Hans Koningsberger (1921–2007)

Another excellent volume in the Great Cities series, this one describes the history and culture of one of Europe's unique places, Amsterdam. The author, who grew up in he town, delves into its medieval origins, its days of glory as tyhe centre of world shipping between the East and the West, and its later slide into middle age as the focus shifted to the British and French centres of power. Somewhat like Venice (which also has its own volume in the series), Amsterdam's special feature of having been reclaimed from a shallow sea, imposed specific demands on its architects and builders, such as foundations based on deep pilings driven into the ground; to save space, they adopted a style of narrow and tall buildings, with artistic gables on their facades to give a picturesque touch. The city was well known for its extreme tolerance, and was the favorite refuge of all sorts of dissenters, including Protestants and Jews driven out by the Spanish Inquisition and Counter-reformation, free thinkers, communists, and Jews and others hiding from the Nazi forces in attics, cupboards, false ceilings, and son (remenber Ann Frank, who unfortunately was discovered and deported before the end of the war).… (más)

This short novel, A Walk with Love and Death is a love story, both elegant and beautiful, taking place In 1358, ten year after the great plague, what we now call the Black Death, and during the time of the French peasant uprising, which threw the entire northern part of France into chaos.

We are given a taste of the depth of this chaos and social upheaval right from the outset, when the first person narrator, a poor student by the name of Heron, who has recently been expelled from the University of Paris for writing a poem with erotic overtones, is nearly robbed and killed by a farmer along the road and then barely escapes torture at the hands of a band of brigands on the outskirts of a town.

He reflects on his violent, upside-down world, “There had been fighting and burning and plundering before, but what was happening in France now was different: there was no mercy, no ending to it, no idea behind it. Men were like birds with iron beaks, hammering and hammering away at the almost hopeless land. More than half the students were in theology colleges, but there was no Christianity left either.”

Indeed, there is no end to the violence. Continuing his travels on foot, Heron meets a young aristocratic woman by the name of Claudia and it is love at first sight. Ah, Cupid! Thus, we have the love story of a poor student and an aristocratic young girl, a girl forced to leave her home recently destroyed by a horde of bloodthirsty peasants.

There is a mythic quality to their love, an echo of pure, courtly love flowering in a land filled to the brim with violence and misery. Such is the novel’s contrast between light and dark.

Heron shares his reflections as his discovers more and more of young Claudia during the time they travel together. For example, here is a passage after Claudia at one point declares she wants his love to be pure love, a love not mingled with the physical: “Lying next to her in the ramshackle bed in the dark, with most of our cloths on, was more difficult: I was haunted by her image now and cursed all philosophers and the girls who live by them. But she had acquired a new power over me and I no longer felt just the older and the wiser one: I was aware of an intense need to please her and gain her respect.”

And here is another passage capturing Heron’s dreamy, romantic spirit: “The green hours when I was riding beside Claudia along the river at the tail end of a many-colored column and felt that nothing mattered in life, neither learning nor death, only this keen joy of being alive in one’s body totally without fear, acknowledging the beauty of attack: running toward a man in battle to kill him, falling on a woman in making love.”

I wouldn’t want to spoil the story by giving away more of the details. Much better to simply recommend this near perfect medieval tale of two lovers embracing each other and the beauty of the moment during one of the darkest periods in European history.


Dutch author Hans Koning, 1921 - 2007… (más)

This short novel, ‘A Walk with Love and Death’ is a love story, elegant and beautiful, taking place In 1358, ten year after the great plague, what we now call the Black Death, and during the time of the French peasant uprising, which threw the entire northern part of France into chaos.

We are given a taste of the depth of this chaos and social upheaval right from the start, when the first person narrator, a poor student by the name of Heron, who has recently been expelled from the University of Paris for writing a poem with erotic overtones, is nearly robbed and killed by a farmer along the road and then barely escapes being tortured by a band of brigands on the outskirts of a town. He reflects on his violent, upside-down world, “There had been fighting and burning and plundering before, but what was happening in France now was different: there was no mercy, no ending to it, no idea behind it. Men were like birds with iron beaks, hammering and hammering away at the almost hopeless land. More than half the students were in theology colleges, but there was no Christianity left either.”

Indeed, there is no end to the violence. Continuing his travels on foot, Heron meets a young aristocratic woman by the name of Claudia and it is love at first sight. Ah, Cupid! Thus, we have the love story of a poor student and an aristocratic young girl, a girl forced to leave her home recently destroyed by a crowd of peasants. There is a mythic quality to their love, an echo of pure, courtly love flowering in a land filled to the brim with violence and misery. Such is the novel’s contrast between light and dark.

Heron shares his reflections as his discovers more and more of young Claudia during the time they travel together. For example, here is a passage after Claudia at one point declares she wants his love to be pure love, a love not mingled with the physical: “Lying next to her in the ramshackle bed in the dark, with most of our cloths on, was more difficult: I was haunted by her image now and cursed all philosophers and the girls who live by them. But she had acquired a new power over me and I no longer felt just the older and the wiser one: I was aware of an intense need to please her and gain her respect.”

And here is another passage capturing Heron’s dreamy, romantic spirit: “The green hours when I was riding beside Claudia along the river at the tail end of a many-colored column and felt that nothing mattered in life, neither learning nor death, only this keen joy of being alive in one’s body totally without fear, acknowledging the beauty of attack: running toward a man in battle to kill him, falling on a woman in making love.”

I wouldn’t want to spoil the story by giving away more of the details. Much better to simply recommend this near perfect medieval tale of two lovers embracing each other and the beauty of the moment during one of the darkest periods in European history.

… (más)