Posts Tagged 'historical fiction'

Books! Everyone is named Thomas

Published May 10, 2013 Cannonball Read V , reading 3 Comments
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Oh Cannonball, how I have missed you! Usually spring semester is not so busy but usually I am not taking a class while teaching and working full-time. Oh well. Here’s to summer…

The one fun book I read this semester was Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I bought the book when it first came out and just now got to it as part of my Mount TBR Challenge. It was definitely a highlight of my semester though.

Thomas Cromwell is our guy in this chronicle of the early years of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s love affair. From humble beginnings, he starts his professional life as an assistant to Cardinal Wolsey but after Wolsey’s death he becomes a minister to the King. Along the way he meets Cranmer, Anne and Mary Boleyn, the rest of the Boleyn gang, Thomas More, and a very young Jane Seymour. As it is a planned trilogy, with Bring up the Bodies out now of course, it ends on the cusp of the shift in Henry’s feelings towards Anne and the disgrace of Thomas More.

The book reads beautifully and Cromwell is an extremely sympathetic character. Mantel’s writing has a nice cheekiness to it that often feels self-referential. The quote “Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories” is  a nice commentary both in relation to action in the story but also to the process of telling this particular story.  While she absolutely must take liberty with the characters’ comments and actions to tell this story, she tries to stay true to life as much as possible (very much unlike the tv show The Tudors that took many liberties). In contrasting the two approaches, I prefer this Thomas Cromwell to his small screen counterpart, but I was surprised at how petty and irritable she made Thomas More as he is typically portrayed with more nobility. Honestly, it was quite fun.

The book slows a bit toward the end, but most of it has a nice pace. If you know nothing about the Tudor period at all, it could be potentially difficult to read, especially keeping track of the characters. Nevertheless, it is one of my favorite of the year. Historical fiction at its finest!

Books! Philippa Phones It In #cbr5

Published January 13, 2013 Cannonball Read V , reading 3 Comments
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In last year’s Cannonball Read I didn’t review books that I didn’t particularly like. I tend not to give up on books (except Twilight) because I obsessively like to finish things, but I couldn’t bring myself to write a few of those reviews.  This year I am going to do a full Cannonball if it kills me, so here is my first negative review for CBR5.

Generally I don’t mind Philipa Gregory’s books. She doesn’t write particularly good historical fiction compared to some other authors, but her books make for nice escapes if you like history. They aren’t horrible bodice rippers and they do have some truth. They also don’t make you weep too much for the state of fiction (unlike Twilight). So, yes, I’ve read a few of her novels. 

The Kingmaker’s Daughter (The Cousins’ War #4) continues a series on the women of the Wars of the Roses. They do not need to be read in order as each book tells the story from one woman’s perspective. Honestly I think it is a really cool idea, but the books are a mixed bag. The White Queen is the best so far. The Lady of the Rivers and The Red Queen were fine, but had issues. This one might frankly be the worst.

Part of the problem might be the lack of source information for the main character, Anne Neville, who marries King Richard III. Gregory’s attempt to fill in the blanks mostly falls flat. She tries to make it exciting by having Anne victim to overbearing parents, including a mother who inexplicably forces Anne to deliver her sister’s baby in a storm on a boat, but I was really bored with most of it. The character isn’t interesting enough to make the slow times around her more engaging.

In addition, Gregory just blasted this novel out without any concern for, well, the reader. There are continuity issues that even I noticed (Anne steps down from a mounting block twice in one paragraph). The narrative is repetitive and grammatically problematic. Every sentence ends in a comma, what do you think of that, this writing style gets annoying, seriously. And did I mention repetitive?

Finally, the series phenomenon is killing me. Between Pure, The Century Trilogy, All Souls Trilogy, and the ongoing Cousins’ War (a fifth is in the works), I have my reading lists locked up for the next few years. The obsessive side of my personality is having a hard time disengaging (except Twilight, nixed that one early on).

While you don’t have to read these books in order, I had to rack my brain to remember what the heck happened with the other women. Part of this is my fault. You know you read too much fiction about a historical time period when they all start to run together. But much of this is the publishing industry’s laziness. They capitalize on a good thing and keep it going whether it should die a quick death or not (die! Twilight!). That’s not Gregory’s fault really, but it is yet another reason I disliked this one.

Anne was dull dull dull and Philippa seemed to phone this one in. Meh, back at ya.

Books! My kind of historical fiction #cbr4

Published December 4, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I’ve never read Gore Vidal before. As a cultural figure he always struck me as a long-winded curmudgeon. Before the Thanksgiving break, however, I was wanting something EPIC and Vidal popped into my head. I started with Creation because I wasn’t sure in what order to read the American history books and because it was the smallest paperback of the bunch at the library. Ah, convenience.

To be perfectly honest, this is an amazing book. It is historical fiction as it should be and as I have always wanted to read it. I was in love with the story and language from the moment I started reading. I am being a bit effusive but this is the truth. You should read it.

Set in the fifth century BCE, we follow the adventures of Cyrus Spitama, the grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and a leading figure in the Persian court (during the reigns of Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes). In addition to providing the Persian version of the Greek wars as told by Herodotus, he narrates his travels through India and China where he meets Buddha,  Confucius, and more querying them on the meaning of creation and heaven. Vidal has said that he wanted to write a novel that included Sophocles, Buddha, and Confucius, and he wrote a splendid one.

The only part I found slow was when he firsts visits China, but it picks up when he meets Confucius. I especially loved this part:

Confucius smiled. “I should think so. It has always seemed to me clear that the spirit which animates the human body is bound to return at death to the primal unity from which it came.”

“To be reborn? Or judged?”

Confucius shrugged. “Whatever. But one thing is certain. You cannot rekindle a fire that has burned out. While you burn with life, your seed can make a new human being but when your fire is out, no one can bring you back to life again. The dead, dear friend, are cold ashes. They have no consciousness. But that is no reason not to honor their memory, and ourselves, and our descendants.”

The biggest criticism of Vidal is that he likes to bend history to fit his novels and he does that quite a bit in this book. But honestly he bends to make a much better novel and in the end tells a better story than most historical fiction out there that tries to retain the truth and ends up feeling false. Gore Vidal in death has a new fan.

If you are looking for a well-written, complex story with dialogue that isn’t painful to read, then this is the historical fiction for you. Having some interest in ancient history is a plus but not necessary to enjoy the story.

Books! Is your father a werewolf or just mad? #cbr4

Published October 27, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I am down with a good historical fiction about a strong woman, and The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny seemed to fit that bill. Set in the late 16th century, our “strong-willed Venetian woman” (according to the publisher) is shunned by the medical community in which she so longs to participate after her doctor father goes wandering off on some journey to … do something … write his book of illness I think (or is it her book?). Who knows. Anyway, 10 years later she gets a mysterious letter from her father in which he tells her, “Don’t follow me!” She of course follows his path and chaos ensues. Well, chaos for a 16th century woman.

I tried to like this book and there are some things I found attractive. First, as she is traveling she decides to continue her father’s work (or is it hers?) by creating entries on various maladies (mostly affecting women). Many of these passages are quite lovely and inventive. Second, the language is beautiful. You can tell that the writer is a poet. Writing like this points to O’Melveny’s love of the language:

“Sea people, then. Well, come in. Lake people aren’t so different. We both share the flux of the water, though we lake dwellers keep more to ourselves, I think. It’s the knowing of a place bound by mountains. While your water seems without end.”

That is a beautiful passage. It is gorgeous and seems “important”. But it is so not how people talk at any time period in history. Because of the strangeness of the dialogue and the bizarre malady descriptions, I kept thinking that these must be extended metaphors for something.  When reading works with heavy symbolism sometimes you can overlook the things you don’t understand and just listen to the language or story, but I could never get over that hump with this novel. I found it hard to trust the story or connect with the characters. First, the journey seems completely artificial. A very intelligent woman goes on a journey and doesn’t start with where her father was last seen, which is actually close to Italy, but instead follows her father’s exact footsteps that he took over 10 years. On the journey people keep telling her that they haven’t seen her father in years. Well, of course they haven’t!  Second, I started feeling disconnect in the references to the lost father. I kept wondering if he was a werewolf and I had inadvertently picked up historical fantasy again. Or was he just mad? Or was being a werewolf a metaphor for madness? What is it?

It is never a good sign when I am reading and the primary question I ask myself is “What the hell is going on?” Beautifully written, but not one I will ever pick up again.

CBR4 5: Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman

Published February 25, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I’ve tried reading Sharon Kay Penman’s While Christ and His Saints Slept about three times now and have never been able to finish it. It is faithful to the events of “The Anarchy” but it is so faithful that about halfway through I always get bored. Maude is a strong, but overly stubborn woman. Stephen seems like a well-meaning, but misguided jock. Neither of them are particularly sympathetic and the secondary characters don’t draw any attention. Her latest novel, Lionheart, was the complete opposite. Even with a very familiar storyline, Penman keeps the characters and events engaging throughout its 600 some pages.

With Lionheart, Penman follows the events of the Third Crusade and the escapades of King Richard I (the Lionheart) and his (sometimes) merry band as they head for “Outremer.” She also chronicles the lives of the the Christians living permanently in “Outremer,” primarily the Kingdom of Jerusalem (a wholly unknown entity to me).

The secondary characters are quite fun especially the random assortment of knights, and the female characters do not read like caricatures for the most part.  As there are so many characters I sometimes had difficulty following their back stories. I had to flip back and forth several times to remind myself who this particular Henri was and if he was the same as that Henri. Penman is consistent with titles and names, though jotting down characters might be helpful. My only criticism of the book is that the proliferation of characters prevents any real development. There are just too many of them at times.

Penman has written a very detailed but still engaging account of Richard I’s Third Crusade. I don’t know if I just like this story more or if her writing has fundamentally changed, but I’m more inclined now to pick up another of her works. Christ and His Saints may still need to sleep though.

CBR4 4: The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran

Published January 28, 2012 reading 7 Comments
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Queens! Queens! Yeah, I’m on a historical fiction about women roll. I read Michelle Moran’s Madame Tussaud last year and liked her writing. Her dialogue is not as forced as Phillipa Gregory’s can be …

“My dear cousin, the Duke of Buckingham, sent me a letter,” she exclaimed to her sister.

Did people really call their dearest by their titles at all times? Couldn’t Cousin Buckie be sufficient? I know her books have a large number of characters but she doesn’t always have to remind us who everyone is.

But it also didn’t read like a Sharon Kay Penman history disguised as a novel …

“Pamplona was an ancient city, founded by the Roman general Pompey.” (That’s an actual quote.)

I love Penman. Fabulous author. Well-researched novels. And a wonderful sleep aid.

So, because I liked her other book, I thought I’d try out some more of her novels. She is a relatively new historical fiction writer with only four books currently. The Heretic Queen is one of three about Egyptian queens, starting with Nefertiti and going to Cleopatra’s Daughter. This is not a series and they can be read independently. The Heretic Queen is about Nefertari, wife of Ramses II of the Nineteenth dynasty, and her struggle to become Queen.

I really enjoyed the novel and the main character although I wasn’t sure I would at first. The weakest point of the book is the beginning. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to write a historical novel about ancient Egypt and maintain any historical accuracy. It must be ten times harder to write a novel about ancient Egypt with the main characters as children. Whoa. Those kids were, well, kids, and how do you write about kids in ancient Egypt? Children in most cultures and time periods have been considered miniature adults up until the 20th century’s cult of kids emerged. It was pretty risky for her to start out a book focused on three pre-teens, but Nefertari develops well and we move on with less awkward dialogue after the first few chapters.

Personally, knowing nothing about ancient Egypt, Moran seems to have done her homework. She integrates Egyptian terminology seamlessly and her descriptions are well developed. I found myself easily able to imagine the palace and the rooms in which these characters lived. I may be easy to please, but if I can feel immersed in a character and a scene, then I usually am quite happy with a book.

It was that level of immersion that I felt in Madame Tussaud. I was happy to see it again in The Heretic Queen. I have her other two Egyptian novels on my shelf (thank you paperback swap!) and look forward to seeing more novels from Moran.

CBR4 3: The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory

Published January 28, 2012 reading 2 Comments
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Chronicling my historical fiction fun reading isn’t something I ever imagined doing, but I also usually don’t read so many books in one month. Thanks Cannonball Read for the motivation!

Last week I read the The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory. It is the first in The Cousins’ War series that covers the lives of three women during the War of the Roses. I started with the second novel, The Red Queen, which overall I thought was good for Gregory but I hated the main character. The main character in The White Queen is Elizabeth Woodville who marries (or seduces if you prefer) King Edward IV of England. She is an interesting and controversial historical figure because she was a commoner who married a king of England. Because of her family’s meteoric rise to power through her marriage, they quickly gained many enemies. When Edward’s reign was contested by his brother, etc she and her family became targets. Her sons by Edward IV are the princes in the tower whose deaths were attributed to Richard III (although I guess that doesn’t really hold water anymore).

I personally found the character of Elizabeth more engaging than her rival Red Queen, which is funny considering my friend Janel had the opposite impression (Ah, the joys of reading). While the use of magic is quite heavy handed at times, I found the character less grating and her story is much more varied that Margaret Beaufort’s constant praying and cackling that “My son will be king!”

I was also really impressed with Gregory’s scenes of the armies on the move, in particular the description of the Duke of Buckingham’s failed rebellion in the face of the (“magic”) storm. Her descriptions have definitely improved even if the dialogue may seem a bit off at times.

Overall it is a good series for historical fiction. I am on the waiting list for the final book in the triology the third in what may be a long running series (Wha?! The War of the Eoses did end, Phillipa), The Lady of the Rivers, about Elizabeth’s mother. I’ve read that it is the weakest of the three. We will see soon!

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