City of Wisdom and Blood: Fortunes of France 2

A great swashbuckler , as has been said - The Three Musketeers meet The Game of Thrones - and come off best

This is the second in a series of 13 historical novels about the lives of a family of minor Huguenot nobles, the de Sioracs, in 16th and 17th century France. The series was written by French author Robert Merle over a period of 26 years, though I understand that only the first four books in the series have thus far been translated into English. The action picks up where the first book ended, with young Pierre de Siorac and his half brother Samson setting out on their journey of life, with Pierre enrolling as a medical student in Montpellier. While this is very well written, I thought this mostly lacked the narrative drive of the first novel, and had throughout much of it a more comic feel, with Pierre getting into a series of sexual entanglements with almost every lady he meets, and into scrapes such as disinterring a body from the graveyard to provide an extra corpse for dissection in anatomy lessons, while at the same time engaging in sexual relations with a self-proclaimed witch in the selfsame graveyard. All this said, the threat of bitter and bloody civil war between Catholic and Huguenot is never far away, with Pierre disgusted by the reprisals of his fellow Huguenots when they take power in Nimes, butchering Catholic priests, monks and ordinary citizens ("What kind of a new world is this, that begins with the massacre of people who, when all is said and done, have the same God that we do but worship Him in a different way?”). He pleads for toleration in the face of extremists on both sides of the religious divide: "how can we possibly argue for the freedom of conscience for ourselves, which the papists have denied us, if we refuse it to those who have ideas that differ from ours?” Parts of this novel also felt like a brain dump of information on medicinal herbs, or early modern age ideas of medicine and anatomy - interesting but distracted sometimes from the narrative. These criticisms apart, this was still a very rich and well written novel and I will certainly be reading the following novels.

What a gret follow on book to the Brethren, I look forward to the next book in this series.

Second in long series (third due for publication in early-2016 — which still leaves another ten). Once you've read Dumas, you can see where this is going — we had the clues in first of series: obscure second-son from Périgord (i.e. modern Dordogne), an outsider (Huguenot in time of the wars of religion) grows up, makes good and becomes a feature of the late-16th century French establishment. Lots of swash and oodles of buckle. So far, so good. The male characters work, at rather more than a Boys-Own-Paper level, but all the females (so far) are vapid and thin sexist caricatures. Apparently what we are missing in the (quite decent) English translation is Merle's appreciation of early modern French and langue d'oc.

Very disappointing. I enjoyed the brethren as it offered interesting characters and interesting stories set in a historical context I knew little about. I was looking forward to reading the whole series but after this one I am not sure I will bother. The main theme of this book was the main characters never-ending series of romps with women of various ages interrupted by his odd feat of outstanding valour or incredible shrewdness or wisdom. Not bad for a 15 year old. I found this book boring and bland. I might try the third but if it's not a big improvement on this that will be the end of it.

Very good read

Excellent

I like this series, as it gives a lot of historical detail from a French perspective, which is not very common for English readers. Among other details, I was intrigued by the portrayal of the Sephardic Jewish Anusim community in Montpelier, which I was not aware of previously.

Words cannot express how much I love this book series. In this second novel, Pierre de Siroac is now grown up and off to college in the southern City of Montpellier. The friends he meets there and the adventures he has made me laugh and cry. A truly touching and human story. My only compliant is that the publisher has only published the first three books (of 13 total) in English. I'm on the 3rd one now. What the heck am I going to do then? Learn French, I suppose? Pushkin Press - please release book 4 soon!

Just awful.

City of Wisdom and Blood continues the story of Pierre Siorac as he travels from his home, in the Perigord region of France, to study medicine in Montpellier. The tumultuous struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism plays an even greater role in this story set in the late 1500s. Pierre becomes more of an aesthete in this second book of the series, an “ardent student and an ardent lover” or—in a less kindly but frequently stated way—a “skirt chaser.” As with The Brethren, I was entranced by the language as well as the story, “My bed is more talkative and warmer than ten confessionals, and though my little ear hears secrets a plenty therein, my tongue never repeats a one.” However, I must confess getting a bit bored with the middle third of the story where the pace slowed. I very much would have liked to have read more about the character Miroul, who has intrigued me beyond comfort.

I read the originals in French some years ago and was apprehensive about re-reading them in English. However, the translator has a real feel for the spirit of the French language text, characters and descriptions. There are one or two anachronisms but I am sure these are deliberate to engage or explain the mood and action to a modern audience. I am glad he kept the Latin dialogue in - this was, after all the international language of educated people of the time and adds to the flavour. I am looking forward to the rest of the series being made available and would recommend these books to the general reader as well as those with a specific interest in the period.

I enjoyed his first book more, volume one. I found that City of Wisdom and Blood to be too much of the same. It seemed to be primarily about the sexual exploits of a 15 year old "man". He was generally with beautiful, slightly older women who found him just irresistible and the perfect lover. I gave it 4 stars because it was fast moving, well written, interesting as a time period novel, and easy to read.