No Glitter Blown: The Song of Roland by Unknown

2 Stars

I am Oliver.

I'm a big fan of heroic literature, but The Song of Roland is not my favorite. Honestly, this is very much 'For the Glory of God', a crusader's epic poem. Not a great fit for me thematically, but I really wanted to have this piece of the puzzle slotted in for my understanding of heroic poetry. This is so different than The Illiad, The Odyssey, Táin Bó Cúailnge, Y Gododdin, and Beowulf.

Roland desired goal of martyrdom requires the sacrifice of tens of thousands of his men for NO REASON. I test as Field Marshall or Architect on the Myers-Briggs, to give some perspective of where I'm coming from reading this. Hence, I'm Oliver. Dutiful, yet pragmatic. It's not that I don't understand dying for a cause. If you don't know what you're willing to die for, then you don't have any idea how to live; it's stumbling around in the dark. That said, while I know why I'm willing to die, and even that which I would condemn others to death who have sworn like goals, this is moronic. Roland didn't need to be martyred to achieve victory; therefore, it was a phenomenal amount of resources squandered. Forget Roland. What about all the other men who followed him? To what purpose?

Even if you say death and awaiting paradise is far better than here and now, an early exit is the easy way out and not heroic.

Heck, I understand Tierris, Charlemagne's proxy against Pinabel to avenge Roland's death and condemn Guenes for his treachery. All that aside, this was very repetitive with never-ending descriptions of the next warrior to fall, golden hauberks and helms galore. Add on that Roland dies about 50% of the way through and then we get to go through round two made it a bit slow. Think Charge of the Light Brigade at 1/50 speed.

I think I had a very outdated version so forgive the oddities in spellings.