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[i2amroy]

Just finished book 4, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein, and I must say that I found it to be a wonderful book. It had enough sci-fi and unreal things in it to keep my creative side working, while being deep enough to provide some interesting thoughts. I found the ending to be kinda sad though (but aren't all endings sad in some way?). It was still an amazing book and I recommend it for anybody who has trouble digging into some of the "deeper" literature as something that can be interesting while still having some nice literary depth to it.

Spoiler: Books Finished (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

Total Pages: 1391

[Caz]

'Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things' It's basically a book of interesting insults. Pretty amusing. Also read Crowley's Book of Lies. Also interesting, but I doubt I could make sense of much of it.

Spoiler:  13/100 (click to show/hide)

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins  (387 pages)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins (391 pages)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins (390 pages)
The Four Agreements - Miguel Ruiz (144 pages)
Grotesque - Natsuo Kirino (480 pages)
Mammoth - Stephen Baxter (277 pages)
Theodore Boone - John Grisham (272 pages)
A Prison Diary - Jeffrey Archer (272 pages)
The Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M Auel (512 pages)
The Valley of Horses – Jean M Auel (560 pages)
The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M Auel (784 pages)
Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things – Linda Berdoll (143 pages)
The Book of Lies - Aleister Crowley (212 pages)

[Flying Dice]

Mm, I enjoyed the first quarter or so of Crime and Punishment, but I got distracted by something else (I don't remember, it was years ago) and never finished it. My excuse is that uncompleted good books aren't actually set aside, they're just in a semi-permanent transitional state. I really need to find the copy I was reading.

[varnish]

Book number four: The Song of Roland, by someone or other.

The descriptions of fighting are so gory, but also so matter of fact. All "and then he put his sword through his good steel casque, and split it, so that the brains came spilling out". Over and over and over again.

The poems depiction of Muslims is... interesting:
"they weep and cry, they manifest great sorrow,
they mourn their gods Mohammed, Termagent, and Apollo"

I wonder if the poem's misunderstanding of Islam comes from ignorance, or if it's deliberate. How much did the average Christian know about the average Muslim in France at that time (1100ish)? was it a way of denying the fact that Muslims worshiped the same god as they did?

I've had enough bloodshed, and enough of knights. Time to read something more peaceful.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Froissart's Chronicles
2. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
3. Patricia McKillip - In the Forests of Serre
4. The Song of Roland

[PanH]

I wonder if the poem's misunderstanding of Islam comes from ignorance, or if it's deliberate. How much did the average Christian know about the average Muslim in France at that time (1100ish)? was it a way of denying the fact that Muslims worshiped the same god as they did?

In 1100s, you could as well say Heretic as Muslim in Europe (but Spain). I think even most of people who were able to read (monks) didn't know it was the same god.

[fqllve]

No, there are references to Muhammad as a prophet of God and Jesus in other medieval chansons and while the popular view might have been muddled, and almost everyone considered the Muslims to be pagan, nobles and scholar ought to have known it was Abrahamic, if only due to the Crusades. The Italians, in particular, ought to have been well-informed about Islam, considering they had large amounts of trade with the Muslims so were in steady contact with them.

[varnish]

I've been doing some more reading, and "muddled" seems like a good word. There's a lot of different accounts over the centuries, some that seem more accurate than others. But I think you're right, fqllve. A person who could read, who lived in the Mediterranean world, would I think have to have known at least a little about Islam, and what it meant. It looks like the view that Islam was a just a Christian heresy was popular in the first few centuries before the crusades.

I wonder if, for this sort of poem, the writers thought it was enough that they be an enemy, with alien beliefs. Accuracy probably wasn't the important thing, to them.

Maybe I shouldn't write about this. There's a lot more to it than I have any background knowledge on. Maybe my next book should be on medieval religious history.

[fqllve]

I've got a few books on my Amazon wishlist that might be relevant to you. The one I think would be most relevant is Saracens by Tolan. After that would be Islam and the West by Norman Daniels (not to be confused with the Bernard Lewis book of the same title, which I've been lead to believe is much less historically oriented). Finally, and it seems unlikely that this would have much of direct relevance to your question, but it might still have some useful information, is Mohammed and Charlemagne by Pirenne.

[varnish]

I think I have a copy of the Mohammed and Charlemagne book somewhere, or my father has. And I can definitely check those others out, so thanks.

[Sappho]

To be fair, even most perfectly literate (and in many cases even well-educated) modern Americans aren't aware that Muslims worship the same god as Christians and Jews. I think this might have something to do with the odd fact that for some reason media refuses to translate the word Allah into God, making people assume they're all worshiping some pagan god named Allah. I didn't even realize that it was an Abrahamic religion until I studied comparative religions in university. My teacher quickly pointed out that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also worship Allah because that's just the word for God.

So anyway, I think it would be understandable if there was general confusion about the fact centuries ago as well. Access to information in general then was more difficult, and there's no telling what the quality of that information was - I suppose that hasn't changed these days; information is everywhere but you never know what's true and what's just made up.

[Kansa]

Finished my first book of 2013

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Dune by Frank herbert

[The Darkling Wolf]

Haven't had a huge amount of time to read, so I've only managed to finish 2 so far.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nineteen Eighty Four & Animal Farm - George Orwell (Lumping them together because Animal Farm was really short)
Foundation - Isaac Asimov

[Scelly9]

Spoiler: Done so far (click to show/hide)

Storm Front - 322 pages
The Hunger Games - 374 pages
Going Postal - 416 pages
Making Money - 432 pages
Shadow Puppets - 384 pages
Total so far: 1928 pages

[mcclay]

Finished Fallout: Equestria. At more words than War and Peace it should be counted. I'm going through two of the old Conan books right now, along with some other old sci-fi I picked up at a used bookstore. Also reading Fal:Equ Project Horzions, which is grimdark as fuck.

[Flying Dice]

2.5 chapters and assorted random manuscript pages left of Stephen Hero. I'm quite glad I decided to read it.