No comments about Stephen Roche My Road to Victory.

5 comments about King Arthur.

1. It has taken me several years to read this and I'm still not finished. The "scholarly" writing is confusing at best and totally lost me at worst. As much as I try, I cannot find anything about this book making it worth recommending to others. Goodrich's theory (theories?) rambles all over the place, she goes on and on about phonetics and linguistics to the point where even the most dedicated reader must be bored to tears, and it makes me wonder exactly what the point is that we are supposed to get from the book. If I had a professor who rambled like Goodrich I'd probably have dropped out of the course in the first week from boredom.



2. I waited a long time to pick this book up and I am sorry I did not do it sooner. This book gets many bad reviews, most claiming that it's unreadable or not well researched. While the reading may be tough going for some, to claim that this book isn't well researched shows that you didn't read it. The author loses a star for her method of research though, because she mainly deduces sixth century locations from the consistencies in twelfth century texts.The author is a philologist so most of her arguments are based in those ancient languages in which she is an expert. Most of her arguments are convincing and some are not, but her work should not be discounted when trying to locate Arthur in history.



3. Goodrich provides evidence that King Arthur had life beyond the myth, based on Medieval documents, her knowledge of Middle-Ages languages, and present-day Ordinance maps. In conjunction with her works on Merlin, Guenievere, and The Holy Grail she documents his life and times and is most persuasive. She cites research by Marie of France, Eleanore of Aquitane's daughter, and the story that one written account was lost by Richard the Lionheart in a card game.
   
   This dense-with-information study takes dilligence -- I'm a college graduate with an English minor and it's the hardest book I ever read. But well worth it.



4. Reviewers' opinions of Norma Lorre Goodrich's "King Arthur" jump from those who hate it to those who love it. There's not much middle ground. "What grief and what a shame!" as Lancelot says on page 160. It's time to bridge the extremes. Speaking of bridges, I shall cross carefully, as if on Lancelot's sword bridge (p.167). Of course, as Goodrich tells us, the blade-like quality of that bridge was nothing of the sort. It was a mis-translation which gave French listeners a good laugh to imagine English knights doing something as stupid as walking on blades. If only Goodrich employed more humor she would score points for explaining such pieces of arcana, leaving fewer reviewers mad at her. (I can't resist this digression. Lancelot's sword bridge falls into the category of Cinderella's slippers. In the original French they weren't glass--verre. They were made of highly prized squirrel fur--vaire. English ears never learned to discriminate between those words.)
   
   Here's what is really at work between these covers: impeccable, exhaustive research is rescued from its envelope of academic writing by a great index, making "King Arthur" a valuable reference book. And not just about Arthur and his court, but also the machinations of King Henry II of England and his consort Eleanor of Aquitaine, who pressed the legends of Arthur into use as a political tool. Like Arthur, they ruled a large empire (from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees) whose peoples had different customs, spoke different languages and owed loyalty to different lords. Henry II, struggling to reassert the broken line of his grandfather after nineteen years of dynastic war in England, promoted the Arthurian legends as a shining possibility, of a polyglot empire enjoying peace under a central government such as Arthur's in a former, golden age.
   
   Goodrich's book limits the great wizard Merlin in these pages, perhaps because the author was holding him back: Merlin would become the subject of her next book a few years later.
   
   I used Goodrich's "King Arthur" as valuable research. If you are a general reader, here's a tip: open it at random and read section by section; or open to the index and wander from there. Personally, I needed to learn about Queen Eleanor's propagandist, the author Wace. Not many other books give thirteen page references for Wace. Goodrich can, and does. Accept what she gives in good grace. If you let your mind bend like a reed to the subject, you'll enjoy her "King Arthur" on its own terms. If you want a quick read, this is not for you.
   
   By Robert Fripp, author,
   "Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine"



5. This is a very well researched book, and I am very impressed by Goodrich's connections from disparate stories into geographical and linguistic results. That being said, many of her claims and explanations are spurious, relying on an overriding implied belief. At best her results are inconclusive, if intriguing, while at the worst they are foolish.

No comments about Triumphs of English: The Life and Writings of Henry Parker, Lord Morley, Translator to the Tudor Court.

1 comments about Historic Figures of the Arthurian Era: Authenticating the Enemies and Allies of Britian's Post-Roman King.

1. "Historic Figures of the Arthurian Era" is Frank Reno's follow-up to his "The Historic King Arthur"... The work presented here extends Reno's explorations into the real world of "King Arthur" as found in the ancient written texts. It's a detailed, challenging book which should be of great interest to anyone who strongly wishes to better understand what lay behind all those centuries of legend and myth.

No comments about GUNNING FOR THE ENEMY: Wallace McIntosh DFC and BAR, DFM.

1 comments about My Village My World.

1. This is a wonderful book. Serious with a simple spirituality but with some of the funniest stories I've ever read. As far as I know his short description of the Anglo-Irish situation is very accurate. At the end I was inwardly shouting, "More...more!!!"

No comments about Lafayette and the Liberal Ideal 1814-1824: Politics and Conspiracy in an Age of Reaction.

No comments about Benjamin Disraeli: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life.

No comments about Dan Breen and the IRA.

No comments about Raids and Rallies.