originally written 12/09/2010
I rarely read prize-winning books, not out of any principle, but often because I’m the last to know, or the subject doesn’t interest me. I had heard about Wolf Hall for awhile and was attracted to the cover, which seemed to suggest something historical. When I found out it was about the Tudors, I thought I would give it a try (by then it had won the Booker Prize). My reading of it was rapid and involved but because, indeed, the book is so popular, I had to interrupt my reading to give it back to the library and then take it up again about a month later. So I’ll do my best in this review.
I would really like to see it from the perspective of someone who hadn’t watched The Tudors, because I think everyone’s vision of the Tudors is dependent on the version they saw last. Viewing the characters in Wolf Hall by identifying them with the actors from the TV series is not, I think, detrimental, and since most of them correspond and were played very memorably in the series, it actually sort of does the book a service . In any case, that, general knowledge, and the film of The Other Boleyn Girl were what I took with me.
As Hilary Mantel suggests, Thomas Cromwell is an arresting subject for a historical bio-fic, because of the great big factual recesses where she could invent painstakingly researched, wholly convincing, and sympathetic character out of a trove of business letters and a none-too-kind historical perspective. First off, let’s not mince words: a historical work of this scope, this length and amount of detail, which manages to deal humanely and believably with so many characters while at the same time offering an accurate portrait of the age with verisimilitude is really an achievement. The book is also impressively paced (she took the unusual decision of writing it in third person, but nearly first person, present tense) and contains lines of poetic and thoughtful reflection.
The prologue, so to speak, begins in 1500 when Walter Cromwell, an erstwhile brewer and general bully and troublemaker, causes his son Thomas to run away. Thomas’ years as “a ruffian” in Europe are left suitably vague but leave him multi-talented and for a man of no title, he is on the upward climb and employed in the service of Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey is well-written as a florid but in the end pitiable man of considerable intelligence and vanity. Cromwell stays with Wolsey to the end, and both his loyalty and shrewdness are rewarded when, instead of going down with his master, Cromwell eventually reaches great heights as King Henry’s most trusted confidante. So not only do we see Cromwell from the age of fifteen to the age of fifty, we watch Henry from a young monarch of thirty-six to a robust man of forty-five. I always admire authors who can write characters through the entire spans of their lives (convincingly).
This Cromwell has interesting perspectives on the ladies at court, particularly Mary Boleyn, with whom he has a flirtation and a continual sizing-up, and the dimly-regarded but kind Jane Seymour, who Jane Rochford encourages him to pursue. Of course, the book ends before Anne Boleyn’s fall from grace, so any relationships beyond his marriage to Liz Wykys and his affair with her sister Johane after his wife’s death are speculative. The portrait of Anne is scalding, and I think as a reader I’m not alone in wavering between admiring and despising her.
You quickly realize, from the days of Cromwell’s service with Wolsey to his time as right-hand man, that Henry Tudor gets away with many reprehensible acts just because he is king. All debate about the divorce, his treatment of Katherine, and his approach to religion aside, his casual attitudes toward burning heretics at the stake, as well as his irrepressible need to sate his lust during Anne Boleyn’s pregnancy on her sister Mary, hardly set him out as a model citizen and certainly not as a role model ruler! This contributes, however, to his humanity, and because the portrait is absolutely rounded and (from what I know) uses the historical precedent to mould a believable consciousness, he is almost likeable. Mantel refers to the Tudor age as “England’s first soap opera,” and perhaps that explains our continuing interest in its dynastic sagas.
Mary Tudor, for example, has in recent years benefited from a bit of a rehabilitation, as I think people in general are starting to see more of a cause-and-effect relationship between her treatment as a young princess and the way she reacted as a ruler. I remember in 10th grade reading that the Princess Elizabeth was kept away from her father and, though well-educated, monetarily deprived; this made me feel sorry for her at the time, I remember. I’ve since learned that Mary endured the same treatment and more when she was a child and Elizabeth a baby. That she reacted so bloodthirstily during her reign is not really surprising, and Mantel brings out both the sympathetic and pitiable side of “dun-colored” Mary as well as her impossible pride and sneering qualities. Mantel’s portrait of Sir Thomas More is equally complex, even though the reader will side with Cromwell in not liking him very much in the end, and certainly not seeing him as a saint . While I can’t think of any one-dimensional characters, another meaty one worth mentioning is “Uncle” Norfolk, Anne Boleyn’s uncle, who is vividly northern and is a bit of a primordial Gene Hunt.
I remember the creator of The Tudors mentioned in History Magazine that the show was primarily fact with other stuff thrown in (85% fact I think he said), and to be fair to it, the series does wrestle with the questions of government and religion so essential to understanding the period. Certainly Wolf Hall delves deep in terms of religion, as Cromwell was one of the main proponents of Protestantism (despite being employed by the Cardinal!). His beliefs, at least at first, are very pure: he wants an English Bible so that each Englishperson can read it. He therefore has many enemies, such as Katherine of Aragon, Chapuys the Spanish ambassador (ironically where most of the primary information on the historical Cromwell comes from), Bishop Fisher, Thomas More, and many others. His surprisingly earnest ally in religion is Anne Boleyn, but that means her downfall is his, too.
The book is really too big for me to give a comprehensive review that isn’t summary, and I don’t really have anything negative to say, other than bafflement with the title. Wolf Hall is the Seymour family seat in Wiltshire, which is where the book ends, but it seems to be to imbue Cromwell’s relations with Jane Seymour with false importance.
I see now that Mantel has written several books on subjects that interest me, so I will definitely put her on the list!
Friday, June 3, 2011
The King's Dragon
originally written 11/09/2010
This is the first BBC Eleventh Doctor novel I’ve read, and my first reaction was dismay at the even larger leading and font sizes. Eighth Doctor novels, these are not. Despite the length, though, I think this book successfully layers many subtexts while at the same time providing a cheerful and enjoyable story bolstered by the author’s skilful proficiency with the three main characters. The secondary characters, are, perhaps, a bit less completely formed, but overall the book is quite fun to read.
The author’s epigraph is from Beowulf, and with the titular king named Beol, it’s the first signal that there’s more to this story than the surface. That is generally the mark of a good Doctor Who, after all: enjoyable surface story for the very young with allusions to other, more adult themes. As the Doctor, Rory, and Amy land on an alien planet whose development is roughly equivalent with medieval Europe (Rory wonders why an alien planet has horses), I was a bit alarmed that the story was going to be similar to Wooden Heart, but despite early thematic similarities, The King’s Dragon quickly carved out its own niche.
To her credit, McCormack writes the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and particularly Rory really well. The dialogue is natural, very funny, and there’s a real visual element. Even in the first scene, the writer combines comedy and image to give us the quite funny scene of the Doctor being splashed with mud from horse and cart who has refused to give him a ride, and then pops back up again as his irrepressible self. As we all know, it helps in terms of narrative to have more than one companion as point of view and storyline can be advanced from the normal two-hander. In this respect, the normal annoyance I have for shifting POV in sci fi books was lessened as the story was more Amy’s and Rory’s than the Doctor’s.
The visual appeal of the book continued as the trio reached the city of Geath, which was quite literally paved in gold. While the feast of “bling” (in Rory’s words) is a delight for the senses, the Doctor is concerned because gold does not occur naturally in Geath; nor do kings. When the Doctor meets the Teller, whose function it is to be like a king’s bard, his anxiety increases. Touches like this, along with the importance of a ring and its summoning of the Herald, do allude to the rich Anglo-Saxon/Nordic mythology (with hints of Tolkien as well) that will hopefully encourage younger readers to eventually seek more in the tradition of Beowulf (in common with Beowulf are interesting meditations on expectations of heroism and how they fall short, in both the case of the Teller, Hilthe, and there’s a wryness that reminds me of the bits of Robin Hood I most enjoyed). Speaking of precedents I enjoyed, the Doctor’s speech to Amy and Rory about the effects of Enamour remind me very much of Wolf warning Virginia about the shoes in The 10th Kingdom:
One of the themes is certainly storytelling and the possible problems created for the same story told by different people. Geath is caught in the middle of a larger conflict between two civilizations, one who contact them through the Herald, and one who contacts them through terrifying dark manifestations. Neither is what it seems; the dragon is mechanical; the gold is commercial Enamour; and the Doctor’s insistence on “I-know-best” is quite rightly challenged.
I think 1960s and 1970s writers of Doctor Who would approve of undercurrent of (possible?) capitalist criticism, or at least a condemnation with the obsession with greed.
Rory is at his most endearing in this book: And yet still he found himself picking his way round said strange city in the middle of the night in search of a little old lady. And why? Because the Doctor had asked him to. Talk about Enamour. Amy comes off as very go-get-‘em but slightly shallow: ‘I’m not any kind of lady. But if you do that smile again, I’ll forgive you.’ Beol obliged. Amy wrinkled her nose at him. ‘So cute! I’d vote for you.’ I don’t want to spoil the ending too much for you, but the Regulatory Board aliens are both very amusing and suuuuuch a 180 degree turn that the narrative almost psychs itself out. Fortunately their amusing interlude is brief. (And I think McCormack is poking fun at herself and her involvement with Star Trek when the Doctor says, ‘Non-interference? Prime Directives? So 23rd century. All a bit retro. And not in a good way.’)
If all the Eleventh Doctor books are this complex beneath their short word count, I think they will be quite enjoyable.
This is the first BBC Eleventh Doctor novel I’ve read, and my first reaction was dismay at the even larger leading and font sizes. Eighth Doctor novels, these are not. Despite the length, though, I think this book successfully layers many subtexts while at the same time providing a cheerful and enjoyable story bolstered by the author’s skilful proficiency with the three main characters. The secondary characters, are, perhaps, a bit less completely formed, but overall the book is quite fun to read.
The author’s epigraph is from Beowulf, and with the titular king named Beol, it’s the first signal that there’s more to this story than the surface. That is generally the mark of a good Doctor Who, after all: enjoyable surface story for the very young with allusions to other, more adult themes. As the Doctor, Rory, and Amy land on an alien planet whose development is roughly equivalent with medieval Europe (Rory wonders why an alien planet has horses), I was a bit alarmed that the story was going to be similar to Wooden Heart, but despite early thematic similarities, The King’s Dragon quickly carved out its own niche.
To her credit, McCormack writes the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and particularly Rory really well. The dialogue is natural, very funny, and there’s a real visual element. Even in the first scene, the writer combines comedy and image to give us the quite funny scene of the Doctor being splashed with mud from horse and cart who has refused to give him a ride, and then pops back up again as his irrepressible self. As we all know, it helps in terms of narrative to have more than one companion as point of view and storyline can be advanced from the normal two-hander. In this respect, the normal annoyance I have for shifting POV in sci fi books was lessened as the story was more Amy’s and Rory’s than the Doctor’s.
The visual appeal of the book continued as the trio reached the city of Geath, which was quite literally paved in gold. While the feast of “bling” (in Rory’s words) is a delight for the senses, the Doctor is concerned because gold does not occur naturally in Geath; nor do kings. When the Doctor meets the Teller, whose function it is to be like a king’s bard, his anxiety increases. Touches like this, along with the importance of a ring and its summoning of the Herald, do allude to the rich Anglo-Saxon/Nordic mythology (with hints of Tolkien as well) that will hopefully encourage younger readers to eventually seek more in the tradition of Beowulf (in common with Beowulf are interesting meditations on expectations of heroism and how they fall short, in both the case of the Teller, Hilthe, and there’s a wryness that reminds me of the bits of Robin Hood I most enjoyed). Speaking of precedents I enjoyed, the Doctor’s speech to Amy and Rory about the effects of Enamour remind me very much of Wolf warning Virginia about the shoes in The 10th Kingdom:
You’re thinking that it’s beautiful, aren’t you? That it’s the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen. Rory doesn’t match up. Amy doesn’t compare. You’re wondering how you ever lived without it, and you can’t understand why anyone would say that it’s dangerous. How can anything so gorgeous be so dangerous? But it’s all these things—beautiful and necessary and dangerous. The people who made it understood how powerful it was. Because it bewitches people. It can turn minds, sell merchandise, sway elections. And it has done its job far too well.
One of the themes is certainly storytelling and the possible problems created for the same story told by different people. Geath is caught in the middle of a larger conflict between two civilizations, one who contact them through the Herald, and one who contacts them through terrifying dark manifestations. Neither is what it seems; the dragon is mechanical; the gold is commercial Enamour; and the Doctor’s insistence on “I-know-best” is quite rightly challenged.
So what gave him the right to come in and demand that the Geathians did what he told them? Rory eyed the Doctor. It was all pretty high-handed when you thought about it. Wasn’t it just as bad as the Regulator screaming its demands and sending its ships? Or waltzing in the night before a wedding and spiriting away the bride? What gave the Doctor the right to interfere?
I think 1960s and 1970s writers of Doctor Who would approve of undercurrent of (possible?) capitalist criticism, or at least a condemnation with the obsession with greed.
Rory is at his most endearing in this book: And yet still he found himself picking his way round said strange city in the middle of the night in search of a little old lady. And why? Because the Doctor had asked him to. Talk about Enamour. Amy comes off as very go-get-‘em but slightly shallow: ‘I’m not any kind of lady. But if you do that smile again, I’ll forgive you.’ Beol obliged. Amy wrinkled her nose at him. ‘So cute! I’d vote for you.’ I don’t want to spoil the ending too much for you, but the Regulatory Board aliens are both very amusing and suuuuuch a 180 degree turn that the narrative almost psychs itself out. Fortunately their amusing interlude is brief. (And I think McCormack is poking fun at herself and her involvement with Star Trek when the Doctor says, ‘Non-interference? Prime Directives? So 23rd century. All a bit retro. And not in a good way.’)
If all the Eleventh Doctor books are this complex beneath their short word count, I think they will be quite enjoyable.
Arrowsmith
originally written 11/09/2010
Arrowsmith is a comic that capitalizes on the popularity and success of Fables, in that it transforms the mundane into the fantastic. It also owes something, it must be said, to Harry Potter. Instead of imagining the modern world as having an unknown underpinning of fairy tale creatures with their own private world sometimes leaking out into the “Mundy ” universe, Arrowsmith gives us an alternate history of the world, with geography as vaguely recognizable but one where magic is known and lives alongside the everyday. It’s an interesting vehicle through which to relive and offer commentary on World War I. In this way, it’s a World War I that would be recognizable to the author of Johnny Got His Gun.
Part of what makes Arrowsmith: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms (which are the first six issues of the comic) enjoyable are the clean lines and traditional styling of artist Carlos Pacheco. Fables used many artists but its signature style was maintained by the writer Bill Willingham, and it’s a similar effect here—it’s imaginative with the panels but with clear drawing talent in the drafting. Fletcher Arrowsmith is the titular hero who idealistically volunteers from the “United States of Columbia” to go join the war in “Gallia” as part of an elite flying corps. These corps aren’t in airplanes, they fly in the air with small, fire-breathing dragons as their “familiars” (sort of). Arrowsmith is thus an interesting mix of the ultra-realistic (friendly fire, underhanded tactics, the randomness of war) and the fantastic. Heiress Grace Halliard drives an ambulance like Lady Buckingham in “The War Games” but there the similarity ends!
I’m definitely interested in finding the next volumes of this series, though hopefully they won’t all be drawn over by some young reader from Camden like this one was.
Arrowsmith is a comic that capitalizes on the popularity and success of Fables, in that it transforms the mundane into the fantastic. It also owes something, it must be said, to Harry Potter. Instead of imagining the modern world as having an unknown underpinning of fairy tale creatures with their own private world sometimes leaking out into the “Mundy ” universe, Arrowsmith gives us an alternate history of the world, with geography as vaguely recognizable but one where magic is known and lives alongside the everyday. It’s an interesting vehicle through which to relive and offer commentary on World War I. In this way, it’s a World War I that would be recognizable to the author of Johnny Got His Gun.
Part of what makes Arrowsmith: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms (which are the first six issues of the comic) enjoyable are the clean lines and traditional styling of artist Carlos Pacheco. Fables used many artists but its signature style was maintained by the writer Bill Willingham, and it’s a similar effect here—it’s imaginative with the panels but with clear drawing talent in the drafting. Fletcher Arrowsmith is the titular hero who idealistically volunteers from the “United States of Columbia” to go join the war in “Gallia” as part of an elite flying corps. These corps aren’t in airplanes, they fly in the air with small, fire-breathing dragons as their “familiars” (sort of). Arrowsmith is thus an interesting mix of the ultra-realistic (friendly fire, underhanded tactics, the randomness of war) and the fantastic. Heiress Grace Halliard drives an ambulance like Lady Buckingham in “The War Games” but there the similarity ends!
I’m definitely interested in finding the next volumes of this series, though hopefully they won’t all be drawn over by some young reader from Camden like this one was.
Cavalier
originally written 06/09/2010
Cavalier: The Story of a 17th Century Playboy by Lucy Worsley was another impulse book-borrow from the library; I wanted to read something nonfiction and I was attracted by its cover. Plus, ever since I did my Milton research I have been more attracted than ever to 17th century history. Despite the sexed-up title and the rather modernistic approach to narrative history (Worsley is Chief Curator for the Historic Royal Palaces), I was surprised at the rather lumbering pace at which this book began. However, as things heated up during the Civil War, the pacing, too, quickened and thundered to its eventual end.
It is not surprising that this is an extremely well-researched book which is at pains to present as clear and as wide-ranging a portrait of the 17th century as possible. It is also lavishly illustrated both in color and black and white. The book’s subject is William Cavendish, arguably a living depiction of the typical English Cavalier. However, Worsley’s affection for her subject quickly makes Cavendish much more human than any mere collection of artifice, manners, and Van Dyck portrait ever could. Worsley is quick to point out Cavendish’s flaws, which she is in fact at pains to hide during his rather ignominious conduct after the Battle of Marston Moor. His collection of contradictions makes him an inverted image of Milton, in fact, who is more or less Cavendish’s contemporary. It’s very interesting to approach the Cavendish history from the Miltonian viewpoint as their lives intersected in surprising ways even though they never met.
Cavendish’s passions were four-fold: architecture, which he inherited from his father and from his grandmother Bess Hardwick ; horse-riding and the manège, which was his greatest talent and helped to keep him going during his exile from England in Antwerp between the Civil War and the Restoration; women, as an inveterate seducer of all the female members of his household despite the rather unusual and romantic story of his second marriage; and poetry. His poetry really makes the man himself accessible, and I think it would be worth bringing out an annotated collection of his chronologically-arranged poetry, which covers all aspects of his life in rather quaint and plodding verse.
The book begins at Welbeck Abbey at Cavendish’s father’s deathbed in 1617 and forms a good introduction to the period as well as to the temperament of the family (and presents background for the mournful about-face experienced at William Cavendish’s own deathbed). It then goes backward to highlight the processes of building another of the Cavendishes’ seats, Bolsover Castle, in 1613. This is fascinating as it examines the somewhat communal quality of servants/architects and how at this stage gentlemen architects had not quite arisen; craftsmen with no formal training were still considered architects. A visit to Cavendish’s first wife Elizabeth’s closet in 1625 gave us more information on their social/private life. I was beginning to get turned off by the 17th century at this point because Elizabeth, even as a noblewoman, would have had such a limited life. She had a lucky break when she married William because her first husband was a beast, and before that she had been sold to the highest bidder as an heiress; it’s a stereotypical view of women of the period and in this case, it is, depressingly, completely true. Even though she and William fell in love after their marriage and seem to have raised a content household, she could do nothing about his constant infidelities nor was she expected to feel anything about it. She met very few people aside from her gentlewomen, and her whole existence was one of maintaining dignity at all times and encouraging her husband to make good at court.
The next section, the masque presented for King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria in 1634 , underlines this curious state of affairs perfectly. As rather a newer branch of the aristocracy, the Cavendishes, although wealthy and powerful, were still stuck in the Midlands and much of William’s life was spent in trying to climb ever higher in the King’s estimation. This chapter is perhaps my favorite as it brings the early 17th century to life with extreme vividness.
Things go a bit downhill after this, as Cavendish’s performance as a military man in defense of the King throughout the Civil War is a bit lacking. You feel a bit sorry for him as he does seem to try his best but lacks leadership abilities, and his naturally short temper and bluff character get in the way. His flight to Antwerp does seem cowardly on the surface, as he has left his servants and daughters in England to fend for themselves against the Roundheads, something I think the daughters never forgive him for. It causes a lifelong rupture with his sons as well. The only good thing, I think, that comes out of all of this is meeting his second wife “Peg” in Paris. Theirs is a whirlwind romance which probably deserves its own book. Unfortunately, her strength of character and unconventional attitude (she believes in equality for the sexes, writes and publishes—including a biography of her husband) make them both the subject of some scorn after they return to England during the Restoration .
After the Restoration, Cavendish is made a Duke but still feels Charles II (who was in fact his young pupil) has never shown him proper gratitude for his loyalty. There are severe problems between the new household (Peg’s servants) and the old one (including Cavendish’s daughters from his first marriage). Peg eventually precedes William in death, but the whole ending of the story has a bittersweet feel, underlined by the fact that the once-proud and progressive architectural projects of the Cavendish family lie in ruins. As an appropriate postscript, Worsley makes known that Bolsover Castle remains accessible for the tourist, but the rest of the haunts of William Cavendish are either obliterated or in private hands.
Reading this book has highlighted my own need for a better understanding of the English Civil War but has definitely reinforced my interest in the period. It has certainly made me want to visit Bolsover Castle!
Cavalier: The Story of a 17th Century Playboy by Lucy Worsley was another impulse book-borrow from the library; I wanted to read something nonfiction and I was attracted by its cover. Plus, ever since I did my Milton research I have been more attracted than ever to 17th century history. Despite the sexed-up title and the rather modernistic approach to narrative history (Worsley is Chief Curator for the Historic Royal Palaces), I was surprised at the rather lumbering pace at which this book began. However, as things heated up during the Civil War, the pacing, too, quickened and thundered to its eventual end.
It is not surprising that this is an extremely well-researched book which is at pains to present as clear and as wide-ranging a portrait of the 17th century as possible. It is also lavishly illustrated both in color and black and white. The book’s subject is William Cavendish, arguably a living depiction of the typical English Cavalier. However, Worsley’s affection for her subject quickly makes Cavendish much more human than any mere collection of artifice, manners, and Van Dyck portrait ever could. Worsley is quick to point out Cavendish’s flaws, which she is in fact at pains to hide during his rather ignominious conduct after the Battle of Marston Moor. His collection of contradictions makes him an inverted image of Milton, in fact, who is more or less Cavendish’s contemporary. It’s very interesting to approach the Cavendish history from the Miltonian viewpoint as their lives intersected in surprising ways even though they never met.
Cavendish’s passions were four-fold: architecture, which he inherited from his father and from his grandmother Bess Hardwick ; horse-riding and the manège, which was his greatest talent and helped to keep him going during his exile from England in Antwerp between the Civil War and the Restoration; women, as an inveterate seducer of all the female members of his household despite the rather unusual and romantic story of his second marriage; and poetry. His poetry really makes the man himself accessible, and I think it would be worth bringing out an annotated collection of his chronologically-arranged poetry, which covers all aspects of his life in rather quaint and plodding verse.
The book begins at Welbeck Abbey at Cavendish’s father’s deathbed in 1617 and forms a good introduction to the period as well as to the temperament of the family (and presents background for the mournful about-face experienced at William Cavendish’s own deathbed). It then goes backward to highlight the processes of building another of the Cavendishes’ seats, Bolsover Castle, in 1613. This is fascinating as it examines the somewhat communal quality of servants/architects and how at this stage gentlemen architects had not quite arisen; craftsmen with no formal training were still considered architects. A visit to Cavendish’s first wife Elizabeth’s closet in 1625 gave us more information on their social/private life. I was beginning to get turned off by the 17th century at this point because Elizabeth, even as a noblewoman, would have had such a limited life. She had a lucky break when she married William because her first husband was a beast, and before that she had been sold to the highest bidder as an heiress; it’s a stereotypical view of women of the period and in this case, it is, depressingly, completely true. Even though she and William fell in love after their marriage and seem to have raised a content household, she could do nothing about his constant infidelities nor was she expected to feel anything about it. She met very few people aside from her gentlewomen, and her whole existence was one of maintaining dignity at all times and encouraging her husband to make good at court.
The next section, the masque presented for King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria in 1634 , underlines this curious state of affairs perfectly. As rather a newer branch of the aristocracy, the Cavendishes, although wealthy and powerful, were still stuck in the Midlands and much of William’s life was spent in trying to climb ever higher in the King’s estimation. This chapter is perhaps my favorite as it brings the early 17th century to life with extreme vividness.
Things go a bit downhill after this, as Cavendish’s performance as a military man in defense of the King throughout the Civil War is a bit lacking. You feel a bit sorry for him as he does seem to try his best but lacks leadership abilities, and his naturally short temper and bluff character get in the way. His flight to Antwerp does seem cowardly on the surface, as he has left his servants and daughters in England to fend for themselves against the Roundheads, something I think the daughters never forgive him for. It causes a lifelong rupture with his sons as well. The only good thing, I think, that comes out of all of this is meeting his second wife “Peg” in Paris. Theirs is a whirlwind romance which probably deserves its own book. Unfortunately, her strength of character and unconventional attitude (she believes in equality for the sexes, writes and publishes—including a biography of her husband) make them both the subject of some scorn after they return to England during the Restoration .
After the Restoration, Cavendish is made a Duke but still feels Charles II (who was in fact his young pupil) has never shown him proper gratitude for his loyalty. There are severe problems between the new household (Peg’s servants) and the old one (including Cavendish’s daughters from his first marriage). Peg eventually precedes William in death, but the whole ending of the story has a bittersweet feel, underlined by the fact that the once-proud and progressive architectural projects of the Cavendish family lie in ruins. As an appropriate postscript, Worsley makes known that Bolsover Castle remains accessible for the tourist, but the rest of the haunts of William Cavendish are either obliterated or in private hands.
Reading this book has highlighted my own need for a better understanding of the English Civil War but has definitely reinforced my interest in the period. It has certainly made me want to visit Bolsover Castle!
Scherzo
originally written 17/07/2010
This is another book I randomly picked up in the library because it looked like a decent read and I was in the mood for fiction. It was actually a pretty pertinent choice as it was an adventure/pastiche/murder mystery of the 18th century of Casanova and Voltaire. To tell the truth, the Venice it presented owed more to City of Vice than the RTD Casanova; instead of a handsome, winsome, slightly awkward but boyishly charming David Tennant as the main character, we had Ludovico, a castrato opera singer and lackey, who could never be accepted by the mainstream as a suitable hero for a work of historical TV fiction. And in this version, Casanova is a real jerk. Who’s to say he wasn’t? I have a soft spot for the historical Casanova, having read several books about him and his time period and one biography. While Williams captures him passably well in tone, adventures, charms, and faults, he is pretty unforgiving in his portrayal: he accuses him of fabricating his famous escape from the Leads, among other untruths.
A reader with a half a brain would have surmised from the first few pages that the novel, though it never admits to it, gives as one of his main characters Voltaire (though he goes under the nom de guerre Monsieur Arouet). Even the ending tries to throw us off the scent; we are meant to suspect that “the butler did it,” but in a cynicism keeping entirely with the satirical tone of the whole, Williams makes us suspect the unreliable narrator in the same breath he denies any linkage between Monsieur Arouet and Voltaire.
The sordid plot has much to do with Freemasonry (the pseudo-magic that wouldn’t have been out of place either in the recent Sherlock Holmes or From Hell); forged paintings also figure largely, which was a bit of an unexpected delight considering I had recently seen the National Gallery’s exhibition Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. While Ludovico is a sympathetic narrator due to his outcast state (certainly he never asked to be made a eunuch!), and draws attention to the double standards of the State and religion in 18th century Venice, his cipher as purely narrative is occasionally grating. Nevertheless, he is a memorable and entertaining character.
“A Venetian Entertainment” is the book’s subtitle. This is because it combines a pastiche of 18th century writing styles and expectations of different genres—the erotica “from” Casanova’s memoirs is undoubtedly in keeping with the Great Lover’s style, but seems quite flagrant compared to the rest of the material. There is tragi-comedy throughout, and the murder mystery, while coming to a logical conclusion, is a lot more full-bodied than your traditional, run-of-the-mill, serialized historical mysteries (see Silent as the Grave, for example). There is no doubt whatsoever that Williams has done his research, and all of the details feel authentic without being obtrusive. The women of the story are always seen through the filter of male gaze (and Ludovico’s, who sometimes characterizes himself as “womanly,” sometimes not)—though there is one letter that is given fully to a woman’s voice. This is all keeping with the fact that the women of the period and place seem to have some freedom yet are very much dependents of the men, yet I still wished I could have known the female characters more fully, even if the mystery somewhat depended on their opacity. The mode of storytelling worked in its use of made-up letters from several of the characters to each other, which is definitely a relic of the epistolary 18th century.
I think I would read more about Ludovico and his travels after Venice, but I also think the book is very much a self-contained project.
This is another book I randomly picked up in the library because it looked like a decent read and I was in the mood for fiction. It was actually a pretty pertinent choice as it was an adventure/pastiche/murder mystery of the 18th century of Casanova and Voltaire. To tell the truth, the Venice it presented owed more to City of Vice than the RTD Casanova; instead of a handsome, winsome, slightly awkward but boyishly charming David Tennant as the main character, we had Ludovico, a castrato opera singer and lackey, who could never be accepted by the mainstream as a suitable hero for a work of historical TV fiction. And in this version, Casanova is a real jerk. Who’s to say he wasn’t? I have a soft spot for the historical Casanova, having read several books about him and his time period and one biography. While Williams captures him passably well in tone, adventures, charms, and faults, he is pretty unforgiving in his portrayal: he accuses him of fabricating his famous escape from the Leads, among other untruths.
A reader with a half a brain would have surmised from the first few pages that the novel, though it never admits to it, gives as one of his main characters Voltaire (though he goes under the nom de guerre Monsieur Arouet). Even the ending tries to throw us off the scent; we are meant to suspect that “the butler did it,” but in a cynicism keeping entirely with the satirical tone of the whole, Williams makes us suspect the unreliable narrator in the same breath he denies any linkage between Monsieur Arouet and Voltaire.
The sordid plot has much to do with Freemasonry (the pseudo-magic that wouldn’t have been out of place either in the recent Sherlock Holmes or From Hell); forged paintings also figure largely, which was a bit of an unexpected delight considering I had recently seen the National Gallery’s exhibition Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. While Ludovico is a sympathetic narrator due to his outcast state (certainly he never asked to be made a eunuch!), and draws attention to the double standards of the State and religion in 18th century Venice, his cipher as purely narrative is occasionally grating. Nevertheless, he is a memorable and entertaining character.
“A Venetian Entertainment” is the book’s subtitle. This is because it combines a pastiche of 18th century writing styles and expectations of different genres—the erotica “from” Casanova’s memoirs is undoubtedly in keeping with the Great Lover’s style, but seems quite flagrant compared to the rest of the material. There is tragi-comedy throughout, and the murder mystery, while coming to a logical conclusion, is a lot more full-bodied than your traditional, run-of-the-mill, serialized historical mysteries (see Silent as the Grave, for example). There is no doubt whatsoever that Williams has done his research, and all of the details feel authentic without being obtrusive. The women of the story are always seen through the filter of male gaze (and Ludovico’s, who sometimes characterizes himself as “womanly,” sometimes not)—though there is one letter that is given fully to a woman’s voice. This is all keeping with the fact that the women of the period and place seem to have some freedom yet are very much dependents of the men, yet I still wished I could have known the female characters more fully, even if the mystery somewhat depended on their opacity. The mode of storytelling worked in its use of made-up letters from several of the characters to each other, which is definitely a relic of the epistolary 18th century.
I think I would read more about Ludovico and his travels after Venice, but I also think the book is very much a self-contained project.
Their Finest Hour and a Half
originally written 18/06/2010
Their Finest Hour and a Half is one of those books I just saw displayed in the library and thought it looked good, so I grabbed it. Like Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, it looks at the home front in Britain during WWII, specifically an eighteen-month period in 1940-1, and uses disparate characters’ stories, briefly brought together by their collective work on a wartime film. Unlike The Night Watch, which was told backwards and was quite dark, Their Finest Hour and a Half is humorous and played in real-time. From the cover you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole of the narrative was going to follow Catrin Cole, a spirited young woman employed at an ad agency at the beginning of the book, married to a taciturn painter; she eventually helps write the script of the aforementioned wartime film. The author Lissa Evans also gives us the juicy story of Ambrose Hilliard, a film star of the 1920s and ‘30s who still wants leading man material and doesn’t believe in aging gracefully; in tone, he’s very similar to Mark Gatiss’ Lucifer Box. In fact, I almost get the sense Lissa Evans liked Ambrose so much, she wanted to take the narrative away from Catrin to make the story Ambrose’s. In any case, the third character is Edith Beadmore, who fascinatingly is a seamstress at Madame Tussaud’s; unfortunately, not much time is spent describing this interesting line of work as Edith, as an unmarried woman dependent on relatives’ charity, is displaced because of the Blitz.
A lot of care and research has gone into the book and is not represented in an ostentatious way. Because Catrin is Welsh (and so, I think, is the author), there are some good Welsh jokes. In fact, even the blackest humor is tempered by silliness, which is a nice change for a wartime book. Of course, the most enjoyable part of the book is the metafictional quality: a book about people writing films, a book about people acting through films and plays, and the way the narrative swoops in and out is very cinematic. It’s great fun, not least because of the extracts of scripts—from the feature film, from Ministry of Information shorts, from period advertising. Very charming. Catrin even gets the chance to rewrite her own story by typing out of page of dialogue about how it should have gone:
The book was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and you can see why.
Their Finest Hour and a Half is one of those books I just saw displayed in the library and thought it looked good, so I grabbed it. Like Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, it looks at the home front in Britain during WWII, specifically an eighteen-month period in 1940-1, and uses disparate characters’ stories, briefly brought together by their collective work on a wartime film. Unlike The Night Watch, which was told backwards and was quite dark, Their Finest Hour and a Half is humorous and played in real-time. From the cover you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole of the narrative was going to follow Catrin Cole, a spirited young woman employed at an ad agency at the beginning of the book, married to a taciturn painter; she eventually helps write the script of the aforementioned wartime film. The author Lissa Evans also gives us the juicy story of Ambrose Hilliard, a film star of the 1920s and ‘30s who still wants leading man material and doesn’t believe in aging gracefully; in tone, he’s very similar to Mark Gatiss’ Lucifer Box. In fact, I almost get the sense Lissa Evans liked Ambrose so much, she wanted to take the narrative away from Catrin to make the story Ambrose’s. In any case, the third character is Edith Beadmore, who fascinatingly is a seamstress at Madame Tussaud’s; unfortunately, not much time is spent describing this interesting line of work as Edith, as an unmarried woman dependent on relatives’ charity, is displaced because of the Blitz.
A lot of care and research has gone into the book and is not represented in an ostentatious way. Because Catrin is Welsh (and so, I think, is the author), there are some good Welsh jokes. In fact, even the blackest humor is tempered by silliness, which is a nice change for a wartime book. Of course, the most enjoyable part of the book is the metafictional quality: a book about people writing films, a book about people acting through films and plays, and the way the narrative swoops in and out is very cinematic. It’s great fun, not least because of the extracts of scripts—from the feature film, from Ministry of Information shorts, from period advertising. Very charming. Catrin even gets the chance to rewrite her own story by typing out of page of dialogue about how it should have gone:
MAN
Oh, a hint—you mean six oysters, a candle in a bottle and a gypsy violinist sawing away at ‘Last Rose of Sorrento’. And if you’d had all that, then what would you have done?
WOMAN
I don’t know. But I wouldn’t have smacked you in the chest and said ‘Let’s forget it ever happened.’
The book was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and you can see why.
Aphrodite: The Love of Food and the Food of Love
originally written 14/05/2010
“ . . . I realized that among the few things that men and women have in common is sex and food. Then I undertook the adventure of exploring both.”
In terms of sheer enjoyment and delight, very little has ever topped this book. I was a bit embarrassed reading it on buses and various offices around town, but I thought for sure it would be a conversation-starter.
I have, to my embarrassment, never read anything else by Isabel Allende. From the way she writes nonfiction, however, I get a clear sense that she’s a magical realist, similar to her Colombian counterpart Gabriel Garcia Marquez . The book is a wonderful, strange mélange of recipes, anecdotes, musings about aphrodisiacs, all written with humor rather than in pornographic detail (otherwise, how would I have obtained it from a public library, and why would I be admitting to you I read it?). As an aside, Allende differentiates between porn and erotica thus: “Pornography is method without inspiration; eroticism is inspiration without method.” I once had a very entertaining book called How to Write Love Letters which, for the sensualist and paper enthusiast was a lovely treat, and for the romantic, it held the perfume of nostalgia. However, in practical terms it only ever helped me lose lovers rather than gain them. Allende is much more “with it,” acknowledging, “In these times, there are very few women who have time to muck about kneading dough or have access to a human head.” One thing I think we can all agree upon: bad breath is a potent anti-aphrodisiac! Equally, I think we can agree with her assertion that love is the best aphrodisiac, as people in love will stop at nothing to get to each other.
She writes a very well-rounded discussion of how orgiastic rites in Roman times turned off the Christian slaves who later ruled the Western world with an ethos of self-denial as the way to godliness. “In the rest of the world, sexuality is a component of good health.” She has no compunction about describing her own almost obscene ardour for rice pudding. Not only did she once have five servings in one sitting, she also once dreamed about swimming in a huge vat of it. She has left little to the imagination in her descriptions of this fantasy, but fantasy it is, and a familiar theme for sensualists (don’t let me speak for everyone!). She also would really like her husband to cook in the nude, or at the very least shed clothes as he peels an onion; frankly, I’d be too scared to cook in the nude: I burn myself badly enough with my clothes on! In fact, Allende describes that she fell in love with her future husband because of his erotic powers in the kitchen; “an experience very few Latin American women have had; usually the machos of our continent consider any household activity a danger to their perpetually threatened virility.”
To taste, Allende recognizes, smell is inextricably linked, and women’s sense of smell is more developed than men’s. (And I get weird comments for the amount of scent-related reflections in my fan fic!) “If we did not have so many prejudices and inhibitions, the smell of a human in his or her natural state . . . would come in a bottle, just as they are trying to achieve with pheromones.” It was a long time before I, personally, found a perfume for me. I remember trundling through Paris department stores with my host in 2005, sampling Guerlain fragrances on little sticks that I still have somewhere; I liked the peony. However, I finally decided on vanilla (which was Madame de Pompadour’s favorite, by the way). Allende is quite against “smelling like dessert”; I’m the opposite, take that however you want. And visual stimulation, it is argued, for women only works up to a point: “our sensuality is tied to our imagination and to our auditory nerves.” (Though it can’t just be women, for as Allende points out, the telephone sex industry is alive and well.) She tells a hilarious story of a woman sitting in a San Francisco opera seat in raptures over Placido Domingo’s sonorous notes to prove the point that what one person considers musically erotic just doesn’t do it for others. There’s also a fabulously described episode when Allende bought gloves in Venice when she was 24 from a glovemaker who examined her hands in caressing detail (to my mind, the hands are one of the most neglected erogenous zones).
One of the more thought-provoking sections of the book talks about harems, which Allende contends are every man’s fantasy and every woman’s nightmare. I wasn’t going to agree with her until she outlined the living conditions of the harem (including the fact that cucumbers were forbidden—think about it). It was a life of extreme tedium, eating and smoking hookahs, surrounded by other women who were probably plotting against your life if you were popular, at the whim of the sultan’s mother—a life that left no trace in history, in the end a lonely life without the exoticism endowed by Western painters. Her rhapsody on the harem made me think, inevitably, of Erik and the odalisque in Susan Kay’s Phantom, a complex episode used to show the cruelty of the Shah-in-Shah’s mother, a character Kay created, a scene to titillate the (female) reader over the Phantom’s barely controlled lusts; but in the end a sad episode, and rather emblematic of the powerlessness of the odalisque’s position in society overall.
Allende is just getting tired by the section on flowers, but Victorian flower language provokes a long aside from me, if you’ll allow me: one of the most romantic gifts I ever got were flowers. See, this was high school, and when it rained, it poured: I had been pining for years after this guy named Nic, who wasn’t interested in me. Then all it once, Tony (who did become my boyfriend later) and another guy named Justin were interested in me. (It’s all detailed in the slightly fictionalized essay “Prom Night.”) It was entirely intellectual and literary between Justin and me: writing each other longhand letters, we never even kissed—holding hands was the farthest it went. But I introduced him to Phantom of the Opera and Phantom, and on opening night of Nunsense, the musical I was in, he brought me a bouquet. In Phantom, Erik tells Christine about the story of the nightingale and the white rose, a Persian fairy tale of unrequited love where in the end the nightingale stabs its heart on the thorn of the rose, producing the red rose which had not yet existed. The bouquet was all white roses except one red rose. I’ve gotten flowers since, roses, tulips, and many others, but never white and red roses.
Ahem, I digress.
Allende isn’t interested in bibliographies , though that she and her collaborators (Robert Shekter, her mother Panchita Llona, and editor Carmen Pancells) researched is obvious. There are endless lists, livened up by Allende’s notations, on aphrodisiac foods of all descriptions: she notes, for example, that the degenerate Madame du Barry enflamed Louis XV’s passions with a mixture of egg yolks and ginger. Figs, which are one of my favorite foods, I found out were considered aphrodisiac to the ancient Greeks and Chinese. I was disappointed with the section on tea; it didn’t reveal anything I didn’t already know and didn’t think much of tea’s erotic properties. While the recipes at the end of the text are quite interesting and, amazingly, achievable (many of them soups because, as Allende reckons, eating a large meal before lovemaking, however aphrodisiac, could be a bad idea), the section on desserts is disappointing indeed. After she got our hopes up with meringue and Cleopatra’s almond-and-honey body paint, it’s all rather insipid chocolate sauces and so on.
Allende thinks that the modern world of battery-powered devices, porn, the ease of getting exotic ingredients from any part of the world, has killed much of the variety that eroticism thrives on and has made us all a bit mechanical, unable to appreciate the slow approach of kissing, licking, smelling, and tasting our lovers. Ahem, speak for yourself.
“ . . . I realized that among the few things that men and women have in common is sex and food. Then I undertook the adventure of exploring both.”
In terms of sheer enjoyment and delight, very little has ever topped this book. I was a bit embarrassed reading it on buses and various offices around town, but I thought for sure it would be a conversation-starter.
I have, to my embarrassment, never read anything else by Isabel Allende. From the way she writes nonfiction, however, I get a clear sense that she’s a magical realist, similar to her Colombian counterpart Gabriel Garcia Marquez . The book is a wonderful, strange mélange of recipes, anecdotes, musings about aphrodisiacs, all written with humor rather than in pornographic detail (otherwise, how would I have obtained it from a public library, and why would I be admitting to you I read it?). As an aside, Allende differentiates between porn and erotica thus: “Pornography is method without inspiration; eroticism is inspiration without method.” I once had a very entertaining book called How to Write Love Letters which, for the sensualist and paper enthusiast was a lovely treat, and for the romantic, it held the perfume of nostalgia. However, in practical terms it only ever helped me lose lovers rather than gain them. Allende is much more “with it,” acknowledging, “In these times, there are very few women who have time to muck about kneading dough or have access to a human head.” One thing I think we can all agree upon: bad breath is a potent anti-aphrodisiac! Equally, I think we can agree with her assertion that love is the best aphrodisiac, as people in love will stop at nothing to get to each other.
She writes a very well-rounded discussion of how orgiastic rites in Roman times turned off the Christian slaves who later ruled the Western world with an ethos of self-denial as the way to godliness. “In the rest of the world, sexuality is a component of good health.” She has no compunction about describing her own almost obscene ardour for rice pudding. Not only did she once have five servings in one sitting, she also once dreamed about swimming in a huge vat of it. She has left little to the imagination in her descriptions of this fantasy, but fantasy it is, and a familiar theme for sensualists (don’t let me speak for everyone!). She also would really like her husband to cook in the nude, or at the very least shed clothes as he peels an onion; frankly, I’d be too scared to cook in the nude: I burn myself badly enough with my clothes on! In fact, Allende describes that she fell in love with her future husband because of his erotic powers in the kitchen; “an experience very few Latin American women have had; usually the machos of our continent consider any household activity a danger to their perpetually threatened virility.”
To taste, Allende recognizes, smell is inextricably linked, and women’s sense of smell is more developed than men’s. (And I get weird comments for the amount of scent-related reflections in my fan fic!) “If we did not have so many prejudices and inhibitions, the smell of a human in his or her natural state . . . would come in a bottle, just as they are trying to achieve with pheromones.” It was a long time before I, personally, found a perfume for me. I remember trundling through Paris department stores with my host in 2005, sampling Guerlain fragrances on little sticks that I still have somewhere; I liked the peony. However, I finally decided on vanilla (which was Madame de Pompadour’s favorite, by the way). Allende is quite against “smelling like dessert”; I’m the opposite, take that however you want. And visual stimulation, it is argued, for women only works up to a point: “our sensuality is tied to our imagination and to our auditory nerves.” (Though it can’t just be women, for as Allende points out, the telephone sex industry is alive and well.) She tells a hilarious story of a woman sitting in a San Francisco opera seat in raptures over Placido Domingo’s sonorous notes to prove the point that what one person considers musically erotic just doesn’t do it for others. There’s also a fabulously described episode when Allende bought gloves in Venice when she was 24 from a glovemaker who examined her hands in caressing detail (to my mind, the hands are one of the most neglected erogenous zones).
One of the more thought-provoking sections of the book talks about harems, which Allende contends are every man’s fantasy and every woman’s nightmare. I wasn’t going to agree with her until she outlined the living conditions of the harem (including the fact that cucumbers were forbidden—think about it). It was a life of extreme tedium, eating and smoking hookahs, surrounded by other women who were probably plotting against your life if you were popular, at the whim of the sultan’s mother—a life that left no trace in history, in the end a lonely life without the exoticism endowed by Western painters. Her rhapsody on the harem made me think, inevitably, of Erik and the odalisque in Susan Kay’s Phantom, a complex episode used to show the cruelty of the Shah-in-Shah’s mother, a character Kay created, a scene to titillate the (female) reader over the Phantom’s barely controlled lusts; but in the end a sad episode, and rather emblematic of the powerlessness of the odalisque’s position in society overall.
Allende is just getting tired by the section on flowers, but Victorian flower language provokes a long aside from me, if you’ll allow me: one of the most romantic gifts I ever got were flowers. See, this was high school, and when it rained, it poured: I had been pining for years after this guy named Nic, who wasn’t interested in me. Then all it once, Tony (who did become my boyfriend later) and another guy named Justin were interested in me. (It’s all detailed in the slightly fictionalized essay “Prom Night.”) It was entirely intellectual and literary between Justin and me: writing each other longhand letters, we never even kissed—holding hands was the farthest it went. But I introduced him to Phantom of the Opera and Phantom, and on opening night of Nunsense, the musical I was in, he brought me a bouquet. In Phantom, Erik tells Christine about the story of the nightingale and the white rose, a Persian fairy tale of unrequited love where in the end the nightingale stabs its heart on the thorn of the rose, producing the red rose which had not yet existed. The bouquet was all white roses except one red rose. I’ve gotten flowers since, roses, tulips, and many others, but never white and red roses.
Ahem, I digress.
Allende isn’t interested in bibliographies , though that she and her collaborators (Robert Shekter, her mother Panchita Llona, and editor Carmen Pancells) researched is obvious. There are endless lists, livened up by Allende’s notations, on aphrodisiac foods of all descriptions: she notes, for example, that the degenerate Madame du Barry enflamed Louis XV’s passions with a mixture of egg yolks and ginger. Figs, which are one of my favorite foods, I found out were considered aphrodisiac to the ancient Greeks and Chinese. I was disappointed with the section on tea; it didn’t reveal anything I didn’t already know and didn’t think much of tea’s erotic properties. While the recipes at the end of the text are quite interesting and, amazingly, achievable (many of them soups because, as Allende reckons, eating a large meal before lovemaking, however aphrodisiac, could be a bad idea), the section on desserts is disappointing indeed. After she got our hopes up with meringue and Cleopatra’s almond-and-honey body paint, it’s all rather insipid chocolate sauces and so on.
Allende thinks that the modern world of battery-powered devices, porn, the ease of getting exotic ingredients from any part of the world, has killed much of the variety that eroticism thrives on and has made us all a bit mechanical, unable to appreciate the slow approach of kissing, licking, smelling, and tasting our lovers. Ahem, speak for yourself.
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