SELF-HELP FROM THE MIDDLE AGES: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living, never forget people are ALWAYS people not labels

SELF-HELP FROM THE MIDDLE AGES: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living
PETER JONES
Doubleday (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From medieval historian Peter Jones comes a groundbreaking guide to navigating contemporary life through the wisdom of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Peter Jones was teaching medieval history at a university in Siberia when his third icy winter there plunged him into a dark place. Luckily, he knew something few of us know—that for all its reputation for darkness and superstition, the Middle Ages were the golden age of self-help. So he set out on a journey to explore the wisdom of medieval scholars, saints, and mystics, looking for an alternative path through the challenges of modern life.

Never in history, Jones marvels in Self-Help from the Middle Ages, has so much energy and talent gone into studying how the mind works as in the medieval centuries. Although today we think of the Seven Deadly Sins as a catalog of forbidden behavior, in the Middle Ages, at the height of their currency, they were a path to self-knowledge and self-forgiveness. Together, pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust were a psychological map that laid out seven basic patterns of thought, showing how our thinking can go astray and how we can find our way home.

In Self-Help from the Middle Ages, Jones explores each sin, searching the hellscapes of Hieronymous Bosch and Giotto, the intimate confessions of Dante and Margery Kempe, and the personal struggles of Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena. Along the way he discovers a treasure trove of lost truths about temptation, frustration, addiction, compulsion, burnout, rage, fear, anxiety, and grief that still pulse with life. With beautiful illustrations drawn from medieval art and literature, his book is a gift to all who love history and anyone who has ever sought wisdom from the past.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: What happens when a scholarly British man with an advanced medieval-history degree from an American school gets a seriously good job in Russophone academia? He moves to Siberia! (Before the Ukraine war begins. He lives in Madrid now.)

Siberia. The place Russia sends people to die in misery. A byword, in US English anyway, for grim, awful exile, for the place you're sent to pay for your sins. I'm afraid this is where I start revealing my prejudices: I envied this polyglot scholar for his seriously good luck. I envied him for living a life I'm still feeling angry at being denied a chance to pursue (though Siberia was never in my mind as an option). So already two of the deadly sins ticked off—again—my life's list of the damned things committed. Oh okay, I'm getting the point now, thought I.

Siberia, the severeness of it, wore on the spirit of Author Jones. He experienced the dark night of the soul, the terrible trackless waste of depression. Being a scholar by nature the solution was obvious: you are not the first person to have this problem. How did those others handle it? The seven deadly sins offer up a schema for understanding the workings of the human mind as well as a perspective check on what your emotional weather really means.

These "sins" are, of course, deeply enmeshed with christian concepts of a religiously ordered universe. Sin more broadly is a religious concept of transgressing a divinely ordained code and appears in multiple religious traditions. It's only natural that a medievalist from England would gravitate towards concepts familiar from his scholarly activities.

In the memoir portions of this narrative, the author evokes very movingly the experience of researching, identifying, and handling medieval manuscripts that contain the seven deadly sins and their explications of how these can be used to improve one's soul. The goal in these readings iss to give the reader a map towards salvation, union with the god of the christians; but as Author Jones elucidates, how different is that goal from modern self-help books' stated goal of helping one become better, happier, more adept at navigating your life. People have sought ways to understand their inner workings, how to cultivate their minds/souls into "better" or "happier" behaviors since the oracle at Delphi...much earlier than that, I am certain, because a pithy aperçu like "know thyself" isn't a first draft, and it is carved in literal stone so it's been workshopped to a fare-thee-well, though it wasn't done in writing so the records are implicit only.

We're highly intelligent, us humans, curious about ourselves because we're so different from other creatures. We have access to the thoughts and the musings and the conclusions of millennia of our forebears. A scholar would know where and how to look for insight into issues common to us all. Descriptions of depression, of psychological maladjustments, maladaptive behaviors, and solutions to the problems arising therefrom, might vary but the impetus to look for ways to be, feel, act "better" is constant. Author Jones seeks the commonality between the seven deadly sins and modern self-help schemata because he needs help, knows our ancestors...sons, daughters, lovers, spouses just like us...needed help figuring out the best ways to be fulfilled. He accomplishes this in the way that best uses his personal strengths. He tells us about his quest in plainly personal terms, clearly stating his stakes in starting the quest. (I frame it as a quest because he's a medievalist and "happiness" is a grail quest.) It is more this strand of his narrative that I found involving, engaging. I was less invested in the rubber-meets-the-road formulations of how the personally offensive to me religious concept of the sins themselves represent paths to self-knowledge. This is a very useful and, to me, persuasive argument. It's offensive to me because the religion it's embedded within is evil and vile, used to create division and enact horrors of cruelty; if there is a "God" as they name her, and she tolerates these terrible acts committed in her nsme, she is not the kind of god who deserves worship.

None of that is addressed in this book; I can't offer an otherwise fully merited fifth star because to do so is to accept a fundamental agreement with an argument for "God" and her christian system's validity.

This is purely a personal inability to tolerate any support of the christian worldview,however tacit it may be, as in any way moral or positively constructive.

THE SAMURAI OF THE RED CARNATION, fascinating historical period, less successful novel

THE SAMURAI OF THE RED CARNATION
DENIS THÉRIAULT (tr. Louise Rogers Lalaurie)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Matsuo is born to be a samurai, but as he is being trained in the art of war he realises he was meant for a different art altogether.

Turning his back on his future as a warrior of the sword, he decides instead to do battle with words, as a poet. Thus begins a story of romance and adventure, love and betrayal, that takes Matsuo across medieval Japan, through bloody battlefields and burning cities, culminating in his ultimate test at the uta awase—where Japan's greatest poets engage in fierce verbal combat for the honour of victory.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Warrior turns poet, author tells his story complete with the poetry he writes.

Not my thing. At. All. I was expecting more warrior...the first third was focused on that...and lots less on-the-page poetry, and I got the reverse. I'm reviewing it because it was a solid work of historical evocation that gave me a more intense experience of medieval Japan's ethos than I've had since Sanō Ichiro of the 17th century. Like Sanō, Matsuo, who lives in Heian Japan in the 12th century, has battle experiences that mark him for life. They lead Matsuo to the very Japanese world pf poetry as a high art.

It should tell you all you need to know about this book's writing that I did not abandon it forthwith after the first poem. Translator Lalaurie did as well as anyone could in presenting poems not written in English to their best advantage. Of course they were not originally written in Japanese, so there is that. I understand Japanese poetry feels different from Western stuff but I could not tell you why or how to save my life.

While Author Thériault is French, he did assume a very Japanese manner of not using dialogue to tell his story. It is almost all narration. That will not sit well with some, so be aware of it. I found myself wondering if the Japanese of the Heian were mute and communicated solely in glances, gestures, and writing. It's not my favorite way to tell a story, TBH.

In the end I wanted to bring a full review to it because it is a remarkable feat of writing to convince my poemphobic self to sit through a whole novel of poetry, thinking about poetry, valorizing poets, etc etc, without causing me to hurl either my cookies or my Kindle across the room.

Bravo to author and translator. Those enamored of poetry...hi y'all, how the heck did you find me?...should not hesitate a moment to pick this story right up and savor its pleasures.

THE VIKING HISTORY PAGE: THE WOLF AGE, first Scandinavian-authored Viking history in English & CHILDREN OF ASH AND ELM, distinguished archaeologist writes

THE WOLF AGE: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire
TORE SKEIE (tr. Alison McCullough)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$19.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Thrilling history provides a new perspective on the Viking-Anglo Saxon conflicts and brings the bloody period vividly to life, perfect for fans of Dan Jones

The first major book on Vikings by a Scandinavian author to be published in English, The Wolf Age reframes the struggle for a North Sea empire and puts readers in the mindset of Vikings, providing new insight into their goals, values, and what they chose to live and die for.

Tore Skeie ("Norway's Most Important Young Historian") takes readers on a thrilling journey through the bloody shared history of England and Scandinavia, and on across early medieval Europe, from the wild Norwegian fjords to the wealthy cities of Muslim Andalusia.

Warfare, plotting, backstabbing and bribery abound as Skeie skillfully weaves sagas and skaldic poetry with breathless dramatization as he entertainingly brings the world of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons to vivid life.

In the eleventh century, the rulers of the lands surrounding the North Sea are all hungry for power. To get power they need soldiers, to get soldiers they need silver, and to get silver there is no better way than war and plunder.

This vicious cycle draws all the lands of the north into a brutal struggle for supremacy and survival that will shatter kingdoms and forge an empire…

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: This Norwegian historian's viewpoint on the rise and spread of the late-Viking-era North Sea empire. The seeds of this immense stretch of territory coming under one ruler were set in the attacks of Harald Gormsson, King of Denmark, (whom we call "Bluetooth" and yes, he's the source of the name of the wireless connectivity protocol on your phone) on the rich and peaceful (therefore ripe for robbery) Anglo-Saxon Kingdom(s). His wars against the neighboring Saxon Kingdom along the Baltic Sea coast were costly, and even resulted in his loss of control over Norway; much money for rearming and hiring mercenaries was needed and, well, Anglaland ho! Alas, his death came before he could finish a war of conquest in what is today a coastal region of Poland.

Aethelred the Redeless, who fought Harald and Sweyn his whole life, on his coinage
We don't see much of Harald in English-language histories, but he was more than the raiding monarch seeking silver to pay for his wars. He was also the one who introduced a centralized coinage for Denmark, guaranteeing its value would always be the same wherever one was paid in it. And one means of assuring that? Go get silver from someone else. The English have lots! And so it came to pass that the immensity of the North Sea became the middle ground between two halves of one empire...in fact, for a brief time, and in imagination for a longer one.

Harald's son Sweyn (opponent of "Saint" Olaf Haraldsson for the title of King of Norway, who is pictured above), after successfully rebelling against him, continued his father's efforts to unite the coasts of the North Sea under his family. A period of uncertainty in his rule before his first reported raid on the murderers of his kinsfolk in their midst (the appalling St Brice's Day massacre!) beginning a long campaign of looting and terror against the English. This campaign turned into occupation; the occupation turned into becoming the King of the English in 1013. Leaving England in the hands of his second son, he hurried off to fight another war...and died before 1015.

He was thus not as successful as was his own son, King Canute as he is known in English and Cnut the Great at home (his coin portrait is at the right). He ruled all three kingdoms, Norway from 1028, Denmark from 1018, and England from 1015, for twenty years and made a decent fist of it. What happened, as happened to most all territorially great empires, was just the reality of physics. In an era without motorized transport, the chances of maintaining control over a huge swath of territory are not great. Cnut did not overcome the odds, dying in 1035 with England still barely under his control. His descendants continued to cherish hopes of reacquiring England until Edward the Confessor died in 1066, when Harald Hardrada was killed with his army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge defending his, um, very (very) extended family's claim on the wealthy English realm. This was the last gasp of the North Sea Empire as envisioned by Harald Gormsson a century before.

The territorial drive of the father, son, and grandsons wasn't out of character; wasn't unusually violently for the era; and is ripe for reconsideration by English-language readers to account for our lamentable tendency to simply unsee the viewpoints of others on our shared histories. This volume is the first translated, for the most part skilfully, into English. I'd say the one concerning lacuna in this rendering into English of a popular history written in Norwegian is the use of colloquially still prevalent "Anglo-Saxon" in reference to the people, not the culture, of England from the 6th through 11th centuries. It's established through the use of genomics that the people of England are still largely Britons. It's a minor cavil in a work of popular history.

More frustrating to me is the lack of maps in the DRC. There are (see above) very nice black-and-white illustrations at the chapter opens but in my DRC, there weren't maps and, in any history text that discusses battles, that is a serious omission. I am aware that there are indeed maps in your final copies, I hasten to say, but I haven't seen them and can't comment on their effectiveness at conveying information they're meant to. I left off only a half-star in my rating, however, because that lack was both unique to the DRC and somewhat compensated for by the sheer pleasure of reading the skillfully translated text. Alison McCullough deserves much praise. While there is a sense of the original text's depth of scholarship, the primary affect of this book is one of absorbing, intelligent conversation overheard by the reader...not all the references or historical figures will stay in one's mind, available for instant recall, but even at lazier moments when I didn't feel like chasing a reference or an actor in the endnotes, or the "Overview of Persons" as this text charmingly calls the Dramatis Personae, I was carried along by what felt to me like very readable, accessible prose. Enough explanation was offered to my non-specialist brain to enable me to move forward with a real sense of the ethos in which events transpired.

Overall, the point of a book such as this...a lovely illustrated trade-paper edition of popular history about the pre-Norman Conquest world of England...is to please and intrigue the history buff on your gifting list. (Or you, of course.) I feel confident that it will serve that purpose.

Pushkin Press continues its streak of fascinating, unusual in the US, points of view presented in beautiful and pleasurable format.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CHILDREN OF ASH AND ELM: A History of the Vikings
NEIL PRICE
Basic Books
$35.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The definitive history of the Vikings—from arts and culture to politics and cosmology—by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise

The Viking Age—from 750 to 1050—saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.

Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed.

From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Far broader in scope than The Wolf Age reviewed above, this is the most compact (at under 650 pages) and the most comprehensive overview I've ever read of the "Viking Age" Norse as we here to their South call the multiple groups of Scandinavian traders, slavers, warriors, and rapists who burst the seams of their colossally cold homeland in search of new lands and lots of money. Spoiler alert: they got them.

If the data from the Continental written sources is combined, the protection money paid to the Vikingsduring the ninth century totalled about thirty thousand pounds' weight of silver, most of it in cash: a sum equivalent to seven million silver pennies over a period when the estimated total output of the Frankish mints was in the region of fifty million coins. This equates to approximately 14 percent of the entire monetary output of the Frankish empire—for a century—evaporated in the payment of extortion demands that produced no tangible positive gain, and, in many cases, failed to appease the Vikings anyway.

(italics in the original)

There is so much to unpack in that passage...it's shockingly obvious that appeasement is seldom a worthwhile strategy, and is always an expensive one; the reputation of the Norse people as warriors was such that they merely needed to show up to be given boatloads of money to go away again; and the tribute in kind, not just the cash they brought home, kept the balance of hunger on the rightful owners of the land and food not the invaders. The Frankish kingdom, then, was more changed by its experience of Viking invasion than was even England, though both countries saw significant influxes of Norse population, arriving to make the country their home...with variable amounts of success. (See above for St. Brice's Massacre.)

That is all part of the middle, or "Viking" era that this volume is divided into. The first part of the text is called the "Migration" era. It is the time that saw huge cultural and climatic changes in Europe. There was pressure to find land to farm and patches of sea to exploit during this time, as well as the successor states to the Roman Empire arising and contending with each other for influence and territory. And ending the book is a kind of summation of the influence this phenomenally active and successful force in the world.

I was delighted to have the maps to help me interpret the movements and stations of Norse cultural expansion. I was also impressed wt the copiousness of the in-line illustrations. It is expensive to make a book this attractive and it's not a terribly pricey purchase at $35 for a hardcover. Basic Books has done a creditable job of this without making it a coffee-table book or a category-gift book.

Author Neil Price is a professional archaeologist. It is evident from the tone and tenor of his writing that his primary interest is in making you aware of the facts; he doesn't make the same amount of effort with the storytelling aspects of his writing. I've excerpted one of the typical passages where he's clearly making the effort to show the reader how phenomenally effective the Vikings were at their chosen task of redistributing others' wealth back to themselves. It's a fact, presented factually, that conveys a gigantic emotive affect of the Viking warriors. It is laudably clear; it is admirably placed for effect within the text (you'll have to trust me on that one); but it doesn't rise as high into the rhetorical clouds as Author Tore's book does.

It is, as a gift item, a good value; as a gift received, a real pleasure on all levels. It's a hefty tome, though, so for your friends whose needs are more for thinner reads, the ebook is a dead cheap choice!

Either way anyone wanting an accessible, enjoyable, and thoroughgoing overview of the Vikings as historical actors is in luck this Yule.