Ask the Author: Bryn Hammond
Answered Questions (11)
Bryn Hammond
Cheers for the question, Patricia (which I pasted here from the review where you asked me). Here's a few I think fantastic for up-to-date and in-depth.
The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353, edited by Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale Press, 2002
-- splendid on art history and beyond. Almost my #1.
Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief, and Art by Roxann Prazniak, University of Hawaii, 2019
-- for a wide acquaintance with the Mongol world / a view of the amazing 13th century. Again beginning in art history, but that's been at the forefront lately.
Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire by Anne F. Broadbridge, Cambridge, 2018
Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206-1335 by Bruno De Nicola, Edinburgh UP, 2017
In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 by Jinping Wang, Harvard UP, 2018
-- social history on the changes
Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance by George Lane, Routledge, 2003
-- this gets into social history too
two major forthcoming:
The Mongol World, eds. Timothy May and Michael Hope, Routledge Worlds, 2022. 890 pp (bring them on)
Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire, eds. Michal Biran and Kim Hodong, Cambridge UP, date rumoured to be 2021?
The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353, edited by Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale Press, 2002
-- splendid on art history and beyond. Almost my #1.
Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief, and Art by Roxann Prazniak, University of Hawaii, 2019
-- for a wide acquaintance with the Mongol world / a view of the amazing 13th century. Again beginning in art history, but that's been at the forefront lately.
Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire by Anne F. Broadbridge, Cambridge, 2018
Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206-1335 by Bruno De Nicola, Edinburgh UP, 2017
In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 by Jinping Wang, Harvard UP, 2018
-- social history on the changes
Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance by George Lane, Routledge, 2003
-- this gets into social history too
two major forthcoming:
The Mongol World, eds. Timothy May and Michael Hope, Routledge Worlds, 2022. 890 pp (bring them on)
Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire, eds. Michal Biran and Kim Hodong, Cambridge UP, date rumoured to be 2021?
Bryn Hammond
Hi Nicolas. It was a plain, sound history. Timothy May is becoming the go-to. I thought his The Mongol Conquests in World History had more interesting content in its themed chapters on 'Mongol Image', on plague, and on 'the Chinggis Exchange' (cultural and material exchange), but its history sections, though they cover all the ground you want, were condensed and less reader-friendly than The Mongol Empire.
I gave The Mongol Empire only three stars in part because of rather bad proof-reading, and because it seemed a bit hastily thrown together to me. Still, any other standard histories I can point you to are older and/or less available.
One good thing both of these books by May do is give equal time to the lesser known successor states!
Here's my review of The Mongol Conquests in World History. It might work as supplemental to The Mongol Empire.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I gave The Mongol Empire only three stars in part because of rather bad proof-reading, and because it seemed a bit hastily thrown together to me. Still, any other standard histories I can point you to are older and/or less available.
One good thing both of these books by May do is give equal time to the lesser known successor states!
Here's my review of The Mongol Conquests in World History. It might work as supplemental to The Mongol Empire.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Bryn Hammond
Ah yes. None other than 'Anactoria'. It's in Poems and Ballads (#1).
I'm a fan of the poem in question:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I'm a fan of the poem in question:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Bryn Hammond
Unfortunately, no. I haven't yet been to a HNS conference.
Thanks for the question, Chris.
Thanks for the question, Chris.
Bryn Hammond
At first I thought ‘bah, humbug’ when Goodreads asked me this question, because 1) I’ve been in an anti-romantic mood for several years, and 2) it’s a question from the establishment, not from a reader. But other writers’ answers have been such fun that my hard heart went to butter, as the Mongols say.
Other writers are entirely right to quote as one of their favourites a couple of their own. We write out our idea and our ideal of love, whatever that may be. Mine is extreme, and that’s because I grew up on medieval love, when they went at it with a religious intensity. As I wondered who on earth to answer with, I contemplated Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan and Isolde, as an exemplar of the medieval European state of love. Then there’s the medieval love traditions in Persian and Arabic of which you can say the same: religious intensity, extreme ethic. I don’t believe people invented romantic love in the 12th century, that’s a nonsense, but they made a cult of it. There’s a question as to how far this was an cultural cult, just fiction – how often practiced in real life and not by poets. But we live by fiction, and you can bet people took this artistic fashion seriously.
My favourite lover is Lancelot. As Malory gives his elegy:
“A, Launcelot!” he sayd, “thou were hede of al Crysten knightes. And now I dare say,” sayd Syr Ector, “thou Sir Launcelot, there thou lyest, that thou were never matched of erthely knightes hande; and thou were the curtest knighte [this means ‘most courteous’] that ever bare shelde; and thou were the truest frende to thy lovar that ever bestrad hors; and thou were the truest lover, of a synful man, that ever loved woman; and thou were the kyndest man that ever strake with swerde; and thou were the godelyest persone that ever cam emonge press of knightes; and thou was the mekest man and the jentyllest that ever ete in hall emong ladyes; and thou were the sternest knyght to thy mortal foo that ever put spere in the reeste.”
My next favourite lover is Don Quixote, who dragged knightship into the early modern world at the cost of great ridicule. To be ridiculed for love was a martyrdom in love’s heyday from Aquitaine to Baghdad.
Other writers are entirely right to quote as one of their favourites a couple of their own. We write out our idea and our ideal of love, whatever that may be. Mine is extreme, and that’s because I grew up on medieval love, when they went at it with a religious intensity. As I wondered who on earth to answer with, I contemplated Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan and Isolde, as an exemplar of the medieval European state of love. Then there’s the medieval love traditions in Persian and Arabic of which you can say the same: religious intensity, extreme ethic. I don’t believe people invented romantic love in the 12th century, that’s a nonsense, but they made a cult of it. There’s a question as to how far this was an cultural cult, just fiction – how often practiced in real life and not by poets. But we live by fiction, and you can bet people took this artistic fashion seriously.
My favourite lover is Lancelot. As Malory gives his elegy:
“A, Launcelot!” he sayd, “thou were hede of al Crysten knightes. And now I dare say,” sayd Syr Ector, “thou Sir Launcelot, there thou lyest, that thou were never matched of erthely knightes hande; and thou were the curtest knighte [this means ‘most courteous’] that ever bare shelde; and thou were the truest frende to thy lovar that ever bestrad hors; and thou were the truest lover, of a synful man, that ever loved woman; and thou were the kyndest man that ever strake with swerde; and thou were the godelyest persone that ever cam emonge press of knightes; and thou was the mekest man and the jentyllest that ever ete in hall emong ladyes; and thou were the sternest knyght to thy mortal foo that ever put spere in the reeste.”
My next favourite lover is Don Quixote, who dragged knightship into the early modern world at the cost of great ridicule. To be ridiculed for love was a martyrdom in love’s heyday from Aquitaine to Baghdad.
Bryn Hammond
I like to believe, and have found, that difficulties, whatever they are, can be solved with time. Often mine have resolved themselves, even if I've had to wait two years. I don't think I've struck a difficulty that time won't fix, and I've come to trust in that. The sort of difficulties I face are to do with plotting, because I work from raw material (primary sources) and I have to explain people's actions and words to fit in with what we know from the historical record.
Bryn Hammond
It's Temujin who intrigued me; I wouldn't write about the others, much as they have their qualities and historical predicaments. With Temujin, it's the way the personal and the political merge and are seen as one story in the Mongols' own account of his rise on the steppe. Then, in the conquests, nobody matches him for the cultural ground he crossed. Steppe peoples themselves saw the Mongols as the least sophisticated of them; so that the collision, in his lifetime, with the civilizational centres of China and Iran has nothing to equal it. Another answer is his personality, and the fundamental question: how does a man whom enemies describe as just, generous, equable, end up the perpetrator of one of the worst wars in history?
Cheers for the question.
Cheers for the question.
Bryn Hammond
Yes, it was in the 1980s that full English translations came out. So it has not been in general hands: which has to be a necessity for any ‘monument of world literature’. The Secret History is acknowledged as such but not known as such. If your average curious person were as conversant with it as with an Icelandic saga of the same vintage, yes, we’d be far ahead of where we are, with a range of interpretations. The range, the input from wide engagement, I feel most important. Indeed, what we need now is the Penguin Classics and Oxford World’s Classics editions. Nothing would be more helpful. The only edition made and priced for a popular audience is Paul Kahn, but he simplifies in ways a Penguin wouldn’t want to – his isn’t an English version for close study (and I don’t mean scholarly study, but for the curious person who wants to come close to the work).
As for me, a copy of the Cleaves translation was waiting for me in Abbey’s Bookshop Sydney. Shout out.
As for me, a copy of the Cleaves translation was waiting for me in Abbey’s Bookshop Sydney. Shout out.
Bryn Hammond
This was a rare instance of me going with an in-story quote and not an epigraph from an external work.
It’s drawn directly from a passage in Jamuqa’s point-of-view, on page 188 of your paperback. He’s talking about Jurchedei and Guyildar but it suits Tchingis’ enlistment of the Tartars too – rough folk, debased by contacts with China, despised on the steppe.
The Uru’ud and Mangqot chiefs were like Jamuqa: not easy believers, austerely slow to trust, and they knew most originals were trouble. But if they found an original with his feet on the ground, who demonstrated his trust in them – nor just in their hearts of gold but in their ugly hides – that almost never happened. Because they almost never had a chance they might go on his quest as far as your Bo’orchus or further. Your Bo’orchus didn’t know what dedication to one man was, who’d have been happy with a dozen others. Tchingis belonged to the cynics. But that was Jamuqa’s perspective.
He’s started to see this as a unique thing about Tchingis, as he observes him in Tartary, and, being Jamuqa, nothing’s more important than that he can genuinely include (not simply convert) people whom other idealists are probably afraid of. It’s a thing about Tchingis that together he and I struggled to put into words. When I’d finished with that passage I thought, I haven’t quite captured your logic, Jamuqa, but I know you have a thought that matters. It seemed like a theme-quote for the Tartary chapter. Tchingis has proved he can convince the least likely, and they feel about him this way. Or Jamuqa thinks so.
Thanks ever so much for the fun question.
It’s drawn directly from a passage in Jamuqa’s point-of-view, on page 188 of your paperback. He’s talking about Jurchedei and Guyildar but it suits Tchingis’ enlistment of the Tartars too – rough folk, debased by contacts with China, despised on the steppe.
The Uru’ud and Mangqot chiefs were like Jamuqa: not easy believers, austerely slow to trust, and they knew most originals were trouble. But if they found an original with his feet on the ground, who demonstrated his trust in them – nor just in their hearts of gold but in their ugly hides – that almost never happened. Because they almost never had a chance they might go on his quest as far as your Bo’orchus or further. Your Bo’orchus didn’t know what dedication to one man was, who’d have been happy with a dozen others. Tchingis belonged to the cynics. But that was Jamuqa’s perspective.
He’s started to see this as a unique thing about Tchingis, as he observes him in Tartary, and, being Jamuqa, nothing’s more important than that he can genuinely include (not simply convert) people whom other idealists are probably afraid of. It’s a thing about Tchingis that together he and I struggled to put into words. When I’d finished with that passage I thought, I haven’t quite captured your logic, Jamuqa, but I know you have a thought that matters. It seemed like a theme-quote for the Tartary chapter. Tchingis has proved he can convince the least likely, and they feel about him this way. Or Jamuqa thinks so.
Thanks ever so much for the fun question.
Bryn Hammond
Chosen for its cuteness. No story attached I'm afraid. Except that I did want to tell the world, 'how cute is this Mongol name?'
I am a serious name fan. Names are such a thing with me I flick through novels to see whether the author & I have similar ideas on what's a great name, and if we don't... I figure I mightn't like the novel either.
Temujin, Jamuqa. Toqtoa, Tarqutai. Khabul, Daritai. Ambaghai, Bultachu. There was almost no name that turned up in his story, which I didn't have a strong urge to seize upon and use. Yes, this was a significant factor in my choice of story.
Cheers for the question.
I am a serious name fan. Names are such a thing with me I flick through novels to see whether the author & I have similar ideas on what's a great name, and if we don't... I figure I mightn't like the novel either.
Temujin, Jamuqa. Toqtoa, Tarqutai. Khabul, Daritai. Ambaghai, Bultachu. There was almost no name that turned up in his story, which I didn't have a strong urge to seize upon and use. Yes, this was a significant factor in my choice of story.
Cheers for the question.
Bryn Hammond
Thanks for the question, Mark.
I guess the three types of research material are the scholarly history, anthropology, and the primary sources. Not in that order: the primary sources have the most to tell, about how people at the time thought of themselves, and anthropology might even come second, for the close study of culture. Still, I am addicted to getting those history books. I put them on my ‘steppe’ shelves here when I own them. You have to own them to consult them at the dead of night. And to scribble in them, which I’m afraid must be done or I’d never keep track of what’s where. The internet is a Godsend for access to academic work when you’re not in (institutional) academia. Digital resources – yay! Open access – even better!
I guess the three types of research material are the scholarly history, anthropology, and the primary sources. Not in that order: the primary sources have the most to tell, about how people at the time thought of themselves, and anthropology might even come second, for the close study of culture. Still, I am addicted to getting those history books. I put them on my ‘steppe’ shelves here when I own them. You have to own them to consult them at the dead of night. And to scribble in them, which I’m afraid must be done or I’d never keep track of what’s where. The internet is a Godsend for access to academic work when you’re not in (institutional) academia. Digital resources – yay! Open access – even better!
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