Bingo Board Reading Challenge: The Road to Jerusalem by Jan Guillou

I picked this particular challenge, because I’ve heard so many good things about Guillou and his writing, and especially this series. This was all over the place a few (many!) years ago, there was even a movie, so I figured I should get stuck into it and what better place to start than with this book. 

The story is about a young boy, Arn, who is born and raised on an affluent farm/manor in Medieval Sweden. Various circumstances lead his parents to send him to be raised in a convent and here he learns practically everything (and then some) worth knowing in Medieval Sweden. When he is a young man the monks send him back to his father’s house to learn about the “ways of the world” outside the convent. This leads to a number of misunderstandings and other events and end up with Arn getting on the road to Jerusalem. 

To be honest I don’t really know what I expected from this book. Probably a little more Knight Templar action, but what it was, was basically Arn coming of age, first inside the convent, then outside. And the story seemed to be more about the glory of God and the political power battles in Sweden at the time, than about Arn, who was portrayed as a sickeningly good and decent young man, with only minor flaws that could for the most part be easily forgiven by God due to Arn’s innocence and/or good intentions. I started wondering if Guillou is deeply religious, simply because of the tone of the book and the way all things hinge on the will of God in this narrative. Not that there is anything wrong with being religious, it was just a little too much for my taste. 

Aside from that I found most of the characters to be quite shallow, and what little action there was was described in an almost detached way. It seemed like the politics and religious issues were the most important for this book. It is the first in a series, but I won’t be continuing on with it. 

I gave this book 2 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.