Count Bohemond

by Alfred Duggan

Book Overview

Count Bohemond was an actual Norman warrior who carved out his own kingdom in the Middle East--as well as the hero of this compelling novel. History records his meteoric rise from junior member of a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0712608435
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Interesting book, weak characterization

Duggan was a sort of late Edwardian conservative who more or less wrote his books for boys, as I gather things (I first read of him in Derbyshire's review for the New Criterion). Supposedly, this isn't Duggan's best work; hard for me to tell, as it is the first I read. Where it fails: Duggan's Normans seem to be standard issue British stuffed shirts; the type of fellows who might fit into a Jeeves and Wooster book, with occasional nods towards their "greedy Norman natures." Bohemond himself is intensely old school British, as is his dad, Robert Guiscard; historical personages I'm well acquainted with from the primary and secondary literature. These fellows were anything but the type of chappish fellow they're portrayed as: in real life they were colorful bloodthirsty brigandish fellows. Similar comments apply to Sichelgaita, who appears like one of Bertie Wooster's fearsome aunts ... I suppose that's the type of character a 1950s British boy could understand and relate to, but the real Sichelgaita was something more akin to a cross between a Valkyrie and a gangster. The Byzantines aren't really given their due either, and get chappish characterizations as, more or less, "dirty foreign snail eaters." None of these characters make much sense, as British chaps and their virago aunts don't tend to do things like go on multi-year campaigns to conquer the Holy Land. The story itself is a rollicking good one. The Normans of that era were stupendous warriors, and their cultural achievements helped form modern Europe. The events recounted in the book were, well, Byzantine, and Duggan does a good job of conveying the events as they unfolded. The pace can be a little slow and dry, but the descriptions of camp life and battle were lively and amusing. If you remember this is a sort of lad's book of a certain era, it's quite enjoyable. It's not Historical Fiction of the caliber of Robert Graves "I, Claudius," but there isn't enough written about the Normans of that era, and it does amuse and inform.

Best of Alfred Duggan

Set in the First Crusade this book brings to life the Early Middle Ages and the adventure of the First Crusade. Bohemond as a Norman from Italy already has a strong distrust of the Byzantines. His interesting portrayal of the event from a participants point of view gives us a glimpse of other motivations for the crusaders, other than religious. The desperate struggle around Antioch when the crusaders are heavily outnumbered and without food or hope is brilliant and gives us insight into just how close run the whole crusade was. The description of the sieges and battles are fantastic. I have enjoyed many of Alfred Duggan's books, but to me this is the best!

At last Alfred Duggan is back in Print

Alfred Duggan is my favourite historical novelist and whilst Count Bohemond is to my mind not his best, that award goes to Elephants and Castles, which is sadly not in print, it was the first novel of his which I read. Having read it, I then read every thing of his I could get my hands on. What Duggan does better than any other historical novelist is make the people in his novels recognisable as real people whilst still setting them firmly in their own times, be that ancient Rome, Saxon England or the crusades. True to the real history of the times, Count Bohemond is the story of one of the commanders of the first crusade, a Norman warlord from Southern Italy who was frankly was out to carve for himself a Kingdom out of the lands taken from the Muslim rulers of the Middle East. Serving God coming a long way behind his ruthless ambition. Duggan's discription of battles, particularly when those battles go wrong and they often do, is second to none. Although I think Founding Fathers, Elephants and Castles and Lady for Ramsom are better than Count Bohemond, all of Duggan's books are worth reading and Count Bohemond will not let you down.