The garden beyond time and space….

The garden in the Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun is one of my favourite such spaces in all of medieval literature. The text to your left (in Old French, should you be that way inclined) gives a rich description of said garden, filled with apple trees, almond trees, fountains, flowers of all colours and perfumes. It’s a place where the normal rules don’t apply. Anything can happen in such a garden.

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The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2012: Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

Company of Liars, by Karen Maitland (my photo)

I signed up to the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2012, hosted by Historical Tapestry, in December last year. At that time, I was finding it difficult, oft impossible, to read anything, and I hoped that time and the challenge would help me overcome the problem. The good news is that I am reading again, at a much slower pace, admittedly, but still reading. The bad news is that I have yet to post even the first review of the five required for my chosen challenge level. Looking on the bright side, however, my awareness of having committed to the challenge and my determination to meet all my commitments, means that I have been choosing primarily historical fiction books when visiting the public library, so I have lots of books to choose from when it comes to writing a review.

Most recently, I finished Karen Maitland‘s Company of Liars: a novel of the plague (London: Penguin Books, 2008. ISBN 9780141031910). Her fourth medieval thriller (The Falcons of Fire and Ice has just been published, and I got from my public library this morning, much to my delight. But I am not allowed to start reading it until I have done my homework, i.e. this blog post.

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