understanding the modern world, and telling it well. ON the other, it does simplify a tad too much in the direction of good v. evil, a prime example of such being the existence people in this era of successive pogroms, banishments, and various other preludes to the genocide of the 20th century. There are hints of this complexity near the end, but this book could have easily been twice this length and greatly benefited from the room to draw a more expansive picture of al-Andalus and the diverse citizens that dwelt within its geometrically structured halls and communed in its public baths. All in all, a better representative of the historical fiction churned out within the last thirty years and admirable enough in initiative that I chose to round up rather than down for too much reliance on a dichotomy of black and white.

[']Till your arrival we had no serious problems in this kingdom. You failed to win them over by force of argument and now you wish to resort to the methods of the inquisition.'
'Practical methods, Excellency. Tried and tested.'
'Yes, tried and tested on Catholics whose property you wanted to possess and on Jews who have never ruled over a kingdom and who bought their freedom by paying out gold ducats and converting to our religion.[']

Starting off this book was a breath of fresh air, as while I went along, certain factors of my childhood (Andalusian maiden, the Inquisition, fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two blah blah blah blah de doo de doo) started branching into each other, revealing the grander picture that I still haven't investigated thoroughly enough for my liking: the Golden Age of Islam from the 10th to the 14th centuries, especially the seeds that laid the foundations for what is now known as modern day Spain. As I mentioned before, the farther I went, the more I noticed how smoothed over the tensions outside of that of Muslim/Christian were, far beyond what the whole enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend realistically affords for. As short as the book was, I probably could have learned far more had so many of the characters not been drawn from idealized/demonized stock portraits whose only complexity was drawn from predictably sensationalist domestic drama cropping up here and there amongst the generations. Still, I did enjoy the overt bisexual, if never named as such, representation, and this work did spark a commitment to acquiring some hardcore nonfiction about the relevant period. I'm not going to be adding the sequels to my digital shelves just yet, both due to the generation hopping/disconnected nature of them as well as the fact that, unlike Sea of Poppies, I don't see myself needing to know more beyond the book's conclusion. Still, I will gladly pick any of the sequels up as I see them. I hear good things about the queer rep of the second tome (through less than praising means, but what're you going to do about the cishets and/or Islamophobes), and I'm sure I'll pick up some necessary history along the way.

Your Church put the axe to a tree that afforded free shade for all. You think it will benefit your side. Perhaps, but for how long? A hundred years? Two hundred? It is possible, but in the long run this stunted civilization is doomed. It will be overtaken by the rest of Europe. Surely you understand that it is the future of this peninsula which has been destroyed. The men who set fire to books, torture their opponents and burn heretics at the stake will not be able to build a house with stable foundations. The Church's curse will damn this peninsula.

For this first in a series, my commit to its successors is rather tenuous at best. If I run across them, I'll honestly be acquiring them as much for the content as for the gorgeous cover designs, as my interest in the historical material would be served much better by a quality piece of nonfic, credible both in terms of professionalism as well as viewpoint. It might make my sensitivity to the historical simplification of the fiction worse, but the long term gains will vastly outweigh the short term losses, and I enjoy too much quality historical fiction to not appreciate the benefits of suspension of disbelief when so many of the literary aspects are pitch perfect. As such, I'll simply have to keep a look out for any material that fills this collection of needs, nonfiction or otherwise. In the meantime, I have a number of other introductory works to filter through, from the battlefields of Stalingrad to the households of Somalia. WE'll have to wait and see what makes the cut.

The Inquisition goes one step further. Not content with burning ideas, they burn those who supply them. There is a logic. With every new century there are new advances.

P.S.A. The ending's a realistic but extremely tragic kicker if you're the type who's sensitive to such things. Read accordingly.