Deus Lo Volt!: Chronicle of the Crusades

by Evan S. Connell

Book Overview

God wills it The year is 1095 and the most prominent leaders of the Christian World are assembled in a meadow in France. Deus lo volt This cry is taken up, echoes forth, is carried on. The Crusades... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582430659
• ISBN13: 9781582430652
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
• Length: 462 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

a rollicking good ride with an authentic voice

This book is very entertaining. It took me about four tries to get through it, but I kept coming back for more. Since characters come and go over the more than a century and a half sweep of this narrative and there is no simple overarching plot, it doesn't suffer much from such sporadic reading, particularly if you have some prior knowledge of the history it covers. Deus Lo Volt doesn't whitewash or demonize the history of the Crusades. It shows fools, villians, and flawed characters, but it also shows heroic and pious characters (such as the saintly King Louis IX). The brilliant device of using a 13th century crusader (with unexplained access to everything written about previous crusades by Christian or Mohammedan chroniclers) as the narrator adds a ring of authenticity and allows it to take, at least on the surface, a frankly and unawkwardly pro-Christian tone. What the real author's historical judgement is, whether he sympathizes with or means to mock the narrator's perspective of Faith and desire for Christianity to survive in the Holy Land, thus becomes irrelevant. Spared the prospects of either heavy-handed modernist moralizing and revisionist history or apologetics and romanticizing, we can just enjoy a rollicking good ride through an exciting period of history filled with colorful characters, gritty details, and amazing anecdotes. I only wish Ridley Scott had allowed us to have this much unpoliticized fun at the movies. Incidentally, I've read a couple of history books on the Crusades and recognized many of the events related in this book. So, although Connell doesn't give sources or make any strong claims, I can believe Deus lo Volt!, at least in all of its main features, is basically history collected and presented in the form of an entertaining, novel-like chronical, rather than being historical fiction. If many of the asides and exotic anecdotes are fabricated, they sure are imaginative and enjoyable.

A unique perspective on the Crusades

"Deus lo Volt!" is a very impressive work. It could never be classified as an "easy read"; there are many minute historical details, not to to mention a vast cast of characters to keep straight. Connell's vocabulary is simply astounding; I kept a dictionary by my side as a read, but several words were too obscure to have a listing.The medieval Christian perspective of the book is what makes it so incredible. The depth of the facts makes it seems like a text book, yet the reader is constantly reminded who the "good" and "bad" guys are. I admire Connell for writing a book that so defies contemporary concepts of political correctness and religious tolerance; he gives "Deus lo Volt!" a sense of authenticity. Yes, it is a bit troubling to see every Crusader described as ascending to heaven, even if they were raping innocent Saracen women at the time. Yet everything must be regarded in proper historical context, and that may be a challenge for readers. Overall, this is an excellent, informative book for students of medieval history.

An eye-openng dose of fanatacism

This book is exactly what the cover promises. A chronicle of the crusades. Its chronicler is a fanatic Christian who recounts the names of people and events at a fairly rapid-fire rate.It's not for everyone. There is no plot, characters (per se) or dialog. Just a stripped-down history lesson told from the perspective of someone who lived in the era.I found it fascinating.

not a "historical novel"

The reviewers who've expressed disappointment with this book obviously find it didn't meet their expectations. This is not a "historical novel" nor is it a work of "narrative history" (like Schama's "Citizens", for example). Connell did not write this book according to the conventions of any modern prose genre; he wrote it as a medieval chronicle. Connell's only "embellished" character is his narrator. He basically took a real historical person, an actual writer of chronicles relating the events of the period, and imagined that person having access to all the research materials and sources available to a modern historian (at least to all such materials - obviously a great deal - that Connell himself consulted in preparing the book). But since his character isn't a modern historian, he doesn't present the material in the manner a modern historian would. The material is presented in a "medieval voice." Writing in an alien voice is very difficult, and Connell's feat in sustaining this voice over such a lengthy book is very impressive. But then, we already knew that Connell is one of our greatest living writers . . .

Written So Well, Overcame My Lack Of Background On Subject

I picked the book as I enjoy History, and Historically Based Fiction. The latter genre allows the reader to enjoy a story based on History without necessarily being very well versed in the period. The cover of this book says "A Novel By...", not even close.Mr. Connell describes the book thusly "I think of this as a book about the crusades, not an "historical novel" a term that suggests imaginary experiences and unlikely conversations. Monologues and dialogues in the book are paraphrased or condensed from those in medieval documents. Every meeting, every conversation, every triumph or defeat, no matter how small, was recorded centuries ago..."I do not spend much time reading the book jacket/advertising, so I found myself with a History book on the Crusades, despite the publisher's comment "a towering work of the imagination". I wondered if the jacket and the book matched.Listen to the man who wrote the book. What makes this book special is that it is so well written that the result is highly readable, this is not a textbook of the Crusades, or at least does not read like one.So Jean, a soldier on the Christian side of this epic, takes the reader with him and shares the immediacy of a firsthand experience. There are maps provided so that those names of places and cities that have not survived the last 1000 years, can be found easily by reference.It's true that the more you know about the topic the more easily you may read through this work. However, if your knowledge is limited as mine was at page one, you still will enjoy the book.Novel, Historical Fiction, or History? From the standpoint of a reader's enjoyment, it matters little. The writing talent overcomes what the reader may lack, and the reading experience is excellent.