At that time, Christians were forbidden to study at Islamic schools, so Gordon has Cole take on the guise of a Jew and even marry one. Cole, is a young Englishman in the 11th century, so driven to master the arts of healing that he braves bandits, mountains, and deserts to study under a renowned Muslim physician. “The ones in Europe were slaughterhouses.” “Islam had the only good medical schools,” Gordon said. He said the germ of the novel may have been an article he read about how the Mideast surpassed Western Europe in medicine during the Middle Ages. “Give it another shot,” his wife told him, “and if it doesn’t work get the best newspaper job you can find.” By now living in a farmhouse in Ashfield, Gordon began to have doubts about whether he could sustain the writer’s life. Two novels - “The Death Committee” (1969) and “The Jerusalem Diamond” (1979) - followed, but neither matched Gordon’s initial splash.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |