A review by bookkeeper_steve
Orlando Furioso: A Romantic Epic: Part 1, by Ludovico Ariosto
4.0
This book was an exercise in trust. The ending was shocking and well put. An introversive immolation of ones guilt in the form of a pastoral. All parts of the story are intwined almost comically. It almost seems like a complete bow even though it is only part one. The best part is with Angelica. How her tears run down her marble body on pg. 340. How she runs off with her hero to a yokels barn secretly like an Antonioni movie.
There seems to be snippets of poetic imagery. Mastiffs, dwarfs (here linked to the queen), men transforming into fish and hags... whose to say what Orlando knew. This was performance art.
There was plenty of magic all around for someone to get their kicks. Although the section about Amazons I agree was poorly done. Ten men for hundreds of women... a crazed mans fantasy. It had nothing to do with the rest of the plot except show that the magic horn worked.
Things that I would explore more in depth... the idea that one Chivalry has nothing to do with how many people you've killed (at one point a giant, who has killed hundreds, had his chivalry in question still) and the idea of the heroic pagans changing their tune by going off and getting baptized.
The battle scenes are well done at points. The siege of Paris where all the pagan soldiers fall into the moat of flames reminded me of Flaubert. Overall I would say that if complete story is what your after read part one.
There seems to be snippets of poetic imagery. Mastiffs, dwarfs (here linked to the queen), men transforming into fish and hags... whose to say what Orlando knew. This was performance art.
There was plenty of magic all around for someone to get their kicks. Although the section about Amazons I agree was poorly done. Ten men for hundreds of women... a crazed mans fantasy. It had nothing to do with the rest of the plot except show that the magic horn worked.
Things that I would explore more in depth... the idea that one Chivalry has nothing to do with how many people you've killed (at one point a giant, who has killed hundreds, had his chivalry in question still) and the idea of the heroic pagans changing their tune by going off and getting baptized.
The battle scenes are well done at points. The siege of Paris where all the pagan soldiers fall into the moat of flames reminded me of Flaubert. Overall I would say that if complete story is what your after read part one.