The lessons of history need to be understood today

5 stars

I've spent a great deal of time in the medieval period of late. First, Max Adams' Domesday to celebrate the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry to English shores and now Doom Painting set a few hundred years later covering the Peasants Revolt. 

I've read a number A.K. Blakemore novels. They cover fascinating periods in history in the most poetic prose possible. Beautiful writing which tends to be balanced with the ugliness of human nature and flaws and a very detailed description of even the basest of low acts. Wholly raw, unvarnished and deeply absorbing as the reader has full immersion into the smells, tastes, textures and sounds of this time period.

The Peasants Revolt is an important time in English history which, not surprisingly, parallels modern times. A spoiled, money-grapping elite demanding more and more taxes from workers who struggle to make ends meet. The tax money collected is not spent on anything useful to society but to line the pockets of those in power and wasted on frivolous elitist pursuits as society crumbles around them unseen. There is great discontent sweeping the land, then as now, awaiting a spark to set the blaze burning. Here the spark sets off huge swaths of England in revolt putting them on a course to London with killing and destruction left in their wake. Word spreads quickly as men leave the land to bolster the numbers of the discontented beyond measure. Wat the Tyler, John Ball and Jack Straw provide leadership to the protest. As with the details of the life at this time, the characters are illustrated in sharp effect. Great to add a personal dimension with thoughts and plenty of humour but possibly overstepping regarding the relationship of Wat and Jack? It felt a bridge too far, to my mind, as it lent no strength to the story. It just seemed like an obligatory modernism to tick a box. No matter as these are characters the reader will root for in their struggle to redress the injustice they face.

I really enjoy a fictionalised novel based in history but did dread the end, knowing how it would conclude. Doom Painting handles it all flawlessly leaving me with a lump in my throat. An excellent conclusion to an important story.