The Road To Jerusalem (1998)

A few years ago I acquired a Swedish sister-in-law and the family went nuts for anything Swedish. We rented Arn: The Knight Templar and I found it interesting to compare with Kingdom of Heaven, which has a few similarities.

The Road to Jerusalem is the first in Gullou's Crusades trilogy, so it doesn't encompass everything the film covered, but it was nice to have more of Arn's background. Arn Magnusson starts out a bit like the biblical figure of Samuel, in that to fulfill a promise to God, he's given over to the church as a young boy. The monks teach Arn many disciplines and he grows up to be a well educated young man. He is, however, very naive and unaware of the baser side of human nature. The brothers send him out into the world so that he can learn about humanity and be better informed before giving his life over to the church. Arn is involved in the political maneuverings of his clan but a petty revenge places him back at the mercy of the church. The brothers decide that Arn must redeem himself by the sword and send the young man to fight for the holy city of Jerusalem.

The book stops rather suddenly and it makes me want to read the second in the series just to see how Arn matures and turns out. He's certainly a very noble character and one I can admire. ( )

I really liked this book. Jan Guillou pulled me into this time period, place, and the life of Arn Magnusson. The depiction of the conflicts and compromises between the old, traditional ways and the new ways introduced to Arn and the local people by the monks was very interesting. The Road to Jerusalem truly set the stage for the later books in the Trilogy and made me want to read more. ( )

This is Book One of The Crusades Trilogy, promoted as an epic story of The Knights Templar. And, I really liked this book. The reason I gave it three and a half stars instead of a higher rating is the plain fact that this book doesn't really touch on the Knights Templar in any detail. That was most disappointing to me. I would have preferred that the author made this book a separate look at Sweden during this period, as a tale of how someone came to fight the infidels.

Having said that, this book gives a very personal look at this point in history. Guillou, the author, possess the gift of crafting historical information in great detail and yet building such character development that it becomes indeed very much about the central character, Arn.

A real bonus results because I learned so very much about what transpired in the North countries in Medieval times. Something I really knew nothing about. I just could not put the book down.
Still, I bet the next two books of this trilogy will focus on the Knights Templar and their efforts during the Holy Wars. That's what I expected to read in the first place. And, I look forward to that.

. ( )

"Book One of the Crusades Trilogy" ( )

Arn of Gotha is born in 1150, the younger son of a wealthy landowner. After a miracle occurs, Arn is sent to a monastery, where he is trained in both spiritual and physical matters—in the latter, by a former Knight Templar. The novel covers Arn’s early years, up until the time he is sent off to fight as a Knight Templar himself. The outcome of the novel is inevitable, but it’s the way that Arn gets there that is particularly interesting.

It’s not an easy read, by any stretch; I don’t know if it’s Jan Guillou’s writing style or the way the translator translated the book, but there were certain passages that were a bit slow going for me. There’s also a lot in here about faith and sin, although I didn’t find the religious bits off putting. Rather, it led an air of veracity to the whole novel. There’s also a fair amount of Swedish history thrown in, though Guillou doesn’t hit his reader over the head with it. The political maneuverings of medieval Sweden can be a bit confusing, though.

More than anything, though, this is a coming of age novel, set in a place that I really didn’t know much about 9I’m familiar with 12th-century history in other parts of Europe, but Sweden was a whole new ball game for me). It was a little hard for me to believe that Arn could be such an innocent about certain things, but I think the author handled Arn’s development as the central character especially well. The Road to Jerusalem is the first book in a trilogy that continues with The Knight Templar and Birth of the Kingdom. ( )