Towering Characters in Exquisite Prose

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	• The Talisman Sir Walter Scott Borgo Press, 2002 - 388 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Don't judge a book by it's cover.

Heroes and cowards, loyalty and deceit, Europeans and Arabs, knights and dwarfs; Sir Walter Scott covers it all in The Talisman. If you're looking for an intricate plot with strange twists and turns; this isn't the book for you. The story starts with the classic duel of mortal combat between two extremely different foes that, of course, ends with each opponent realizing that he cannot destroy the other. In the end, the outcome of this battle turns out to be more significant than the reader knows. Centered around an unknown Scottish knight during the 3rd crusade and his hunt for glory, the plot is simple and predictible. It isn't until the end when every identity is revealed that you realize the depth of the plot. Somehow, Scott uses the unique setting, odd small events, poetic dialog, and conflicting cultures to keep the readers attention. Most of the characters in the book turn out not to be as they seem and the plot follows suit. The moral of the story is not to judge a book by its cover and the point is driven home by the sappy, flowery picture on the front that has nothing to do with the book.

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Towering Characters in Exquisite Prose

Reading Walter Scott is a bittersweet experience, as we admire his adroit and nimble use of our English language, even as we mourn our modern-day loss of appreciation for such skill. His characters, as always, are credible and rich. His vivid depiction of the stormy King Richard stands among his best. Richard's Muslim healing sage ever speaks with quiet, fiery wisdom. Predictably, Kenneth the Scot is the true hero -- humble, strong, and bravehearted. Considering that the story is burdened with battles that almost happen, love affairs that never quite consummate, and mystical scenes that never truly resolve, this classic book nevertheless holds the reader captive throughout, and delivers a satisfying ending.

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Great story

I really enjoyed The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott. I really like Scott's style of writing,and his characters are interesting and humorous. Richard the Lionhearted, and his wife Berengaria, another famous person, along with Soldan Saladin, ruler of the Arabs at the time, are characters. the talisman takes place during a the Third Crusade at a time of brief piece between the Christians and the Saracens. So even though there are no great battles in the story, the book is still full of action and humor. One thing that some of the less philosophically minded readers might object to is that at the beginning of the book the main character and a Saracen warrior get into a long, long, long discussion about the differences between the Christian and Saracen cultures. I found the discussion very interesting, but some people might be bored by it. Just a warning. Stick to it, though--The Talisman is a great book.

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Who is running this Crusade?

Scott's classic tale of the Crusade is a product of his Victorian times with endless hidden relationships and disguises reminiscent of Dickens' Pickwick Papers. No one is who you think they are and if they are, they aren't on the side you expected. Also, there are no battles, this is a Crusade of philosophical discussions, mystery, scientific discovery, romance, crime, and mistaken identity.

Richard of England has tenuous leadership of a band of Templars, Scotsmen, French, German, and assorted mercenaries in a Holy Crusade to recover Jerusalem from the Infidels. During the time of this story, a truce is in place and Richard is near death with a mysterious fever. As this was a time of great patriotic fervor, trouble breaks out in the allied camps when various national flags are desecrated. All part of a plan for the other allied leaders to become supreme over the near-dead Richard.

Fortunately, Richard recovers with the help of an Infidel medical man. To really liven things up, the Royal women then join the camp, including Richard's charming young consort. Various alliances are contemplated, all including marriage proposals as their contractual binder. A very brave young Scotsman turns out to be a person of greater standing than advertised.

All in all, a very enjoyable novel. Dont expect to learn any actual history from Scott. It is not true that Richard and Saladin were allied, however briefly, against the Templars and the Austrians. It is true that all held Richard in great respect and that the Infidels were very advance in the scientific and medical arts.

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The Talisman

I had looked for this title for years before ordering it through Amazon; I'm so glad that it's back in print. This is historical fiction at its best: the action is fast-paced, the authorial voice is constantly garnishing the narrative with little observations and commentaries, and one can sense that Scott has a profound respect for Saladin, despite the execration in which Infidels were held, both at the time of the Crusades, and even in the early Nineteenth Century when the book was written. I recommend this book, especially for connoisseurs of Sir Walter Scott. I'm sorry to say that his only other novel I've read is *Ivanhoe*, but this one certainly stands with *Ivanhoe* as a true classic.

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reviews: page 1, 2

The Talisman is Sir Walter Scott's tale of the Crusades -- a tale of chivalry, of violence, of virtue, romance, and deceit. In Scott's own words: ". . . the warlike character of Richard I, wild and generous, a pattern of chivalry, with all its extravagant virtues, and its no less absurd errors, was opposed to that of Saladin, in which the Christian and English monarch showed all the cruelty and violence of an Eastern sultan, and Saladin, on the other hand, displayed the deep policy and prudence of a European sovereign, whilst each contended which should excel the other in the knightly qualities of bravery and generosity. This singular contrast afforded, as the author conceived, materials for a work of fiction possessing peculiar interest."

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