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Count Bohemond
1st edition NEL 1973 paperback, vg In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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About the author
Alfred Duggan
43 books44 followers"There have been few historical imaginations better informed or more gifted than Alfred Duggan’s" (The New Criterion).
Historian, archaeologist and novelist Alfred Leo Duggan wrote historical fiction and non-fiction about a wide range of subjects, in places and times as diverse as Julius Caesar’s Rome and the Medieval Europe of Thomas Becket.
Although he was born in Argentina, Duggan grew up in England, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. After Oxford, he travelled extensively through Greece and Turkey, visiting almost all the sites later mentioned in his books. In 1935 helped excavate Constantine’s palace in Istanbul.
Duggan came to writing fiction quite late in his life: his first novel about the First Crusade, Knight in Armour, was published in 1950, after which he published at least a book every year until his death in 1964. His fictional works were bestselling page-turners, but thoroughly grounded in meticulous research informed by Duggan’s experience as an archaeologist and historian.
Duggan has been favourably compared to Bernard Cornwell as well as being praised in his own right as "an extremely gifted writer who can move into an unknown period and give it life and immediacy" (New York Times).
Historian, archaeologist and novelist Alfred Leo Duggan wrote historical fiction and non-fiction about a wide range of subjects, in places and times as diverse as Julius Caesar’s Rome and the Medieval Europe of Thomas Becket.
Although he was born in Argentina, Duggan grew up in England, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. After Oxford, he travelled extensively through Greece and Turkey, visiting almost all the sites later mentioned in his books. In 1935 helped excavate Constantine’s palace in Istanbul.
Duggan came to writing fiction quite late in his life: his first novel about the First Crusade, Knight in Armour, was published in 1950, after which he published at least a book every year until his death in 1964. His fictional works were bestselling page-turners, but thoroughly grounded in meticulous research informed by Duggan’s experience as an archaeologist and historian.
Duggan has been favourably compared to Bernard Cornwell as well as being praised in his own right as "an extremely gifted writer who can move into an unknown period and give it life and immediacy" (New York Times).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 23, 2012
Essentially, Alfred Duggan’s Count Bohemond is a novelization of Steven Runciman’s first volume in his A History of the Crusades. (Truth be told, there are parts of Prof. Runciman’s classic that read like a novel.) Bohemond was a scion of one of the more remarkable families of a remarkable people – the Normans. Most people, if only vaguely, are aware that “the Normans” conquered England at some point in time (AD 1066) but fewer are aware that that period in Medieval history also saw Norman conquests in Spain, Italy, Southeast Europe and the Levant. Bohemond was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard (the “Weasel”) of the Hauteville family. Robert wrested Southern Italy from its Lombard and Byzantine masters to become Duke of Apulia and Calabria but Bohemond, though an exemplary knight, was not a politician and found himself largely disinherited by his half-brother, Roger Borsa (the “Purse,” Roger wasn’t much of a knight but he was a canny politician and a skinflint), upon Robert’s death in 1085. The advent of the First Crusade gave Bohemond the chance to carve out a domain of his own and this novel chronicles that effort up to the time when he’s able to make himself Prince of Antioch.
If you’ve read my reviews of Children of the Wolf and Besieger of Cities, you’ll know the reservations I have for Duggan’s writing. They are again evident here so I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book either but I did enjoy it. As in Winter Quarters, there’s a greater energy than in those other two novels because Duggan sincerely admires and likes his character. I can’t say that I share that admiration but it makes the book engaging and fast moving.
Duggan’s difficulty as a writer is that he doesn’t trust the reader to understand what’s going on without explicitly laying everything out, all too often in awkward exposition. E.g.:
I can’t recall anything nearly this awkward in, for example, an Aubrey/Maturin novel or even in a Sharpe adventure.
On the other hand, there are still enjoyable moments of Duggan’s sardonic wit and humor. There’s an early scene where Guiscard explains to Bohemond his “philosophy of rule”:
And later in the book, Bohemond and his nephew Tancred are considering what to do with two deserters who, unfortunately, are also rather high ranking members of the crusading army (whom Duggan consistently refers to as “pilgrims”). Both men are half-starved and tipsy with drink: “As the wine glowed inside them, they sat, looking judicial.” (p. 189)
And, while I can’t commend this book strongly, I can enthusiastically recommend Runciman’s 3-volume A History of the Crusades. It’s a bit dated, having been written in the ‘50s, but there’s no better source for getting a blow-by-blow account of the Crusades.
If you’ve read my reviews of Children of the Wolf and Besieger of Cities, you’ll know the reservations I have for Duggan’s writing. They are again evident here so I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book either but I did enjoy it. As in Winter Quarters, there’s a greater energy than in those other two novels because Duggan sincerely admires and likes his character. I can’t say that I share that admiration but it makes the book engaging and fast moving.
Duggan’s difficulty as a writer is that he doesn’t trust the reader to understand what’s going on without explicitly laying everything out, all too often in awkward exposition. E.g.:
“We shall all be very sorry to part with Count Bohemond, but if those are his views he is right to leave us. I myself have never heard the Emperor promise Antioch to Count Bohemond as his private fief, though since we left the city I have heard Count Bohemond often refer to that promise. I don’t suggest for a moment that he isn’t telling the truth as he sees it; but recollections of private conversations sometimes differ. As I see it Antioch ought to go to Alexius. You all promised to restore his old frontiers. As it happens I did not, but I promised to do him no harm while I was within his dominions, and I am now within his dominions. There it is. Antioch must be given to the Greeks, even if it means losing that splendid Apulian contingent.” (p. 194)
I can’t recall anything nearly this awkward in, for example, an Aubrey/Maturin novel or even in a Sharpe adventure.
On the other hand, there are still enjoyable moments of Duggan’s sardonic wit and humor. There’s an early scene where Guiscard explains to Bohemond his “philosophy of rule”:
“So we are, and I should like to stay that way. But if the Greeks offer me a fortune on condition I serve their Patriarch I might be open to conviction. Theology is a subject beyond the understanding of a simple knight. God won’t damn a layman for serving the wrong spiritual superior. But Normans can do more than fight. Look here, young Bohemond, you must get this into your head. Normans can govern – we are the best governors in the world. The revenues of Apulia and Calabria are greater than before we came, though then they were ruled by clever Greeks and during the conquest nearly every valley was plundered. Greeks are bright, but they’re all crooked. As for Lombards, they are lazy as well as crooked. Half the villages didn’t pay tribute because no one came around to collect it. Others bribed the collector with a little something for his own purse, much less than the due payment. Now everything runs as smoothly as a water-mill. No use trying to bribe a Norman collector, because he won’t take less than the full tribute even if he keeps it all for himself. A man who has to look after his irrigation-ditches jolly well must repair them once a year. A man who ought to collect toll from every traveler can’t let his friends pass free. In my fiefs only I plunder caravans of merchants; there are no other brigands. The peasants pay us rather a lot, but they don’t pay anything to anyone else. We can govern a country so that it prospers. Now don’t you suppose that whoever is the next Emperor of Romania would like to hire Normans to help him run his Empire? Things will be rather disturbed after a few civil wars.” (pp. 18-19)
And later in the book, Bohemond and his nephew Tancred are considering what to do with two deserters who, unfortunately, are also rather high ranking members of the crusading army (whom Duggan consistently refers to as “pilgrims”). Both men are half-starved and tipsy with drink: “As the wine glowed inside them, they sat, looking judicial.” (p. 189)
And, while I can’t commend this book strongly, I can enthusiastically recommend Runciman’s 3-volume A History of the Crusades. It’s a bit dated, having been written in the ‘50s, but there’s no better source for getting a blow-by-blow account of the Crusades.
February 2, 2011
Duggan wrote this type of novel with a genuine skill, capturing the exoticness of medieval Europe whilst retaining a sense of the nitty-gritty details that add verisimilitude to the bright colors of courtly life. Bohemond was the crafty and gigantic offspring of Robert Guiscard, one of the Hauteville Normans who managed to carve southern Italy into principalities and robber baronies under their fierce and disciplined control. Duggan begins his story with the birth of Bohemond, whose mother would soon be repudiated by Guiscard in favor of a second marriage with a lascivious member of the Lombard aristocracy. In a series of jumps through time we learn of Guiscard's failure to achieve his principal ambition, victory over the Byzantine Emperor; that Bohemond has inherited this same burning desire to go along with the relatively minor comital dignity his father salvaged for his eldest son; and that, joined by his loyal nephew Tancred, Bohemond fully expects to be a major figure in the Crusade against the Saracens that has been assembled by the nobility of France and Germany. Warily jockeying for political position against the equally skillful Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus, Bohemond soon finds himself at the head of the Crusader army - jostling against the antagonistic and pious Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse; the chary, honorable and god-fevered Godfrey de Bouillon, nominal Duke of Lower Lotharingia; the courageous but tergiversatory Duke Robert of Normandy; and the subtle and level-headed papal prelate Bishop Adhemar of Puy.
Although Duggan obviously admired the real-life Bohemond and hence somewhat tamped down the naked edges of the knight's ambition for the novel in which he placed him, we still find a worldly-wise Bohemond maneuvering against the Emperor and the more Christian strategy of his rival lords. Duggan really excels at depicting the travails and struggles against both the land and the Saracens, the hit-and-run battles on the Anatolian plateau and the attritional siege of Antioch, in which Bohemond concocted the stratagem for bypassing the impenetrable city walls. Each character is captured nicely, if a touch blandly - there is a certain edge missing from them, especially Bohemond, whose actions occasionally seem to spring from a mind of a more Machiavellian and hungry bent than is actually depicted on the page. Still, for a historical novel set amidst all the fervor and dust of the First Crusade - and of the part played by the talented and ambitious Norman contingent - this is about as good as it gets.
Although Duggan obviously admired the real-life Bohemond and hence somewhat tamped down the naked edges of the knight's ambition for the novel in which he placed him, we still find a worldly-wise Bohemond maneuvering against the Emperor and the more Christian strategy of his rival lords. Duggan really excels at depicting the travails and struggles against both the land and the Saracens, the hit-and-run battles on the Anatolian plateau and the attritional siege of Antioch, in which Bohemond concocted the stratagem for bypassing the impenetrable city walls. Each character is captured nicely, if a touch blandly - there is a certain edge missing from them, especially Bohemond, whose actions occasionally seem to spring from a mind of a more Machiavellian and hungry bent than is actually depicted on the page. Still, for a historical novel set amidst all the fervor and dust of the First Crusade - and of the part played by the talented and ambitious Norman contingent - this is about as good as it gets.
August 4, 2012
This is an older novel about the First Crusade, specifically, Bohemond I, prince of Antioch. He was originally a minor Norman lord from Apulia. His military prowess, particularly his talent for tactics and strategy, led him to become one of the leaders of the Crusaders and to be particularly instrumental in the conquest of Antioch.
Despite the nature of the subject matter, I tired of this book very quickly. Duggan concentrates almost exclusively on the military aspects of the story, so that the plot is nothing more than a series of battles and sieges across Asia Minor and into the middle east. With little else going on in the book, it quickly becomes surprisingly repetitive. There's a little bit of politics among the leaders of the Crusade, but Duggan does not get very far into it beyond how it affects the various battles and sieges. There's very little attention given to Bohemond's relationships or inner life. And there's not much in the way of description of the details of life on Crusade.
Duggan also seems to have surprisingly little to say about his protagonist or the events he depicts. There's really nothing there beyond "see this cool Crusader and all the cool things he did". Plus, duggan takes a very simplistic view of the Crusade itself: the Crusaders are awesome, the Greeks and the Turks aren't. No exploration of any themes or anything, robbing the book of any real substance.
Despite the nature of the subject matter, I tired of this book very quickly. Duggan concentrates almost exclusively on the military aspects of the story, so that the plot is nothing more than a series of battles and sieges across Asia Minor and into the middle east. With little else going on in the book, it quickly becomes surprisingly repetitive. There's a little bit of politics among the leaders of the Crusade, but Duggan does not get very far into it beyond how it affects the various battles and sieges. There's very little attention given to Bohemond's relationships or inner life. And there's not much in the way of description of the details of life on Crusade.
Duggan also seems to have surprisingly little to say about his protagonist or the events he depicts. There's really nothing there beyond "see this cool Crusader and all the cool things he did". Plus, duggan takes a very simplistic view of the Crusade itself: the Crusaders are awesome, the Greeks and the Turks aren't. No exploration of any themes or anything, robbing the book of any real substance.
August 21, 2008
Bohemond was a Norman knight from southern Italy who was one of the most capable and ambitious leaders of the First Crusade (1096-1099). He came from a fairly humble background, but his abilities as a battlefield commander were recognized by the dukes, counts, and royal princes who led the crusade. He eventually carved out a kingdom for himself--the Principality of Antioch, one of the four main Crusader States established after the capture of Jerusalem.
This was Alfred Duggan's last novel, written when he was at the peak of his skill.
This was Alfred Duggan's last novel, written when he was at the peak of his skill.
October 10, 2015
Good historical fiction about the crusades
May 1, 2017
I really only read about half the book. So disappointed as this historical character was someone I really wanted to know better, and there was even Evelyn Waugh's glowing introduction--I would have quit reading earlier, but thought I was missing something. Slow going, repetitious, no compelling relationships. Bohemond confesses that he doesn't care for women--nor men either--and this book ends before his later arranged marriage. That event might have made his life story more interesting. BUT this book is not a life story. It ends before his life ends.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews