The Gate – Francois Bizot                      9/10

The Gate details the experiences of Francois Bizot, a French ethnologist in Cambodia during the turbulent rise of the Khmer Rouge, as he recounts two episodes: a period of imprisonment in the jungle in 1971 and then as the official interpreter for foreigners in 1975 during the fall of Phnom Penh.

It is very difficult to find fault with this book. At first I thought it did not quite display the horror I was expecting; as Bizot writes with a description that sounds surprisingly human. Yet as the book progresses there is a creeping element of urgency, despair and fear which mirrors the events and is perhaps in parallel with the rise of the Khmer Rouge as a whole.

Bizot recounts two main events from his time in Cambodia, where he had lived for some years prior to the episodes described. The first section of the book deals with him being captured during the guerrilla war in 1971 and taken to a prison camp in the jungle. Here he is kept prisoner for several months and is interrogated by the now infamous Douch, his every answer being carefully judged and weighed against his survival.

The main theme of this first section is the psychological aspect of imprisonment. He strikes up an unlikely rapport with his captor and perhaps because he is intelligent, or perhaps because he is a French national, he is treated with slightly more leniency than the other prisoners. That being said, this time has clearly had a strong mental impact on the writer and it is a fascinating read.

The second section is equally as spellbinding however. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge forces entered Phnom Penh and after a tense meeting between their leaders and some of the foreign diplomats in the city, Bizot is chosen as the lead interpreter and the only foreigner that is allowed to leave the diplomatic compound until their evacuation is organised.

His primary role thereafter is to find food for the 500-1000 ex-pats that are situated in the city, as well as maintain diplomatic relations with the Khmer Rouge military. As the city descends into chaos and anarchy, this becomes an increasingly difficult task.

As someone who knew very little about this dark period of human history, I found The Gate terrifyingly captivating. Bizot’s use of language is flowery at times, but he is adept at building an impending sense of expectation that weighs on the conscious of the reader. He has clearly seen things that you or I will never see, and he has had to make decisions that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

I don’t want to give any more of the tale away, so I urge you to read it for yourself.

The First Crusade: A New History – Thomas Asbridge                  6/10

This is a non-fictional account of the First Crusade, 1095-1099. The book has a particular focus on the reasons why the crusade started and then chronicles the major events across Europe, Asia Minor and the Middle East, culminating in the capture of Jerusalem by the Christians.

For me, you can divide this book in two. The first three chapters are clearly Asbridge’s motivation for the book, they read like a thesis and the weighting of words given to the section detailing the events leading up to the crusaders actually setting out, is indicative of his priorities. The second section is a more generic account of the main historical events of the crusade.

By no means would I consider myself to be an expert on the crusades, but even I was frustrated with this first section. Asbridge bases his argument for the expedition on the desire of Pope Urban II to expand the power of the papacy and the Christian West. To this end, he downplays tensions and aggressions between Christianity and Islam, claiming the two religions had coexisted peacefully for many years. This opinion flies in the face of prevailing historical thought and ignores a lot of evidence of conflict between the two religions in the 20 or so years leading up to the Council of Claremont, where major Christian strongholds in the near East had been subjugated by the Turks.

Even the scantest research into the topic reveals that there is much debate here, and not many historians agree with Asbridge. That aside, I was almost able to forgive the dreariness of this academic first section, when the liveliness of the second section began to unfurl.

The First Crusade was a marvel of human endeavour and endurance as vast armies from Western Europe marched themselves to virtual destruction before reaching and capturing Jerusalem, their ultimate goal. Asbridge deals with the chronology of events exceptionally well. Lots of the book is given to the year spent trying to capture Antioch for example, an episode that perhaps overshadows the capture of Jerusalem itself, and is thus treated with the significance it deserves.

The major players, the princes of Europe, are brought to life by description. Rightly or wrongly, Asbridge adds character to these historical figures until the reader is entertained by the bombast of Bohemond, the slyness of Raymond of Toulouse and the honesty of Godfrey of Bouillon. He could have dealt with these important people in a more clinical manner, but given that the bulk of the source material that we have from this time concerns the members of the nobility, I think it adds realism to the story.

The achievements of the first crusaders are unparalleled, yet out of a possible 100,000 Europeans who set out, fewer than 15,000 survived to reach Jerusalem. The hardships and disasters faced make for a riveting tale and Asbridge has delivered on this to the point that I am definitely intrigued to read more about the crusades.

If the first section had been as strong a read as the second in terms of entertainment, then I would have scored this higher. I still think it’s a great book for anyone who wants to learn about this period of history, but I would advise that the first three chapters should be read alongside other historians.