The Road to Jerusalem by Jan Guillou
A book review
First in a trilogy about Swedes during the twelfth-century Crusades, The Road to Jerusalem centers on a young man whose life is twice turned upside down. Arn Magnusson is the son of an ambitious landowner and a woman both clever and visionary. His mother's piety and a startling event during his childhood land him in a Cistercian monastery, where he strives for a goodness near to sainthood. This being the age of the Crusades, Christian goodness can encompass skill with horses and weaponry. A monk with a more adventurous past finds Arn to be an eager, exceptional student.
Then, as a young man, Arn is required to return to his family estate. Used to the orderly restraint of monastery life, he finds the world outside bewildering. His father slaughters "the fatted calf ... although in this instance it was a fatted suckling pig, which was much finer," but the manly arts of feasting, drinking and revelry elude Arn. Beneath his monastic discipline, though, he is as masculine as any of his peers. And masculinity and innocence prove a potent combination in the secular world, catapulting him to extremes of triumph and shame.
The various provinces of Sweden, or Götaland, had only recently come together under the rule of a single king. It's a fascinating setting. Though similar in some ways to the rest of medieval Europe, particularly in the superstitious quality of medieval Christianity, Sweden was very different in other ways, more recently Christianized than England and the Continent, so that the old values of the feasting hall still held sway. Kingship was far from absolute. Landowners gathered at intervals to decide matters according to their ancient laws, a rough-and-ready form of democracy prescribing single combat in certain situations.
The Road to Jerusalem is that rare pleasure, a historical novel that richly and authentically brings to life a setting not often explored and also features characters whose individuality delights, a plot full of surprises, plenty of humor, and themes worth pondering. (1998 in the original Swedish; English translation 2009 by Steven T. Murray; 398 pages)
Tomorrow: a review of the sequel, The Templar Knight.