Marco Polo

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Wed January 7th, 2009, 6:24 am

Caveowl's mention in another thread of Thomas Costain's The Black Rose reminded me of Marco Polo. I could only find four novels about him when I researched that section of my website, and they were all pretty old. I think the most recent was The Journeyer by Gary Jennings, which I didn't care for (Jennings seems to have a fetish about pedophilia and other sorts of weird sex, which seemed out of place in a novel about Marco Polo, I thought - though I'm not a Marco Polo expert).

There's a film of The Black Rose (not about Marco Polo, but about a fictional Englishman who travels to China during the period of Norman rule)from back in the 1950s, I think, or perhaps earlier. My husband unearthed a copy on video and we watched it again recently. The acting is uniformly dreadful, except for Orson Welles who plays a Mongol warlord with brilliant naturalness and panache.

diamondlil · Post by **diamondlil** » Wed January 7th, 2009, 9:55 am

Sometimes it amazes me that there are so few books written about certain people from history, and Marco Polo is definitely one of those!

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Wed January 7th, 2009, 1:44 pm

Not HF but reads like it: Marco Polo: from Venice to Xanadu. Takes info straight from his writings, and combines them with geopgraphy and history of the place and time. My only criticism was a lack of a good map, but otherwise very interesting.

I liked Journeyer, better than any of his others. Lots of what normally would bother me I chalked up to the time period and the place, tho thats probably naive.

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Wed January 7th, 2009, 3:11 pm

Despite the film, the Black Rose is a great read. One of my first HF books, and I have it on my shelves still.
I read a romance once with Marco Polo as the main character, told first-person. I'm not entirely certain, but I think the title was 'Journey to Xanadu'. It was a long time ago, but the plot is still with me.

Agree with you on Jennings. Some writers seem less interested in telling a story that includes human sexuality than about using a story for an excuse to dwell on weird sex ad nauseum. I can imagine an editor whispering in their ear "It will sell better if you add more prurient details and scenes."
And so they sacrifice good storytelling to work those in, not ever realizing that they are losing an audience even larger than the one they are trying to draw.

Edited: the book was Caravan to Xanadu: a novel of Marco Polo by Marshall. It was actually pretty good, and detailed Polo's first view of asbestos and the magnetic compass. Featured a romance, but from a male perspective, (rather clinical) since the author was also male.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Wed January 7th, 2009, 8:58 pm

Thanks for the details on Caravan to Xanadu. This has been on the list at HistoricalNovels.info, but I wasn't able to find much detail about it. Now I can flesh out the listing a little more.

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Wed January 7th, 2009, 9:59 pm

You're welcome, Margaret -- but I just realized that the magnetic compass bit was actually from the Black Rose. But I definitely remember a story thread in Xanadu about the young Polo discovering that priests of a certain cult could walk through fire because of asbestos robes and shoes. As I recall, he acquired some of their gear as a gift to impress Ghengis Khan.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 2:33 am

Cool! And you have inspired the first humor in a book listing at HistoricalNovels.info: See http://www.historicalnovels.info/Angevins.html#MP.

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 2:39 am

That does sound wild! If I ever get time, I might write up a few descriptive clips on some of the more obscure books you have on your site -- I've always been an avid HF reader, and adding the number of years I've been doing it, I suppose that amounts to quite a few novels.

Amanda · Post by **Amanda** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 2:58 am

I think I must have read that Gary Jennings book. I know I read a book about the travels of Marco Polo many years ago, and all I can recall about it is that there was a a bit of "weird sex" as you so put it Margaret. And it didn't seem to be thought of as anything terribly wrong.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Fri January 9th, 2009, 5:56 am

Until I researched Marco Polo books for my website, I too had forgotten that The Journeyer was about him. All I remembered was the ahem, weird scene.