Skip to main content

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Enard: book review

 


Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Enard (2017) is set in May 1506 in Constantinople, now known as Istanbul in Turkey. 

 

Michelangelo Buonarroti – the Michelangelo – a young sculptor from Rome arrives in Constantinople in 1506. The Sultan of Constantinople, Bayezid the Second, has called him to the city to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. The Sultan had just rejected the design of another sculptor – Leonardo da Vinci – and has high hopes for Michelangelo’s design since he has been touted as a promising, upcoming sculptor. 

 

The Sultan has provided Michelangelo with a large sum of money, a translator, and a studio in the ‘outbuildings of the former palace of the sultans; a stone’s throw from a grandiose mosque whose construction has just been completed.’ The Sultan has also promised Michelangelo immortality – everyone will know the name of Michelangelo forever.

 

Michelangelo looks at da Vinci’s rejected design. Why was it rejected? He thinks it is ingenious – ‘so innovative that it is frightening.’ But it is devoid of anything interesting. 

 

Michelangelo knows that this will be an epic assignment. He settles into his small room and begins to learn as much as possible about Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire. In his notebook, he draws sketches – but not of bridges. He learns about the city, the streets, its music and arts, textiles, food and spices, its poetry, religion, and its people. 

 

He begins to plan his work. Readers learn about his knowledge of arches, glyphs, recesses, vaults, pillars, and the like. Construction of the bridge commences. Then, in 1509, an earthquake hits Istanbul. 

 

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants is based upon actual historical documents in a brief, but interesting account of Michelangelo’s arrival in Constantinople. 








As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

Rainy Day Healing

Martinasblogs  

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Paris blogs

Animal Website

Flower Website

Global Gentlemanliness

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 


MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009). She lives in Paris.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more