Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

.

Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and translated by Margaret Sayers Peden.
Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996, 2005.

A book is a material object.

Alright so far, most people know that, see books, touch books perhaps every day, if they are fortunate.

The reason one understands what a book is beyond being a material object, is how the reader transforms it; this is why one does judge a book by its content in lieu of the pretty wrapping, seeing beyond the cover, the art, or the type face each contributing to the pleasurable experience seeing the object, but the story must win the day to be read. Books are material objects for the fortunate.

When viewed in this manner the idea of what the word ‘treasure’ means is very easily grasped.

However, the same could be said of paper towels for instance. Have you ever been in a spot where a paper towel was just what your needed at the moment? Humans are such needy creatures, but it is by practice, and perhaps by expectation we are thus.

Sometimes one expects a manhole cover to be in its place. When it is not certain ill-fated events occur. Finding a spill one needs a paper towel; object, clean up. Finding an open manhole in a street one needs a new front end for a vehicle. Connecting with other humans, one needs a good story.

I need books to fill a void, to win the day for me. I have an expectation to have my fancy tickled in ways that my own writing cannot fulfill, it is the story I need in my real world of spills and broken vehicles.

Books are the physical objects that encase the treasure of literature, the collective of words ‘engineered’ into narrative that might be described as a net which captures the reader and keeps her buoyed within the story from the beginning through to the middle and finally releases her at the end. The best capture and release program ever, perhaps she has been changed forever. Certainly, that book will not be her last.

What is captivating about Captain Alatriste written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and translated by Margaret Sayers Peden is the immediacy with which the author introduces the main character Diego Alatriste, the Spanish Musketeer, by un-packing the man’s opening situation while giving a sketch of how the Captain came to his current condition through the voice of his valet, squire, confidante, Íñigo, the first person relayer of Captain Alatriste’s story.

Pérez-Reverte writes as if to sculpt the tone of the story from the aether that is fitting to the character and to the historical setting of the book. He does not burden the reader with history but snippets are provided as supporting structure to the progression of the tale. The history does not slow down the reading.

Humor, weakness, courage, piety, and misbegotten love fill the story. Captain Alatriste is at once a tale of action then deep introspection of a veteran mercenary set in a turbulent Spain of the late 16th and 17th century. It is full of sinister intrigue and plenteous daring exploits; chilling in places profane in others Pérez-Reverte provides his treasure with the irreverent and the full-blooded heroics of a stinking mortal making decisions who may briefly utter a prayer, explode his ready wit and trust his limber blade will cure all, sometimes all work but in ways mysterious, hence the story Pérez-Reverte has created.

As fortune granted, I was not cured of wanting more story of the good and gritty Captain and Pérez-Reverte has been a busy bee provending so much delicious honey.

More Captain Alatriste books by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the second date is the UK & USA publication date:

Purity of Blood 1997, 2006
The Sun over Breda, 1998, 2007
The King’s Gold, 2000, 2008
The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet, 2008, 2009
Pirates of the Levant, 2006, 2010
The Bridge of the Assassins, 2011 with perhaps two more novels in progress or pending publication.

The Renaissance at War

I will not begin by typing, “Read this book.” If you want to get a good introduction to the Renaissance, power struggles, princes, popes, and warfare during the Renaissance you could begin with The Renaissance at War, by Thomas F. Arnold, edited by John Keegan.

Thomas F. Arnold. John Keegan, ed. The Renaissance at War. London: Smithsonian Books. 2006. Paperback edition.

This book is all about presenting selected examples of warfare in the Renaissance via the vehicle of a historical narrative associated with maps, and charts, and illustrations, and topographical graphics.
Some say the authors reached few conclusions. Others say the illustrations, maps, and ephemera detracted from the book. Critics say they were sorry for reading it.

Thomas F. Arnold has written some very concise sentences and strung together paragraphs and chapters just as well crafted giving fine descriptions of battles, potentates, and the mixture or power-politics and daring martial exploits and he has even gone to the effort to provide good design with a bibliography (list of books), and a useful index. John Keegan as editor puts a mark of distinction of most anything he writes.

While perhaps not the definitive work on the Renaissance though the lens of the many wars, myriad rulers, and the life as usual pecking order among those in power or those seeking power, Thomas F. Arnold and editor John Keegan do a fine job with this book as set out in the “Introduction”. It always pays to read the introduction of books cuts down on confusion. The reader need not work on an advanced degree to enjoy this book. It was written for most readers.

The Renaissance was a period of ‘new birth’ in art, science, technology, and thinking, the word says it all. In the book The Renaissance at War the authors show and tell the reader and the visual learner how this word, Renaissance, applied to the same old topic of warfare, now with more firepower.

Critics aside, if the illustrations, maps, charts, and time-lines are confusing, how does one surf the web or read a newspaper? Give this book a second shot if any reader gave up on it. I am sure the effort will be rewarded.

This book is a good read, well designed, and nicely illustrated. Something for everyone interested in warfare, technology, the Renaissance, and European history 1453-1610.

Notorious Captains™: Presenting the Center Lances

Notorious Captains™

Company Center Lances

A Condottiere’s Company would be divided into several 50 or 100 lance squadrons. Their bands were largely of cavalry, and their principal soldier was the relatively unassailable man-at-arms or gendarme.

The Center Mercenary Lances of a Notorious Captain™

Condottierii bands could include infantry of various sorts sometimes being half the strength of most Italian states’ field armies in the late 15th Century. Most of these infantry were missile-men, armed with early handguns or later with arquebus, or with crossbows, even longbows.

Hired troops are expensive troops and the Company was careful to preserve those soldiers. The Patron and the Company Captain realized the Company needed to be kept on campaign, in the field; preferably some other one’s  field for plunder and pillage was the order of the day. Loyalty sometimes turned on the choicest gold or good chances of rich plunder, where greener pastures were likely as not to be over on the other side at any moment, then as now, money talks.

Personal Banner of  Notorious Captain™ Gerhard von Reichart

Light cavalry in the form of Stradiotti, artillery, and pikes, round out the other troop types. It was a tumultuous time involving the interests of the French, the Spanish, the Pope, Italian city-states and on-going military innovation. The next big thing that might prove the tipping point to secure the Italian peninsula for Bourbon, Hapsburg, or the Holy See, all others played the Great Game for a place at the table, whether minor instigator or Imperial potentate.

Free-Companies, contract soldiers, Condottierii, Grand Companies lead by Captains from a variety of countries flourished, which seems an oxymoron, to flourish amid war, but nonetheless it was so. This is the inspiration for building armies of this era and likewise representing these Notorious Captains™ on the gaming table.

Gerhard von Reichart’s personal banner was crafted using MS Paint program, so it was not so ‘involved’ a process.