Destiny of Fire

by Zoe Oldenbourg

book data

5 ratings, 4.40 average rating, 2 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		40%
4		60%
3		0%
2		0%
1		0%

edit

published

December 31st 1998 by Carroll & Graf (first published 1960)

details

Paperback, 384 pages

characters

Ricord and Arsen de Montgreil

setting

France
France

isbn

0786705779 (isbn13: 9780786705771)

description

It's easy to forget horror & reject its presence. There have been many attempts throughout history by one group to exterminate another but few have b…more

[close] It's easy to forget horror & reject its presence. There have been many attempts throughout history by one group to exterminate another but few have been so successful as that of the Catholic Church against Catharism. In Destiny of Fire, Zoe Oldenbourg recreates the era that saw the height & also the end of this thriving culture that had attained social dominance in what we think of as southwestern France by the early thirteenth-century.
The Cathars were a Christian sect that believed in an ongoing cosmic struggle between the realm of spirit, which was pure, & the realm of matter, which was corrupt. They rejected many worldly things, lived celibate non-materialistic lives of simplicity & had but one prayer: The Our Father. In their devotion to reaching a state of communion with otherworldliness, Cathars defied the riches & regimentation of the Catholic Church.
In the Crusade declared against this religion, which at its height numbered into the hundreds of thousands & was spreading into all corners of Christendom, the Church promised riches & forgiveness of sins for any who rose up & slaughtered Cathars wherever they were to be found: men, women, children. The ensuing violence directed against these people makes for a tragic tale. Oldenbourg spares us no detail of the cruel savagery of the holocaust. Scarcely any of her many characters, Cathars of all ages & walks of life, escape tragic ends. She also does a superlative job of detailing exactly what they believed & how they exercised those beliefs in day-to-day existence. Her novel is a plausible & interesting picture of a time & locale in the Medieval world.
If after reading Destiny of Fire, you find yourself wondering why it is this genocide of perhaps a million human beings is so little known today, consider the explanation in the opening of this review, but also know that for centuries the Catholic Church imposed a gag order that mandating that any mention of the Cathars must condemn them as heretical practitioners of anti-Christian evil, & any reference to the "Holy War" against them must be made in the form of praise at the righteousness of the Church's actions. Oldenbourg does history a fine service in writing this well-researched novel. --Ellie Reasoner (edited) [close]

find at: Amazon • WorldCat • more options…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

new topic
discuss this book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

other reviews (showing 1-10 of 10)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only

Jul 13, 2008

Erik Graff rated it:

bookshelves: literature

Read in January, 1978

recommended to Erik by: no one
recommends it for: everyone

I like all of the novels written by Zoe Oldenbourg read to date, but this is the favorite. Although often seen as the conclusion of a trilogy, it stands alone. Indeed, I read them out of sequence, picking this book up simply because it was about Catharism.

The word "cathar" means something like "pure" and the cathari were a dualistic Christian sect which did maintain an ontological distinction between this corruptible world of the flesh and an eternal world of th...more I like all of the novels written by Zoe Oldenbourg read to date, but this is the favorite. Although often seen as the conclusion of a trilogy, it stands alone. Indeed, I read them out of sequence, picking this book up simply because it was about Catharism.

The word "cathar" means something like "pure" and the cathari were a dualistic Christian sect which did maintain an ontological distinction between this corruptible world of the flesh and an eternal world of the spirit, identifying with the former. This dualism goes back, of course, to the roots of Christianity and even earlier. One finds it in Platonism as well as in the Pauline epistles. It is perennial belief, even commonsense at some level, but the historical antecedants of the Cathars may, in fact, have been the Bogomils of the Balkans--the religion officially practiced in the Kingdom of Bosnia.

The Catholic Church naturally did not like this abjuration of the material world as it implicitly represented a critique of the papacy and its real presence in the world as an actual state with aspirations to global supremacy. Furthermore, by eschewing materialism, the Cathari "elect", those who had taken their distinctive sacrament and had devoted themselves to preaching and spiritual perfection, commanded far more respect from their "hearers", those ordinary people committed to family life, than did the often venal priests associated with Rome. The "pure" commanded no armies, demanded no taxes. The Church was seen as an alien oppressor.

The Church's promulgation of plenary indulgences for all who would participate in a crusade against the heretics succeeded because of a confluence of interests between Rome and Paris, between the Church and the French-speaking aristocracy of the north. Both expected to gain by invading Languedoc, destroying the Cathars and their noble defenders, most notably the Raymonds of Toulouse, many of whom were ostensibly Catholic yet jealous of their independence and protective of the pacific Cathars.

Indeed, the Cathars, most of them, refused to fight. In one memorable seige, when amnesty was promised to all knights who would abandon their defence of the Cathari within the citadel, dozens of nobles took the final sacrament, becoming Cathars themselves and, so, insuring their own deaths.

The Crusade was successful, militarily and politically speaking, but the heresies continued. First, Catharism continued for centuries as an underground tradition stretching from Spain to the Balkans, even operating above ground in remote areas. This the Church attempted to stamp out by the instruments of propaganda and inquisition. The Dominican order was espressly established to conduct the campaign, a campaign that included the interrogation of children so as to obtain damning evidences against the parents. Second, the regional identity persisted in opposition to France, its language and its religion. France retaliated by outlawing the very language of of the people--a prohibition which only recently has been lifted.

Oldenbourg's novel tells this story primarily in terms of one noble family, managing to explain both their attachment to their land and to their culture without disrupting the narrative plotting of the story. Reading some of the reviews written by others, I find several complaining that the plot is too top-heavy with theology, too slow. For me, it worked. I rarely weep reading a book. This one caused me to sob on several occasions because of Oldenbourg's ability to sympathetically represent the interiority of her characters so well as to make the loss of one of them akin to the loss of a much beloved friend.(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Sep 22, 2009

Patricia rated it:

I just read the terrific review by Ellie Reasoner of Destiny of Fire.

After reading Oldenbourg's impressive, nonfiction account of the Crusades I wanted to try her fiction. So I picked up Destiny and was fascinated and repelled at the same time. Oldenbourg did not flinch when describing the horrifying genocide inflicted on the Cathars by the Church.

At some point, maybe half way through, the harsh reality of the time became too much. I stopped reading. That was many years...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment