Reflections

The Jester by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

Posted by on Mar 31, 2007 | 15 Comments

Set in
France during the Holy Crusades of the 1100s, The Jester is a tale regarding a quest for justice by the common person and manages to combine a love story, adventure, and mystery all into one.  While far from Patterson’s usual fare, this work of fiction is a David and Goliath tale where you continually cheer the underdog on and can’t wait to see those responsible for his pain brought to justice.

The protagonist is Hugh De Luc, an indentured innkeeper, who joins the Crusades after being promised his family’s freedom in exchange for his service. The Crusades, however, are not pertinent to the main story line other than that they set the stage for Hugh’s acquisition of a holy relic that’s value is unknown to him but ends up costing him everything he holds dear as others swear to possess it at all costs. This sets in motion the key storyline of The Jester as Hugh goes in search of the monsters responsible for his pain, even resorting to taking up the role of a jester to gain the trust of those against whom he seeks retaliation. Fortunately, for Hugh his wit gains him allies and allows him to uncover truths beyond his imagination.

While some reviewers have stated their disappointment that the work does not faithfully adhere to historical facts, I believe that fiction is written for enjoyment and non-fiction for fact so when I read The Jester it totally met my expectations. I do agree with some reviewers, however, that this book with its graphic scenes of sexual behavior, torture, murder, and rape make it a totally inappropriate choice for a young audience. Overall, though I found it to be a story about a reluctant hero, a common man, who after facing great tragedy in his own life was still able to master the will and courage to empower his friends to fight their own war against injustice while finding within himself the power and strength to love again.

The Jester, while providing the reader with an enjoyable 100% modern high-speed thriller, is filled with the brutality and inhumanity common to the era of the crusades when Knights in shining armor didn’t save damsels in distress but rather slaughtered innocent victims like cattle and burned entire villages for the cruel liege lords. While I have always enjoyed Patterson’s novels I must admit that this may be my all time favorite since it veered away from the common everyday mystery genre and allowed me some insight into a long ago period in human history. [tags]The Jester, James Patterson, Andrew Cross, Crusades, historical fiction, inhumanity, murder, rape, knights, lieges, nobility, common man, uprising, injustice[/tags]

  • http://twitter.com/aplepi Jeff

    Excellent post, this is motivation for me to keep it up. It’s not easy, but it’s extremely rewarding; more so than text, would you agree?

  • Jmgray

    Please change the text back to Black.

    • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

      Wait, what’s wrong?

  • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

    Good call!

  • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

    …for a LOT of people.

  • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

    Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.

  • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

    I’ve been wrong more than once. :)

  • Dan

    It would have made a great internet machine. Any Linux distro would have made it a machine that would have satisfied 90% of people’s needs.

  • http://satorikun.wordpress.com/ satori

    Currently using a Pentium 4 HT 3.0 GHz socket 478 machine – on a board which supports DDR2 RAM and PCI-E graphics. And it still works like a charm ^^

  • Anonymous

    Had to add that there’s a great company in Issaquah, WA called 1GreenPlanet (don’t know if they have other locations, sorry) and they will take all used electronics, scrap metal, TV’s, and all of the other electronic stuff you feel guilty throwing in the trash for free. I make routine trips over there myself.

    • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

      I had no idea. That’s awesome! I hope I remember them… :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002286250939 Andreas Hartmann

    I personally love restoring very old hardware to a usable state. While my primary machine is a Phenom II quadcore I also have a P4 1.8 ghz and a celeron 1.4 ghz notebook which are still perfectly ok. But my favorite machine on which I am proudly using my own LFS Distro to surf the web on WLAN is a Pentium MMX Notebook with 80 MB of RAM and a 2 GB Hard Drive.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Corey-Watford/100000938231196 Corey Watford

    My brother’s computer has 256mb of ram and a 1ghz intel processor, and a 60gb Hardrive-that trash above is truely a treasure he could have used

  • http://twitter.com/edwardholmes91 Edward Holmes

    I think it is very wasteful to of thrown such a thing away. If it was very old then yes but some people would love to have a machine like this. Not to mention it could have been sent to a third world country free of charge to you! Many charities exist that do this recycling for free!

  • Robert Frederick

    among other things, I recently restored a Zenith Z 248 system that was military surplus. it’s a 286 8mhz system with a 40 gig hard drive and 1mb of ram. it’s my definition of a very old system. and the oldest PC I have to date. but I do sometimes question myself on why I keep older computers. I have several built that do not seem to be going anywhere at the moment. as my outlet for donating these has dried up, so I guess I’m not alone anymore in terms of that question. part of me screams “No!, it’s a good computer!” but the logical half knows that I would run out of room really fast if I kept even half of the working systems that I’ve come across.