I guess The Religion is a good title...it's cryptic and kinda ominous sounding and does have a connection to the actual contents of the story. Despite that, I think that Fucking, Killing & Shitting: Malta 1565 might be a bit more appropriate here. While I can certainly agree all three of those things are an unavoidable part of life and can be an enjoyable part of fiction, I really don't think that's what Mr. Willocks was intending for me to see as the identity of his story--but that's what I came away with. The book doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a thoughtful, profound telling of this event or a lurid historical novel packed with cheap thrills.It sucks, because the author certainly writes well. His prose is pretty and can be ornate, even. He's done his homework and writes the setting and events vividly and with authority. The siege of Malta was more like a grueling, epic battle fought over the span of a few months and Willocks certainly paints it well. You can see the banners swaying and the massed white hats of the Janissaries and hear the cry of the war horns with ease and very little force of imagination, which is always, always a great litmus test for writers of historical novels. It's easy to see where Willocks is strong. Once you get a bit deeper than that, it becomes more problematic.The characters are the first issue of this confusing book. The main character is Matthias Tannhauser, a Saxon dude who saw his family slain when he was a child then promptly joined their murderers--the Ottoman Empire. Eventually he comes to employment as badass gun smuggler or whatever. It all sounds cool, but the man himself is relatively boring. He's hardly flawed--Willocks makes a point of his creepy love of killing the absolute shit out of the Ottomans, but that's it--and is very typical anti-hero with his "playing both sides" thing. Then there's Bors, his likable English companion. This is what I'm talking about--you don't have main characters that can be summed up as "likable English companion" in the kind of novel that Willocks seemed to occasionally be striving for. Next we have Carla, who I actually liked. She seems to be more human than the rest of the cast and I loved the scenes of her taking care of the multitude of injured in the hospital. I'm not a Christian, but I find generalized and bullheaded anti-Christian rhetoric irritating and boring as much as I do generalized and bullheaded pro-Christian rhetoric, so it was nice to see piety rendered as a positive character trait in such a modern-thinking novel filled with the baser parts of life written by someone I'm guessing to be a fellow heathen. The conflict between her pious and erotic natures was an interesting part of her personality. Piety as interpreted by the Inquisition as written by Willocks--not as nice, however. The main antagonist here is Ludovico Ludovici (I'm pretty sure that was his name, and I did laugh writing that out) who is a former inquisitor and burner. He's a pretty decent bad guy--Willocks makes the effort of making him a human being gone wrong and not an innately evil villain. Then we have Amparo, whose presence as a character was completely mystifying and aggravating for me. She's Carla's best friend and maidservant...her family was predictably killed when she was a baby in a horrible way and she went through hell until she met Carla or whatever. She has this aloof yet passionately intense kind of personality that no human in fucking history ever had. She predictably falls in love with Tannhauser and serves as his sex doll for the rest of the book, stopping occasionally to play with virtuoso skill on violin. It's just all so...dumb. Any time she was on the page if she wasn't having some inane overwrought thought process she was having ridiculous sex with Tannhauser that serves to further the incredibly dull love triangle. Who has sex in a fucking WOODEN TUB OF BRINE? Dumb and even offensive in its dumbness. People have sex and realistically drawn adult characters in fiction should have sex, but not like this. I know this rant probably makes me sound like a prick, but her whole existence really was an incredibly annoying invention by the author.Anyways...three paragraphs of ranting about the lukewarm characters. I'm sure that's a joy to read...that was basically the whole issue with this book--the back and forth between something more concrete and profound and just an orgy of violence, defecation and sex. A note about the poop content: I think that more authors need to include the fact that their characters have to use the bathroom. It's not a pleasant part of life but it certainly brings a gross realism to the book. I remember the characters shat a lot in Shogun and I thought it was cool Clavell had the balls to include it. The thing is I could probably enjoy both of these possible books; the garbage cheap-thriller or the insightful epic. But the schizophrenic nature of both combined was a huge problem for me. I don't know, maybe this kind of species of book should exist anyways--one straddling the line between trash and true substance. I liked it--but I could have liked it a lot more, easily. Or maybe I'm just being pretentious.
Je n’avais rien lu des polars de Willocks avant de m’attaquer à ce pavé de plus de 800 pages. Ce titre me faisait envie depuis longtemps, et il a comblé mes plus folles espérances.C’est mirifique, épique, grandiose, sanglant, cruel, dégueulasse, violent, puant, chatoyant, apocalyptique, véhément, échevelé, passionné, trépidant, viril, sensuel, sexuel, animal, tendre, sauvage, poétique, tumultueux, puissant, cinématographique, hypnotisant, envoûtant, obsédant, émouvant.C’est énorme.L’introduction nous dévoile le passé de Mattias Tannhauser, et plante le décor de ce que sera le reste du récit, horreur, mort et amour.L’auteur situe son action en 1565 à Malte, sur le point d’être attaqué par l’Empire ottoman. Les Chevaliers de l’ordre de Malte vont devoir affronter un siège historique. L’islam et la chrétienté s’apprêtent à se déchirer sur ce petit bout de terre perdue en méditerranée, mais dont la localisation stratégique risque de causer la perte.Un contexte déjà lourd, où le fanatisme religieux tient le premier rôle. Mattias Tannhauser, saxon et turc à la fois, ancien janissaire, actuel marchand d’armes et homme à femmes, a bien roulé sa bosse. Devenu athée d’en avoir trop vu et trop fait au nom de Dieu ou d’Allah, il semble être un homme très demandé. Son expérience de l’armée ottomane en fait un allié et un conseiller de choix pour la Religion. Sollicité à la fois pour œuvrer à une cause qui lui paraît désormais étrangère, et par une comtesse française, Tannhauser va voir ses projets compromis.Carla de La Penautier, jeune veuve d’origine maltaise, souhaite retourner à Malte afin de retrouver un fils qu’elle ne connaît pas. Accompagnée d’Amparo, jeune Espagnole étrange un peu devineresse qu’elle a prise sous son aile, Carla n’a aucun mal à convaincre Tannhauser de les escorter jusqu’à Malte et de passer outre les évacuations de rigueur.Tannhauser et son ami Bors de Carlisle, géant anglais fidèle et belliqueux, s’engagent donc auprès de Carla et de sa protégée mystérieuse et sensuelle. Le périple commence, de nouveaux personnages tout aussi attachants ou répugnants vont faire leur entrée en scène. L’intrigue se noue subtilement, les événements se précipitent, le lecteur est submergé et envoûté.Les armées ottomanes débarquent à Malte, la violence, la mort, l’Enfer débarque avec elles.Les descriptions sont d’un réalisme saisissant. Ça tranche, ça décapite, ça éventre, ça vomit et ça se chie dessus, avant de pourrir et de nourrir les vers. Chez Willocks la guerre ressemble à une guerre, dans tout ce qu’elle a de plus abject et de barbare, il ne nous épargne rien. La religion en prend plein la poire, l’endoctrinement, le fanatisme, la croyance bête, tout y est, mais l’auteur a assez de délicatesse et d’intelligence pour ne pas prendre parti, à l’image de Tannhauser, qui n’agit que dans un seul but, mais jamais celui qu’on lui prête. Son regard sur les événements est celui d’un sage, d’un philosophe désabusé qui a une mission à accomplir. Mais le philosophe est aussi un homme, et le charme de ses deux protégées aura sur lui un effet des plus inattendu, dans un environnement digne des pires enfers.L’auteur nous promène entre des scènes barbares et sanguinaires et des purs moments poésie et de tendresse, tout en développant ses personnages avec finesse et profondeur, avec une maîtrise parfaite de l’action, de l’intrigue et des rebondissements. Du très grand roman historique, des très grands personnages, et une histoire magnifique.La Religion est le premier volume d’une trilogie, mais peut se suffire à lui-même, à moins de tomber sous le charme de l’écriture de Willocks comme je l’ai été.
What do You think about The Religion (2007)?
This book was truly one of the most captivating novels I've ever read! Willocks develops his characters with great detail, and in that detail you begin to live through them as the story unravels. The battles have you feeling exhausted, the treachery has you wrathful, and the suspense is breathtaking. This is not an easy read, and it requires some patience as you get a feel for how Willocks writes and the vocabulary with which he is working. This is not a light read, rather a rich, chewy journey that leaves you sate and content. This book reignited my love for reading. I hope you enjoy it as I did.
—James D.
This is one of the best books I have ever read. I enjoyed it so much I have re-read it four times.Tim Willocks has thoroughly researched his material thus drawing the reader into his story to the extent that one feels as though actually present within the pages. I found myself visualising the hero - Mattias Tannhauser - and was with him during the epic siege of Malta. And when he was with his lover I felt an intruder during their intimate moments. But I found I was too drawn to the delicateness of their moments together to close my eyes and allow them the privacy they deserved, and I shared their togetherness with respectful tenderness.The story drew you into their lives; it made you feel strong, yet compassionate. Determined, even understanding at the conflict within the hero's soul as he tried to do the right thing by others even at his own expense.The Religion is a book you can never put down, and when you finally read "The End" you take in a deep breath and start reading it all over again.Louise Roberts
—Louise Roberts
There are precious few good books about the Siege of Malta, fewer fictions about it. The author, Willocks, is well qualified and a masterful author, his prose is beautiful and reads almost like poetry. The detail is amazing, very real. Sights, sounds, smells, I felt really immersed in the world Willocks brings to life. It's so real in fact that it can be sickening at times, the violence and sex are alive in such graphic detail that it was a bit too much for me personally.The story is pretty well told, it's hard to make the Siege of Malta NOT fascinating, the titanic struggle between the Ottomans and Knights of St. John is well represented, I was on the edge of seat even though I already knew how it was going to end. Also neat is the fact that the opposing factions don't have any "good" or "evil" labels on them. Like every other war, it's just a bunch of dudes murdering each other because their leaders want them to.However the story isn't perfect. And in my opinion the biggest flaw was the uninteresting personal story of the protagonist. Tannenhauser is your typical super character, who by a tragic event is raised in a culture foreign to his own and becomes an undefeatable fighting machine. Like Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, or any other movie like that.The love story felt like a distraction, it was boring, pointless, and as I recall, only flimsily connected to the overall story of the siege. And there there were other sub-plots connected to that somehow, but they were awfully dull and I don't even remember them anymore.So I'm not sure if I would recommend this book, my turn offs were the much too graphic sexual encounters, and the protagonist was a bit of a hollow character who I didn't so much care for, nor his personal story. But it's a great account of the Siege of Malta, so if you're a fan of the siege go for it.
—Alexander Rice
