Good Morning. I hope you’re well.
I once hand-wrote the dates of each month I had been alive. Aside from an exercise in wasting time and finger energy, it was an incredible way to be reminded that each month I’ve lived had 30ish whole days and each day many whole hours of consciousness. The summarizations I’ve made about my life (I am a good person, I am a failure) are ways I take shortcuts in my thinking.
In the same way, in writing to you, I am tempted to make shortcuts and sammary statements about the effect your writing has had on me.
I’ve listened to your Sharpe series, Saxon series, Arthur series, and I’m in the middle of Stonehenge now. While I’ve loved your books, there is much that is uncomfortable and dissappointing in the depiction of humanity. More dissappointing because I believe you are correct about people and our brutality and capacity for horror. I don’t think we’ve changed much though we’ve created a culture that looks much different.
I’m grateful to have to rethink my image of the world, and I’m grateful you are willing to research to discover the reality of people’s cultures across millennia.
Tim