Paris, City of Night

Paris, City of Night is an excellent thriller that would make a good movie one day. I found it to be a gripping, compelling story as events unfold in real time. Having visited Paris, I could picture the scenes perfectly, but that is not really necessary as the author, David Downie, paints a vivid picture that sits well in your imagination. The tale itself is full of excitement - as a reader, you want to know what happens next, as the mysteries and intrigues keep building and building. I read it in two sittings, which is a good sign for a book! It didn't feel like a struggle either, both in just reading and following the story. As for the story itself, it was perfectly believable, nothing outlandish and enough room given for you to form your own opinions about characters and their motives. In other words, it doesn't attempt to break you over the head with a sledgehammer.

I'm not sure what else to say apart from this is a very good book, and if you want to read a good thriller, you should give this a try.

A Brief History Of The Crusades

Ah, The Crusades. The event that hundreds of years removed from the mindset, we can all unflinchingly declare to be a very bad thing indeed. Arabs too apparently, although the fact that the condemnation of the Crusades only arose when the Ottoman Empire fell to shit is a mere coincidence. The author, in his conclusions, questions the "liberal" condemnation of the Crusades, pointing out that for some the reason the Papacy has felt moved to officially apologize for them (good, seeing as the Spanish Armada was a Papal authorized invasion of England, I'm glad they apologized for that foul mis-deed that went awry in any case) - note, I'm sure that the apology was issued the same time that Bush, "the infernal warlord of lies and gangsters" or whatever the Iraqi information minister called him, decided to raise merry hell in the Middle East - well anyway, the author actually says this:

"Recently, the crusades have even been the subject of a formal apology from the Pope. Exactly why is not clear. As yet the world awaits an apology from the Arab world for the aggression of the jihad wars of the seventh and eighth centuries which conquered the Christian lands from Syria to Egypt, and the North African coast from the Christian Roman Empire and the Christian kingdoms of Spain; or from Istanbul for the aggressive conquest of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire. After all, the armies of the Prophet had no doubt that they were doing the will of Allah by winning these territories from their infidel rulers for the True Religion - just as the Christian crusaders were to believe that they were fulfilling the will of their God."

What do I take from this? That you cannot condemn one religious inspired war without the other. People like the Turkish lawyer who claimed he was going to sue UEFA when Inter Milan played Galatasary or Fenerbeche in their away strip (a huge St George's cross - the same St George who the Spanish armed forces proudly displayed on their uniforms when they were part of the coalition to Iraq and were sent home for because he is known as THE MOOR SLAYER) shouldn't claim that the Crusades cause distress when their own culture is just as guilty. But anyway, that really is an after-thought of this book. It accurately sets out, with no hint of bias on either side, the comedy of errors and missed opportunities for success that the crusades were. In short, Jerusalem could well still be in Western (albeit Papist) hands if not for the ego of Church and Princes. Here is a brief summation:

The First Crusade. After an over-zealous start by Peter the Hermit's pilgrim army, they actually achieved their goals of capturing Jerusalem back and getting the Byzantine Emperor some of his land back. And promptly ruined it by treating anyone who wasn't a Catholic - Christian, Jew or Muslim - like they were shit.

The Second Crusade. The Arabs had captured Edessa, an important fortress city, and reduced the Christian lands to a thin strip. Jerusalem still held though. Christendom sent its might to help. Of course each head of the Hydra thought it was most powerful, there was no unity and it was generally a hash of things. Apart from the English Saxon contingent stopping in Lisbon to help the King of Portugal take Lisbon from the Muslims (technically they thought that this was a completion of their vows) and opting to stay for a merry life in Portugal, away from the horrid Norman-French Lords and being a second-class citizen in their own land. And so began the oldest alliance in history between England and Portugal.

The Third Crusade. Jerusalem had fallen to Saladin. However, he bricked it when he heard that the Holy Roman Emperor, Barbarossa, was coming with an immense army of at least 100,000 Germans to fuck him up. After a few victories on the route to Jerusalem, Barbarossa went for a bath in a river "up to his waist" and either caught a chill or drowned. And the Germans went home. So the English, led by the French born and raised Richard the Lionheart, and the French, led by Philip, came on down and started to win. Richard decided to have a bit of fun on his journey and merked the King of Cyprus over some shit he had done, and then sold the island to the Knights Templar. They took back Acre, and this was where ego started to cause trouble. Richard had one palace, Philip another. The new Holy Roman Emperor had marched his men back to the Holy Land (they must have had huge calf muscles by the end of it, walking all the way from Germany to Israel back and forth) and came to Acre late, thus avoiding the glory of victory and perhaps being the last occasion in history that the Germans were late for something. Possibly being the reason why they like to push in lines and annex seats by the swimming pool in foreign resorts. Anyway, the H.R.E. saw Richard's standard flying above the palace he was installed in, and had a bitch fit over that for some reason, and ordered his men to put HIS standard up there next to the English. Of course, a cheeky Englishman knocked it down within an hour, and the H.R.E. got into a huge strop and marched his men all the way back to Germany. Maybe he was the inspiration for the song "The Grand Old Duke of York". Anyway, the fact that this happened doomed this crusade to not reach its goal - an extra 100,000 or so men would have been very handy. As it happened, Saladin was negotiating with Richard to give up Jerusalem in return for some things, and it was going to happen as well, until the Pope stuck his silly crown in and forbade it. "I want blood!" is effectively the only way to really interpret this action. So there we have Church ego ruining things too. The combined forces won some more victories, and Jerusalem was there for the taking, but Richard rightly deemed that although they could take it, with their forces they wouldn't be able to hold it, and so they retreated, having established a Christian bulwark in the Holy Land. So, either Pope Celestine III or Clement III, well done on your stunning decision to not peacefully take Jerusalem. I'm sure that God was so pleased. No wonder people started heckling crusade speakers in the future with things like "Evidently, Muhammed is more powerful than Christ!", he seemed to give better advice at least. The fun on this Crusade doesn't end here though. On his way back, Richard was shipwrecked on the Adriatic. He had to go on by land, but this meant going via the Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor hating Richard because of his flag taking a tumble. So Richard and his men opted to travel in disguise as monks. The only problem was that Richard was a giant, and people soon spotted a giant monk with all the others around him bowing in servitude the whole time, and he got captured and eventually ransomed for a shitload of money.

The Fourth Crusade. This one is hilarious, as it went totally out of the Pope's hands as at first, no King but the King of Hungary took the cross, and then it denigrated spectacularly. The Count of Champagne eventually took the cross, along with some other senior nobles of France, and they eventually journeyed to Venice to get ships. The problem was that the Venetians had a profitable trade with Egypt, the supposed target of this crusade, and would do anything to prevent that being broken. So they offered to provide the crusade with ships and men for an exorbitant amount of money. When there was trouble raising that, they said "Oh hey, maybe you can do us a favour and we'll call it quits. A former city of ours rebelled 15 or so years ago, and we want it back. Who cares if it is a Christian city, if you help us take it back we'll forget the money you owe us." The Pope forbade such action, but he might as well have pissed in the wind for all the good that did. The city was taken, promises were given to spare it, and then it was razed to the ground. The Pope said to stop, the Franks and Venetians ignored him again, and so he excommunicated all of them. Although he must have had a Frank fetish because he forgave them (but not the Venetians) after a little bit. But oh, tragedy, there wasn't enough money in the city to pay off the debt with the Venetians or to cover the ground costs of a crusade. So a high-ranking German noble, who was in a struggle to become the H.R.E., offered to help out - if the army would attack Constantinople. The crusaders being absolute whores for money, readily acquiesced, and took the city. The Pope again tried to be important and told them to stop fucking around and get to the Holy Land, but most of them cocked a snook at these words and remained to raise hell and steal pretty much any and every holy relic they could find. As well as any valuables - they say that an attempt to catalogue everything taken from the city reached three massive volumes when compiled in the 1850s. Constantinople remained in Latin hands for a few decades before the Byzantines got it back. And that was the Fourth Crusade.

The Fifth Crusade. This Crusade ended with the recovery, by treaty, of Jerusalem for the West. However, the events between Frederick II, H.R.E. and the Pope are the most interesting. The Fourth Crusade hadn't even got out of Christian lands as it became debased by greed, and so the Christian holdings in Palestine were pretty meagre. A peace treaty was in effect until 1210, and then another was agreed until 1217. The Pope started preaching for a new crusade, and one of the people to take the cross was Frederick. However, nothing really took off from the ground with the majority of those who signed up, although some Franks and the King of Hungary did reach Acre and began to campain in 1217. As per usual it wasn't a unified force (the King of Cyprus also joined in on the fun), and after a few battles had been won and booty taken, the King of Hungary decided he had done his bit and went home. The King of Cyprus died, which left the Franks and Leopold of Austria with the titular 'King of Jerusalem' although this referred to the lands in Palestine, not the city itself. They lost a battle, and didn't know quite what to do with themselves. Then a fleet of Frisians came, and the combined force opted to try and take out Egypt. They won a siege, and could have taken the city of Damietta, but decided that this completed their crusading vows and went home. However, the Pope had a new force assembling in Italy, and sent that across with his man, Cardinal Pelagius. They didn't do a lot meanwhile, due to floods and illness, but that didn't stop the Sultan of Egypt wanting them to go away, and so he offered them the keys to Jerusalem in return for them clearing off from Egypt. The Cardinal said no. Seriously, wtf was going on with these people? The people running the church in those days must have been demented. They opted instead to take Damietta, and then dilly-dallied for 2 years or so, with the forces in revolt with each other, and awaiting Frederick II. In 1221, the Sultan again offered Jerusalem to the Crusaders. Again it was refused, as the cardinal had heared that the H.R.E. was preparing to come down, and an advance force had already arrived, with the orders to stay put and wait. Of course they disregarded this, dicked around a little and lost Damietta and evacuated. There was then a 6 year lull.

In 1225, Frederick renewed his vow, and said if he didn't take it within 2 years, he could be excommunicated. He made good on his word, getting on down to a port in Italy with his army. However, the plague was abroad in the port, and Frederick himself caught it, so he went off to recuperate and sent word that he and his men had caught the plague. The majority of people thought that this was an understandable reason for a delay, but the new Pope, Gregory IX, seemed to differ in opinion and thought that the crusading army ought to be dying on ships in the middle of the sea, so he excommunicated Frederick. People seemed to think this was a tad out of order, as when the Pope held his Easter services at the Vatican and repeated his ban, the people got really pissed off and chased him out of the church. Eventually, Frederick made his way - now healthy - to Palestine, where he found out that he had been excommunicated a second time for being incompetent to lead a crusade as he hadn't been absolved from the first excommunication. I would have said it was a double negative and all was well again, but this did mean he wouldn't be able to recruit for a crusade. The 'crusaders' and the forces of the Sultan of Egypt tarried for a while, not really doing much, until in 1229 the treaty alluded to at the beginning of this section was signed, and Jerusalem was transferred back to Latin hands. Apparently all that was needed was someone not listening to the Pope to show some common sense. Maybe this is what gave Martin Luther his ideas.

In the years following, Jerusalem was lost again, and other crusades did follow, the sixth with Louis of France having some success, the ardour of crusading had been lost. Who knows what might have happened had common sense and unity prevailed, rather than ego and pride. It was an interesting read, if suffering from what I find most history books do these days - I can't read them for a sustained period unlike a novel.

Oh look, another reading list!

I came across "100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man's Library" and I thought it looked like a good list of books, so I am going to attempt to clear this list too. I just hope that the world doesn't end or the shift in consciousness or whatever the Mayans predicted for 2012 ends up being a load of hog-wash so I can finish my task!

1. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli (Done that one already: http://gavinsbooklog.blogspot.com/2009/01/prince.html)
3. Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
4. 1984 George Orwell
5. The Republic Plato
6. Brothers Karamazof Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. The Catcher In The Rye J.D. Salinger
8. The Wealth Of Nations Adam Smith
9. For Whom The Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
10. The Picture Of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde (Got that one done already too: http://gavinsbooklog.blogspot.com/2008/08/picture-of-dorian-gray.html)
11. The Grapes Of Wrath John Steinbeck
12. Brave New World Aldous Huxley
13. How To Win Friends And Influence People Dale Carnegie
14. Call Of The Wild Jack London
15. The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt Edmund Morris
16. Swiss Family Robinson Johan David Wyss
17. Dharma Bums Jack Kerouac
18. The Illiad & Odyssey Homer
19. Catch-22 Joseph Heller
20. Walden Henry David Thoreau
21. Lord Of The Flies William Golding
22. The Master And Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
23. Bluebeard Kurt Vonnegut
24. Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand
25. The Metamorphis Franz Kafka (I did actually read this in February, but thought it didn't really count as a book as it was a bit short and I read it on my iPhone. Maybe I will read it again come 2013 or so...)
26. Another Roadside Attraction Tom Robbins
27. White Noise Don Delillo
28. Ulysses James Joyce
29. The Young Man's Guide William Alcott
30. Blood Meridan, Or The Evening Redness In The West Cormack McCarthy
31. Seek: Reports From The Edges Of America And Beyond Denis Johnson
32. Crime And Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
33. Steppenwolf Herman Hesse
34. The Book Of Deeds Of Arms And Chivalry Christine Di Pizan
35. The Art Of Warfare Sun Tzu
36. Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
37. Into The Wild Jon Krakauer
38. The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri
39. The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien
40. The Rough Riders Theodore Roosevelt
41. East Of Eden John Steinbeck
42. Leviathan Thomas Hobbes
43. The Thin Red Line James Jones
44. Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
45. The Politics Aristotle
46. First Edition of The Boy Scout Handbook (Hmm that may prove difficult to hunt down)
47. Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand
48. Tropic Of Cancer Henry Miller
49. The Crisis Winston Churchill
50. The Naked And The Dead Norman Mailer
51. Hatchet Gary Paulsen
52. Animal Farm George Orwell
53. Tarzan Of The Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs
54. Beyond Good And Evil Freidrich Nietzsche
55. The Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
56. Moby Dick Herman Melville
57. Essential Manner For Men Peter Post
58. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
59. Hamlet William Shakespeare
60. The Boys Of Summer Roger Kahn
61. A Seperate Peace John Knowles
62. A Farewell To Arms Ernest Hemingway
63. The Stranger Albert Camus
64. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
65. The Pearl John Steinbeck
66. On The Road Jack Kerouac
67. Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson
68. Confederacy Of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
69. Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco
70. The Great Railway Bazaar Paul Theroux
71. Fear And Trembing Soren Kierkegaard
72. Undaunted Courage Stephen Ambrose
73. Paradise Lost John Milton
74. Cannery Row John Steinbeck
75. American Boys' Handy Book (This one I may omit)
76. Into Thin Air John Krakauer
77. King Solomon's Mines H. Rider Haggard
78. The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky
79. A River Runs Through It Norman F. Maclean
80. The Island Of Dr Moreau H.G. Wells
81. Malcolm X: The Autobiography
82. Theodore Rex Edmund Morris
83. The Count Of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
84. All Quiet On The Western Front Erich Maria Remarq
85. The Red Badge Of Courage Stephen Crane
86. Lives Of The Noble Greeks And Romans Plutarch
87. The Strenous Life Theodore Roosevelt
88. The Bible
89. Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry
90. The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
91. The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler
92. To Kill A Mockinbird Harper Lee
93. The Dangerous Book For Boys Conn & Hal Iggulden
94. The Killer Angels Michael Shaara
95. The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin
96. The Histories Herodotus
97. From Here To Eternity James Jones
98. The Frontier In American History Frederick Jackson Turner
99. Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig
100. Self Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson

But wait! There's more. The top 50 non-fiction adventure books and the top 50 fiction adventure books will also be targets of mine...

My New Reading List

Once I have torn my way through the immense pile of books that I have which currently remain unread, I aim to make my way through the list of '50 Books For Our Times' that Newsweek put together. So this really is a checklist for me. And incase the article is somehow removed over time, I am going to reproduce it now.

1. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope
2. The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright
3. Prisoner Of The State Zhao Ziyang
4. The Big Switch Nicholas Carr
5. The Bear William Faulkner
6. Winchell Neal Gabler
7. Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
8. Night Draws Near Anthony Shadid
9. Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely
10. God: A Biography Jack Miles
11. The Unsettling Of America Wendell Berry
12. A Good Man Is Hard To Find Flannery O'Connor
13. Underground Harukimi Murakami
14. Disrupting Class Clayton Christensen
15. Air Guitar Dave Hickey
16. Leaves Of Grass Walt Whitman
17. The Trouble With Physics Lee Smolin
18. City: Rediscovering The Center William H. Whyte
19. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep Philip K. Dick
20. Benjamin Franklin Edmund S. Morgan
21. The Mississippi Books Mark Twain
22. Among The Thugs Bill Buford
23. Brooklyn Colm TÛibÌn
24. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
25. Bad Mother Ayelet Waldman
26. Guests Of The Ayatollah Mark Bowden
27. Whittaker Chamebers Sam Tanenhaus
28. Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
29. American Prometheus Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
30. The Lost Daniel Mendelsohn
31. Gilead Marilynne Robinson
32. Pictures At A Revolution Mark Harris
33. KIM Rudyard Kipling
34. Walking With The Wind John Lewis
35. The Line Of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst
36. The Dark Is Rising Susan Cooper
37. Persepolis Marjane Satrapi
38. Underworld Don DeLillo
39. Why Evolution Is True Jerry A. Coyne
40. American Pastoral Philip Roth
41. The Botany Of Desire Michael Pollan
42. The Regeneration Trilogu Pat Barker
43. Senator Joe McCarthy Richard H. Rovere
44. Year Of Wonders Geraldine Brooks
45. The Elegance Of The Hedgehog Muriel Barbery
46. Gone Tomorrow Lee Child
47. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
48. American Journeys Don Watson
49. Cotton Comes To Harlem Chester Himes
50. The New Biographical Dictionary Of Film David Thomson*

*Hmm I can see myself giving this one a miss, to be honest. 1,000+ pages of some guy's opinions on actors etc isn't exactly something I'm jumping to read.

I guess that I will have this list finished by 2012... time will see if I am a good estimator or not!

From Russia With Love

The Soviets have decided to strike a blow to the prestige of MI6 by hatching a plot to kill and embarrass their top agent. We all know who that is. This is in my top 2 of Bond books that I have read so far, as it is full of plot twists and vivid characters, like the head of 'T' section. It also paints a picture of Istanbul that makes me want to visit, and ends on a cliffhanger that makes me want to pick up Dr No immediately to find out what happens.

I think however, a passage from this tale will best explain why this is a novel to be read.

"I had a little Bessarabian hell-cat. I had won her in a fight with some gipsies, here in the hills behind Istanbul. They came after me, but I got her on board the boat. I had to knock her unconcsious first. She was still trying to kill me when we got back to Trezibond, so I got her to my place and took away all her clothes and kept her chained naked under the table. When I ate, I used to throw scraps to her under the table, like a dog. She had to learn who was master. Before that could happen, my mother did an unheard of thing. She visited my place without warning. She came to tell me that my father wanted to see my immediately. She found the girl." - Kerim Darko, head of 'T' section.