What are you reading tonight?

[The Axman]

Still ploughing on through 11.22.63
It's hard going, but I'm determined.

[clapton is god]

Still ploughing on through 11.22.63
It's hard going, but I'm determined.

I thought it was a really good read. Mrs C declined to read beyond chapter one when she found the premise of the book, but at least she tried.

[thebish]

am reading the first of the shardlake series - Dissolution - by CJ Samson - on GtE's recommendation..

it's OK - slow going - maybe I'll get into it as the characters develop (the chief protagonist - the hump-backed shardlake..) - but am finding it difficult not to think it is another Brother Cadfael mystery!!

[Gary the Enfield]

am reading the first of the shardlake series - Dissolution - by CJ Samson - on GtE's recommendation..

it's OK - slow going - maybe I'll get into it as the characters develop (the chief protagonist - the hump-backed shardlake..) - but am finding it difficult not to think it is another Brother Cadfael mystery!!

'tis a bit Cadfael-ish. For me, though, it's how he weaves the story around the history that makes it readable.

[TANGODANCER]

Re-discovering the great Jewish scholar, philosopher and physician to Sala-ud-Din, Maimonides, in "Jerusalem". Hell of a tome and drenched in centuries of blood. I'm at the time of the Crusades, Elinor of Aquitane and Richard Cour de Leon. Fascinating stuff. Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

[Dujon]

. . . Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

From whose perspective - Jonah or Ahab?

[William the White]

Re-discovering the great Jewish scholar, philosopher and physician to Sala-ud-Din, Maimonides, in "Jerusalem". Hell of a tome and drenched in centuries of blood. I'm at the time of the Crusades, Elinor of Aquitane and Richard Cour de Leon. Fascinating stuff. Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

And, indeed, a former resident of Cordoba - the city, also capital of the western caliphate, which for over a hundred years proved it was possible for the three great monotheisms to live together in (comparative) harmony... in debate, even, without the need to tear the hearts out of each other (unlike, it seems, in Jerusalem, so important, totemically, to the one-godders and therefore so fiercely contended, in blood and bones)..

Christians put the definitive end to it, as it happens, in the great Reconquest... got rid of the Jews first, then forced the Moslems to convert or be killed or exiled... And almost managed to destroy one of the world's most breathtakingly beautiful buildings, the Great Mosque, by building a stupid ornate Gothic Cathedral in the middle of it...

Agree, though, Tango... a really engaging tome... And, you know... I could continue a whale of a debate on this one...

[TANGODANCER]

. . . Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

From whose perspective - Jonah or Ahab?

Call me Ishmail.

[TANGODANCER]

Re-discovering the great Jewish scholar, philosopher and physician to Sala-ud-Din, Maimonides, in "Jerusalem". Hell of a tome and drenched in centuries of blood. I'm at the time of the Crusades, Elinor of Aquitane and Richard Cour de Leon. Fascinating stuff. Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

And, indeed, a former resident of Cordoba - the city, also capital of the western caliphate, which for over a hundred years proved it was possible for the three great monotheisms to live together in (comparative) harmony... in debate, even, without the need to tear the hearts out of each other (unlike, it seems, in Jerusalem, so important, totemically, to the one-godders and therefore so fiercely contended, in blood and bones)..

Christians put the definitive end to it, as it happens, in the great Reconquest... got rid of the Jews first, then forced the Moslems to convert or be killed or exiled... And almost managed to destroy one of the world's most breathtakingly beautiful buildings, the Great Mosque, by building a stupid ornate Gothic Cathedral in the middle of it...

Agree, though, Tango... a really engaging tome... And, you know... I could continue a whale of a debate on this one...

Let's make that Spanish Christians WTW, who, after 800 years finally managed to regain their own country from the Moors who claimed it as a gift from Allah. As I've said many times, religion has been the excuse used by a whole host of power-hungry charlatans of every nation.

[William the White]

Re-discovering the great Jewish scholar, philosopher and physician to Sala-ud-Din, Maimonides, in "Jerusalem". Hell of a tome and drenched in centuries of blood. I'm at the time of the Crusades, Elinor of Aquitane and Richard Cour de Leon. Fascinating stuff. Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

And, indeed, a former resident of Cordoba - the city, also capital of the western caliphate, which for over a hundred years proved it was possible for the three great monotheisms to live together in (comparative) harmony... in debate, even, without the need to tear the hearts out of each other (unlike, it seems, in Jerusalem, so important, totemically, to the one-godders and therefore so fiercely contended, in blood and bones)..

Christians put the definitive end to it, as it happens, in the great Reconquest... got rid of the Jews first, then forced the Moslems to convert or be killed or exiled... And almost managed to destroy one of the world's most breathtakingly beautiful buildings, the Great Mosque, by building a stupid ornate Gothic Cathedral in the middle of it...

Agree, though, Tango... a really engaging tome... And, you know... I could continue a whale of a debate on this one...

Let's make that Spanish Christians WTW, who, after 800 years finally managed to regain their own country from the Moors who claimed it as a gift from Allah. As I've said many times, religion has been the excuse used by a whole host of power-hungry charlatans of every nation.

I don't buy that one - Spain and Portugal had been Moslem for many more years than Christian by the final completion of the 'Reconquest' in 1492... Obviously, there had been Christian provinces in the north from which the war against Islam was launched... But it's hard to say 'regained' from a land that had been Islamic for, by your reckoning, 800 years (stretching it quite a bit, in my view) ... ie longer than Christianity in Spain... The 'reconquest' was actually simply a barbaric war of aggression... And the result was what? If you think the achievements of Spanish Christianity were worth the agony they inflicted on that poor country, frankly, I think you're barmy...

[Hoboh]

Re-discovering the great Jewish scholar, philosopher and physician to Sala-ud-Din, Maimonides, in "Jerusalem". Hell of a tome and drenched in centuries of blood. I'm at the time of the Crusades, Elinor of Aquitane and Richard Cour de Leon. Fascinating stuff. Could start a whale of a debate on this one.

And, indeed, a former resident of Cordoba - the city, also capital of the western caliphate, which for over a hundred years proved it was possible for the three great monotheisms to live together in (comparative) harmony... in debate, even, without the need to tear the hearts out of each other (unlike, it seems, in Jerusalem, so important, totemically, to the one-godders and therefore so fiercely contended, in blood and bones)..

Christians put the definitive end to it, as it happens, in the great Reconquest... got rid of the Jews first, then forced the Moslems to convert or be killed or exiled... And almost managed to destroy one of the world's most breathtakingly beautiful buildings, the Great Mosque, by building a stupid ornate Gothic Cathedral in the middle of it...

Agree, though, Tango... a really engaging tome... And, you know... I could continue a whale of a debate on this one...

Let's make that Spanish Christians WTW, who, after 800 years finally managed to regain their own country from the Moors who claimed it as a gift from Allah. As I've said many times, religion has been the excuse used by a whole host of power-hungry charlatans of every nation.

I don't buy that one - Spain and Portugal had been Moslem for many more years than Christian by the final completion of the 'Reconquest' in 1492... Obviously, there had been Christian provinces in the north from which the war against Islam was launched... But it's hard to say 'regained' from a land that had been Islamic for, by your reckoning, 800 years (stretching it quite a bit, in my view) ... ie longer than Christianity in Spain... The 'reconquest' was actually simply a barbaric war of aggression... And the result was what? If you think the achievements of Spanish Christianity were worth the agony they inflicted on that poor country, frankly, I think you're barmy...

Mmmmmm

[TANGODANCER]

I don't buy that one - Spain and Portugal had been Moslem for many more years than Christian by the final completion of the 'Reconquest' in 1492... Obviously, there had been Christian provinces in the north from which the war against Islam was launched... But it's hard to say 'regained' from a land that had been Islamic for, by your reckoning, 800 years (stretching it quite a bit, in my view) ... ie longer than Christianity in Spain... The 'reconquest' was actually simply a barbaric war of aggression... And the result was what? If you think the achievements of Spanish Christianity were worth the agony they inflicted on that poor country, frankly, I think you're barmy...

Okey, dokey, barmy or no, Time for a few facts, most of which I assume you know:

The Moors ( Read north Africans) first invaded Spain in 711.(After of course the Romans and others deciding on a bit of rape and pillage) Granada,the last Moorish stronghold fell to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, best part of 800 years of gradual occupation. By 910 they occupied all Spain except Leon and Barcelona. In 1150, the Almohads occupied the whole of Southern Spain-Andalusia, and in 1492 they were finally evicted..If the re-conquest was a war of aggression, what did that make the Moorish conquest in the first place?

Northern Spain never gave in to the Moors and was the core of the re-conquest. Religion of one of the three major faiths has been around since Moses and co rebelled against just worshipping the sun and moon etc (I'm being a little fascetious of course)
The fact that anyone believed in their version of God has never stopped them from wanting power and riches. The author of Jerusalem at least doesn't decrey this or blame it for the actions of mankind. Indeed, the Moorish empire eventually tore itself apart by its policy of harems and multi-wives producing too many heirs to thrones and creating splinter kingdoms due to all the heirs wanting to be the rulers. The resulting arguments led to family wars,
murder and mayhem that had nothing to do with Christians or anyone else. The fact that the Spaniards were still fighting didn't help and Boabdil finally surrendered Granada because he knew he was fighting a lost cause.

As for beautiful buildings, what are they really except man's show of wealth and grandeur?

[William the White]

I sort of agree with most of the above,Tango, and, indeed, said some of it myself...

In particular, I agree that the Moorish conquest of Iberia was a war of aggression of a ruthless and bloody nature... As were the conquests, and attempted conquests, of Christianity from, give or take, the time of Constantine, until the 19th Century CE... Those that took place in Jerusalem you are reading about now...

That was my point, really...

The only thing i profoundly disagree with in your last post is your dismissal of 'beautiful buildings' and, in particular, ones to do with religion... Sometimes, you are right, they are a kind of boasting of wealth (the chapels around the sides of Seville Cathedral seem to me particularly susceptible to this criticism, and the art within the Vatican has plenty of examples)... And, for sure, only wealth meant that they could be built...

But, to name only a couple i know well, that have a religious purpose, York Minster and the Great Mosque at Cordoba are far more than that - they are testament to a human search for the transcendental that is truly moving, I think... and i would add to this a little ancient chapel near Portscatho in Cornwall, that struck me as a place of modesty and peace... Just lovely...

[TANGODANCER]

Then we're not really arguing too far apart Will: And don't think for a minute I don't appreciate beautiful buildings or indeed churches, castles and cathedrals. The Alhambra Palace is like nothing on earth for beauty and amazing skill and craftsmanship, yet Charles the Fifth built his own palace inside it. The Moors tore down churches to build their mosques, the Christians did likewise in return; all a show of dominance that paid no heed to religion, just used it as an excuse for one-upmanship.

Same could be said for may places around the world such as the Taj Mahal. I seen some amazing places and the cathedral in Seville is a real example of wrong intent. "Let's build a church so big the world will think we've gone mad" or some such words were uttered by its builders. That totally defeats the concept of a place of worship as opposed to an example of "ours is bigger and better than yours" thinking.

Who could afford to build places like our own stately homes today? A lot of them are slowly falling apart because the owners can't afford to maintain that sort of grandeur. That supports the argument that wealth and power were the original source of their creation. The pyramids and many of histories great monuments were only built because slave labour enabled that. They couldn't happen in today's world.

Not a one of them would probably ever have existed but for a show of wealth and power. Now then, what were we actually debating?

[bobo the clown]

The Eric Clapton autobiography.

Good grief he treated people badly ... & how he survived all the drugs & drink is amazing.

Of course, by then end, he's "sorted" and all is well. Or so it reads.

[Bruce Rioja]

Time to pick one from the shelf, for me. Hmmm.......

Tom Sharpe - Indecent Exposure, it is.

[The Axman]

Just finished Dark Eden by Chris Beckett. If you like Sci Fi, I definitely recommend this one.

[William the White]

Time to pick one from the shelf, for me. Hmmm.......

Tom Sharpe - Indecent Exposure, it is.

Had me weeping with laughter 30 years ago!

[Bruce Rioja]

Time to pick one from the shelf, for me. Hmmm.......

Tom Sharpe - Indecent Exposure, it is.

Had me weeping with laughter 30 years ago!

And had I actually remembered to bring it with me.....................

[TANGODANCER]

Time to pick one from the shelf, for me. Hmmm.......

Tom Sharpe - Indecent Exposure, it is.

Had me weeping with laughter 30 years ago!

Almost forgotten about the plot now, but I seem to rememberThe Ginger Man doing the same to me many years back.