From the Bookshelf of 2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]…

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Barbara W. Tuchman

Discussion: . Week 1: More Than 500 Pages

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. Week 1: More Than 500 Pages

* Week 1: Introduction
By Jessica · 102 posts · 1093 views

last updated Aug 11, 2015 02:06PM

* Week 1: Progress Post
By Jessica · 100 posts · 421 views

last updated Nov 06, 2015 06:29AM

What Members Thought

Jul 02, 2020 Dave Cullen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Dry, dry dry. Swallowed in minutiae.

I was very conflicted, but very disappointed.

First, there's a lot of tremendous information in this book. I learned a lot. But man, this was hard to plow through. And I love history, especially this period. I have 2 full shelves on medieval England, and was so excited to read more from the French perspective--or better yet, both sides of the Hundred Years War, plus many others. That was the great joy of this book.

The big downside is she really has no sense Dry, dry dry. Swallowed in minutiae.

I was very conflicted, but very disappointed.

First, there's a lot of tremendous information in this book. I learned a lot. But man, this was hard to plow through. And I love history, especially this period. I have 2 full shelves on medieval England, and was so excited to read more from the French perspective--or better yet, both sides of the Hundred Years War, plus many others. That was the great joy of this book.

The big downside is she really has no sense of what's important, or choices. She just piles on pages of details, hundreds of words on the tapestries and blah blah blah of some ceremony. Done selectively, that can be really useful, in giving a full, rich picture. Selective is key. This feels like she hurled all her research onto the page, which is great for a first draft, but then, the writer's duty is to select. (There's an entire chapter on the Holy Roman Emperor's visit--the dinners, plays, etc.) There is so much to wade through, and it's over and over with repetitive versions of comparable details that run pages. The same themes are beat to death relentlessly, too.

There's also a huge structural problem:
I was also really disappointed toward the end. After suffering for 600 pages--on a book that should have been half (and I love long books, when they can sustain it)--the biggest storylines 1) The Hundred Years War, 2-3) The fate of the troubled monarchies in both countries, 4) The Great Catholic Schism, are half over, yet dispensed with in quick summaries. For example, ONE PARAGRAPH near the end of the final chapter, to do the entire overthrow of Richard II by Henry IV of England, from origins to overthrow--and no mention of the Duke of Lancaster, a major character in the book. Staggering, and so unsatisfying.

At first, it felt like one of those books where the author seems to run out of steam or interest or resources, and just wraps up halfway through. But sadly, this is by design. It all wraps up, because her "protagonist" Coucy dies at an unfortunate moment in the midst of her primary tales. So her story has to end there, and she leaps forward very briefly, to give a little Wikepedia summary of each. Fair enough. Is it? It calls into question the wisdom of the device. I put protagonist in quotes, because it's a stretch to call him that. A handful of the chapters clearly exist just because he had an adventure there, but the bulk of the tale is just 50 years in the struggles of France, where he's frequently a bit player, or a non player. He's brought in to make lots of appearances, but if this were a film, it would be hard to cast a major actor, because mostly of his page time is just being present, not really doing much that's consequential. He's pretty irrelevant, and unnecessary.

When she described her choice and decision in the Foreword, I was thrilled, but it's maybe what an academic thinks of a protagonist, not what a writer could do with one. He's really of little use, and weighed against telling half her major stories, really a fatal flaw.

And the prose was always OK, but never really invigorating, which is OK for a work of history, but no extra points there. ...more

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