A Matter of Pride by Linda Carlino is very funny and also at times, very sad.
In 1557 a prematurely aged, ill, and very irritable and grumpy Emperor Charles V retires to a small secluded monastery in southwest Spain.
He suffers from painful chronic gout, crippling arthritis and excruciatingly painful piles. He has to be carried around in a chair and continually washed and pampered with vinegar bandages.
Sounds like fun? It gets better!
He has lost most of his teeth and the sight of him eating was offensive to the eye and stomach. Food is sloshed and squashed about in his mouth before being sluiced down his throat with a good swilling of wine or beer, often both.
Through his staff and servants and the clever use of an all-knowing very amusing narrator, who gossips regularly with us, we soon get to learn much about the Emperor Charles V and we begin to wonder if this querulous, beer-swilling, belching gourmand, womaniser and egotist could possibly have been "the greatest emperor since Charlemagne."
His temper rages at "the bastard merchants" who had refused him gold and are to be taught a lesson on the rack, as well as at the "son of a whore" in the chapel who is singing off key.
He sees himself as a great victorious military leader and descends into child-like tantrums when reminded of his failures.
He is pitiless and intolerant: he had his mother imprisoned for 40 years; he refers to the Pope as the "duplicitous bastard"; he has trained his parrot to screech "incestuous bastard" whenever Luther's name is mentioned; his response to suspected heresy is ruthless - no trials, just severe punishment for the guilty, or innocent.
But from time to time there are glimpses of a loving, sensitive, and sympathetic Carlos. At times he lavishes gifts and rewards on friends and servants, and when a distressed widow with her beautiful young daughter appeared at his court begging for help so began a lasting and very generous relationship. She brought him romance, passion, tender loving care, which he would remember for the rest of his days - and bore him a son upon whom he can, secretly, lavish his affection.
Carlos is shown to be a man of weaknesses and strengths, meanness and generosity, brutality and tenderness, passions and regrets, all in equal measure and always to excess.
Even at the story's moving close the all-seeing, all-knowing, narrator leaves us still wondering who really was this "greatest emperor since Charlemagne".
It all makes for a great story that is very funny at times and also at times very sad.
To read the whole story in paperback or Kindle Book, A Matter of Pride by Linda Carlino, is available at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Amazon.de
No comments:
Post a Comment