Exciting day for us in the state of North Carolina today--we now have a state lottery! For now, all we have are the tickets that you scratch and match; we'll get the big-boy random drawings later. I'm not a high-stakes gambler by any means; one or two $1 tickets is pretty much my limit. But a million bucks or two would let me do some pretty serious damage on Amazon!
I sent a press release out last week to a couple of local papers announcing my finaling in the ForeWord Magazine awards, and one of their reporters called me today and asked me a few questions for an article. My first interview! Hope I didn't sound like too much of a ditz. I have a much easier time writing than talking about writing.
I haven't had much of a chance to read this week, and none of the historical novels I have on hand has really grabbed me, so I decided to read John Guy's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. I very seldom read nonfiction books straight through; I tend more to dip into them and read whatever catches my fancy. I'm trying to turn over a new leaf with this one and read from it front to back. Anyway, I'm very impressed so far. Guy writes well, and his portrait of Mary promises to be a balanced and well researched one.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Nonhistorical and Historical Characters: Should They Mingle?
Finished reading Katherine Howard, a 1969 novel by Jessica Smith, yesterday. Like the other historical novels I’ve read about this foolish but intriguing young queen, it was somewhat disappointing, though I admittedly didn’t have huge hopes for it. Though the author often commented that Katherine was a featherhead, she didn’t come up with any motivation for what even a featherhead must have been able to realize was self-destructive behavior.
Toward the end of the novel, a minor, entirely fictional character, Clarissa, who is one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting, plays a prominent part in the novel. She’s allowed to see Culpepper and Derham in their cells (rather improbably, since both men have recently been tortured); she arranges for Katherine to talk with both her grandmother and Lady Rochford before she dies; and she tries to intercede with Henry VIII on Katherine’s behalf. For some reason, Henry VIII takes a shine to her (not that sort of shine, fortunately) and following Katherine’s execution, he awards a soldier who has been taking Clarissa on her rounds a pension, on the condition that he marry Clarissa. Thus, the novel ends on a comparatively happy note.
Which brings me to my point (about time, you might say). On Carla Nayland's blog, Alianor and Carla each expressed doubts about purely fictional characters who play major roles in novels that also feature historical characters. I myself can tolerate someone like Clarissa, who interacts with historical characters but doesn’t have an effect on their actions (though I think the novel would have been stronger without her). As my fellow bloggers noted, they can be a useful plot device.
Some such characters, however, come close to crossing the line into actively influencing the historical ones. In Sharon Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept and Time and Chance, the Empress Maude has a fictional out-of-wedlock brother, Ranulf, who stays loyal to Maude throughout and who just about everyone holds in the highest esteem. Henry II, Ranulf’s nephew, also has a high opinion of Ranulf, and the two are close until Ranulf fails to talk Henry out of blinding a group of Welsh hostages. Ranulf, who has a wife in Wales who also happens to be blind, then angrily leaves England, but the two men are reconciled toward the end of the novel.
Penman always provides the reader with an author’s note, and in both books I've been discussing, she duly acknowledges Ranulf’s purely fictional nature and the fact that at one point she gives him credit for the military exploits of another man. So if the reader is left with the impression that Ranulf was a living, breathing historical figure, that’s the reader’s fault and not Penman’s. These two are books that I like a great deal, as a matter of fact. Still, I found the scene where Ranulf tries to persuade Henry not to blind the hostages, and the following scene where Henry broods over the conversation with Ranulf, a little off-putting. One could argue that Henry would have been brooding over his decision anyway, even without Ranulf’s pricking his conscience, and Penman carefully avoids suggesting that the only reason Henry is brooding is because of Ranulf’s objections. But the fact remains I would have preferred that one of the historical characters did the objecting or that Henry’s conscience got pricked without the assistance of Ranulf.
So, dear blog readers, what do you think?
Toward the end of the novel, a minor, entirely fictional character, Clarissa, who is one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting, plays a prominent part in the novel. She’s allowed to see Culpepper and Derham in their cells (rather improbably, since both men have recently been tortured); she arranges for Katherine to talk with both her grandmother and Lady Rochford before she dies; and she tries to intercede with Henry VIII on Katherine’s behalf. For some reason, Henry VIII takes a shine to her (not that sort of shine, fortunately) and following Katherine’s execution, he awards a soldier who has been taking Clarissa on her rounds a pension, on the condition that he marry Clarissa. Thus, the novel ends on a comparatively happy note.
Which brings me to my point (about time, you might say). On Carla Nayland's blog, Alianor and Carla each expressed doubts about purely fictional characters who play major roles in novels that also feature historical characters. I myself can tolerate someone like Clarissa, who interacts with historical characters but doesn’t have an effect on their actions (though I think the novel would have been stronger without her). As my fellow bloggers noted, they can be a useful plot device.
Some such characters, however, come close to crossing the line into actively influencing the historical ones. In Sharon Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept and Time and Chance, the Empress Maude has a fictional out-of-wedlock brother, Ranulf, who stays loyal to Maude throughout and who just about everyone holds in the highest esteem. Henry II, Ranulf’s nephew, also has a high opinion of Ranulf, and the two are close until Ranulf fails to talk Henry out of blinding a group of Welsh hostages. Ranulf, who has a wife in Wales who also happens to be blind, then angrily leaves England, but the two men are reconciled toward the end of the novel.
Penman always provides the reader with an author’s note, and in both books I've been discussing, she duly acknowledges Ranulf’s purely fictional nature and the fact that at one point she gives him credit for the military exploits of another man. So if the reader is left with the impression that Ranulf was a living, breathing historical figure, that’s the reader’s fault and not Penman’s. These two are books that I like a great deal, as a matter of fact. Still, I found the scene where Ranulf tries to persuade Henry not to blind the hostages, and the following scene where Henry broods over the conversation with Ranulf, a little off-putting. One could argue that Henry would have been brooding over his decision anyway, even without Ranulf’s pricking his conscience, and Penman carefully avoids suggesting that the only reason Henry is brooding is because of Ranulf’s objections. But the fact remains I would have preferred that one of the historical characters did the objecting or that Henry’s conscience got pricked without the assistance of Ranulf.
So, dear blog readers, what do you think?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Jean Plaidy, Mary Queen of Scots, and a Message to Promote Marital Harmony
I finished Jean Plaidy’s Royal Road to Fotheringay today. This is the second novel about Mary Queen of Scots I’ve read, the first being Margaret George’s. I didn’t finish George’s book. I’m not sure why. It’s not that I disliked what I did read of it; in fact, I rather liked the scene where the Scots teach the Frenchified Mary and her companions how to play golf. Perhaps it was just the sheer length I found overwhelming; moreover, it’s not an easy book to read in short stretches and with kid-related distractions. One of these days I’ll get back to it.
Plaidy’s novel is much shorter. It covers Mary’s life up through her marriage to Bothwell and her subsequent capture, then in less than twenty pages covers the last twenty years of her life. (Plaidy wrote another book covering the latter period, which I understand is to be reissued later this year.) Consequently, the ending of Royal Road feels rather abrupt, to say the least. Otherwise, it’s pretty good. Mary’s character is well developed in particular. The dialogue is a bit on the wooden side, but not as petrified as it is in some of Plaidy’s later novels.
Reading the Plaidy book made me curious to read more about Mary. I have an old mass-market copy of Antonia Fraser’s biography of her (there’s a jacket photo of Fraser that makes her look something like Emma Peel), but my eyes have grown spoiled by trade paperbacks, and this old paperback is particularly cheaply produced—yellowed pages and gutters so tiny you can barely read the text nearby. Rather than subject myself to such punishment, I went looking for the trade paperback in the local library and ended up with John Guy’s more recent biography.
What’s next on the reading front? I’ve got an old (but readable) paperback copy of a novel by Jessica Smith about Katherine Howard. And hubby had better BUY ME IAN MORTIMER’S THE PERFECT KING FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GO TO AMAZON.CO.UK AND PRESS THE LITTLE SHOPPING CART SYMBOL. THAT’S ALL! JUST LIKE AMAZON USA EXCEPT THAT EVERYTHING’S IN POUNDS.
Sometimes you just can’t be subtle with ‘em.
Plaidy’s novel is much shorter. It covers Mary’s life up through her marriage to Bothwell and her subsequent capture, then in less than twenty pages covers the last twenty years of her life. (Plaidy wrote another book covering the latter period, which I understand is to be reissued later this year.) Consequently, the ending of Royal Road feels rather abrupt, to say the least. Otherwise, it’s pretty good. Mary’s character is well developed in particular. The dialogue is a bit on the wooden side, but not as petrified as it is in some of Plaidy’s later novels.
Reading the Plaidy book made me curious to read more about Mary. I have an old mass-market copy of Antonia Fraser’s biography of her (there’s a jacket photo of Fraser that makes her look something like Emma Peel), but my eyes have grown spoiled by trade paperbacks, and this old paperback is particularly cheaply produced—yellowed pages and gutters so tiny you can barely read the text nearby. Rather than subject myself to such punishment, I went looking for the trade paperback in the local library and ended up with John Guy’s more recent biography.
What’s next on the reading front? I’ve got an old (but readable) paperback copy of a novel by Jessica Smith about Katherine Howard. And hubby had better BUY ME IAN MORTIMER’S THE PERFECT KING FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GO TO AMAZON.CO.UK AND PRESS THE LITTLE SHOPPING CART SYMBOL. THAT’S ALL! JUST LIKE AMAZON USA EXCEPT THAT EVERYTHING’S IN POUNDS.
Sometimes you just can’t be subtle with ‘em.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
In Which I Soundly Administer Myself a Good Pat on the Back
C'mon, I don't often get the chance to do this!
I'm delighted to announce that The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II (that's my baby), has been named one of 15 finalists in the Historical Fiction category of ForeWord Magazine's 2005 Book of the Year Awards. The awards were established to reward "excellence in publishing from independent presses."
According to the ForeWord website, 604 finalists in 55 categories were chosen from 1,540 book submissions. Winners will be announced in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 2006.
OK, back-patting's over!
I'm delighted to announce that The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II (that's my baby), has been named one of 15 finalists in the Historical Fiction category of ForeWord Magazine's 2005 Book of the Year Awards. The awards were established to reward "excellence in publishing from independent presses."
According to the ForeWord website, 604 finalists in 55 categories were chosen from 1,540 book submissions. Winners will be announced in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 2006.
OK, back-patting's over!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Da Vinci Code trial
Up until recently, I hadn't been following the lawsuit filed in the UK against Dan Brown's publishers, but it may be worth watching closely. For those of you who haven't been keeping up all along, two of the three authors of a nonfiction book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, claim that in his novel The Da Vinci Code, Brown used the "architecture" of Holy Blood--namely, its argument that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that the couple had children, and that there was a conspiracy to keep this secret--in creating his work of fiction. Brown did apparently use Holy Blood as one of his sources, and a character in the novel even mentions the nonfiction work.
I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, and probably won't be doing so, not on ideological grounds but because the whole thing sounds sort of silly to me. Moreover, it's a thriller, and I don't read thrillers--riding on the expressway surrounded by SUV's being driven by people who are chatting on their cell phones while traveling 75 miles per hour is enough thrill for me, thank you.
But whatever one thinks of the merits, literary or otherwise, of The Da Vinci Code, the outcome of this trial will be of interest to writers of historical fiction, at least to those who bother to do research. If a novelist uses a nonfiction writer's conclusion--particularly a new or a controversial conclusion--as a jumping-off point for his own work, will he be exposing himself to liability? What if the conclusion is only a small component of the fictional work? What if the conclusion is the meat and bones of the fictional work? Will the novelist have to pay nonfiction writers for the right to use the fruits of their research? What about nonfiction writers who build on the foundation of research of others?
Lots to ponder here.
I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, and probably won't be doing so, not on ideological grounds but because the whole thing sounds sort of silly to me. Moreover, it's a thriller, and I don't read thrillers--riding on the expressway surrounded by SUV's being driven by people who are chatting on their cell phones while traveling 75 miles per hour is enough thrill for me, thank you.
But whatever one thinks of the merits, literary or otherwise, of The Da Vinci Code, the outcome of this trial will be of interest to writers of historical fiction, at least to those who bother to do research. If a novelist uses a nonfiction writer's conclusion--particularly a new or a controversial conclusion--as a jumping-off point for his own work, will he be exposing himself to liability? What if the conclusion is only a small component of the fictional work? What if the conclusion is the meat and bones of the fictional work? Will the novelist have to pay nonfiction writers for the right to use the fruits of their research? What about nonfiction writers who build on the foundation of research of others?
Lots to ponder here.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
A Divine Sign?
A couple of weeks ago, the computer on which I do most of my novel-writing suddenly refused to start up properly. I consulted a local geek (that's what computer guys seem to like to be called these days), who diagnosed it as having a corrupt profile, but had no idea why, even after consulting other geeks. Nothing like playing Stump the Geeks with one's computer.
My computer was finally returned to me last night, but whatever caused my profile to become corrupted also made all of my Microsoft Word files disappear, including the novel I'm working on. I had a couple of chapters saved on a diskette (the humble diskette gets too little respect these days, but I'm grateful to it), but all of my latest work was lost. Rather than curse and throw small objects (all right, in addition to cursing and throwing small objects), I decided to take this as a Divine Sign that it was time to rework the chapter in question.
In the future, though, I would appreciate more subtle Divine Signs, especially as this one also requires me to do all of my income taxes over again. Just a thought.
While also restoring my website files (do you get the idea that the last day was not a delightful one for me?), I came across my oldest postings from a previous incarnation of this blog. As with my expose of James Frey, I can't find the post in which I came up with a plan for peace in the Middle East, but here's the others:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2005
More on Barnes, a new P. D. James, and book-discarding regret
While I was using the Amazon listings to add some titles to my library with Library Thing, I noticed that P. D. James has a new book scheduled for November. Something else to look forward to!
I'm still reading through Barnes's The Passionate Brood, and I'm beginning to think it should have been called The Whiny Brood. Everyone bickers and complains (sometimes in scenes that extend over two chapters), and after a while this gets quite tedious. I'll still probably make it through this one (I have to do something while waiting for my kids, and this old mass market paperback fits snugly in my purse), but I'm actively looking around for something else. Think I'll try Mary Lancaster's An Endless Exile--I've seen excerpts from it, and it looks interesting. I've also been debating whether to spring for Robin Maxwell's To the Tower Born. It looked good, but not quite good enough for me to buy the hardback, and our public library hasn't bought a copy. Maybe if I'm feeling flush . . .
Ever suffer from book-discarding regret? I gave away some of my novels on Richard III to a person who had lost hers in Hurricane Katrina, and I soon regretted it--the person later posted some remarks on a list I belong to that made it sound as if writing historical novels was just one step up intellectually from playing Go Fish. (I resisted the temptatation to ask her why, then, she had so many of the things.) There were a couple of books in the pile that hadn't done a thing for me, but there were a couple others that I liked in a way and disliked in other ways, and now I wish I had 'em back! In fact, I keep forgetting they aren't in my garage anymore. And have you noticed that when you give a book away, that's when you suddenly need to look up a quote from it? I've done that with some books I bought for various literature classes that I gave to the library or to Goodwill because they were just taking up space--same thing with some of my clothes, as a matter of fact (well, no, I've never had to look up quotes from my clothes, and I've never given my old clothes to the library, but you get the general idea).
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 11:08 PM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2005
Margaret Campbell Barnes
Margaret Campbell Barnes was, I gather, fairly big in the 1940's as a writer of historical fiction. Being interested in anything on the reign of Edward II, I picked up her Isabel the Fair a couple of years ago and liked it. Since then, I've read a few other things by her, the latest being The Passionate Brood, mostly about Richard the Lionhearted (and about Robin Hood, who turns out to have been a foster brother to Richard). I have serious doubts about Barnes's historical accuracy in places, and it's a pity she chose to kill off Henry II offstage, but Barnes excels at character studies. (Though sometimes she overdoes the analysis, particularly the self-analysis--there's a few places in Isabel the Fair, for instance, where it appears that Gaveston has taken a college psychology class.) Moreover, since she wrote in the 1940's, she didn't have the easy out of having her characters jump into bed together whenever they ran out of things to say to each other--something I've seen in a lot of modern historical novels. Pick one of her books up--they're still pretty easy to find secondhand, some with splendidly cheesy covers evidently geared toward the romance novel readership.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 11:36 PM 0 COMMENTS
Clamb?
Ooh, those lucky Brits, getting to see the new Bleak House miniseries! I've consoled myself for having to wait by paying some visits to the BBC's website, and I've noticed that the director has added a new character to the book--Tulkinghorn's clerk, a Mr. Clamb. Great name, and Tulkinghorn probably does need a clerk, so I guess I can live with that. At least other characters don't seem to have been left out--judging from the cast list, even people like the Badgers and Mr. Turveydrop made their way in. This ought to be fun.
Gotta go work.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 8:56 AM 0 COMMENTS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2005
Fun with Library Thing
As you can see by looking to the right, I've added a random list of books in my library to my blog, having noticed them on a couple of other blogs and thought it would be fun to have. I've been enjoying entering the books and seeing what pops up on my blog! As will soon become apparent, I have my favorites--Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Elizabeth Gaskell are well represented in my library, as are living writers like Anne Tyler and P. D. James. I've yet, alas, to get my Barbie-collecting books in the system.
This list is courtesy of Library Thing, which allows people to create a database of books in their personal libraries (or books they say are in their personal libraries, no one's checking!). It's nowhere near complete--I'm pretty much just working from memory right now or entering the books that happen to be nearest at hand.
Now if someone will invent a program that will allow me to find a book when I'm looking for it! Dorothy Parker once said that she shelved her books by "Good" and "Crap," but as I've moved a lot and am chronically short of space, I've long since discarded most of the crap. Right now my system is mainly hardbacks in the living room and paperbacks in the garage, but one day I hope to refine that--probably the same day I get my own little office to write in. (Dream on, sister.)
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 2:13 PM 0 COMMENTS
Arlene Okerlund's book on Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville is one of those queens who can't catch a break with historical novelists. Either she's a witch (as in Rosemary Jarman's vastly overrated We Speak No Treason--one of the few novels about the Wars of the Roses I could not bring myself to finish) or a vicious schemer (as in Sandra Worth's sentimental novel about Richard III). Even Sharon Penman, who's more objective than most Ricardian novelists, presents her largely unsympathetically.
That's why it's been refreshing to read Arlene Okerlund's biography Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen. It's a sympathetic, yet objective study of the queen as well as her family (who fare even worse at the hands of novelists than Elizabeth herself). It also has the merit of being readable. Perhaps some novelist will follow suit and depict this queen as a complex human being instead of a caricature.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:04 AM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2005
Edward II in Fiction
Someone on a mailing list I belong to mentioned the Alison Weir book on Queen Isabella and said that someone should write a novel about her. Naturally, I couldn't resist pointing out that I had written a novel in which she appears, and that there's a slew of books out there in which she is the main or a major character. Want a list of them? Wait no longer! Just check out the "Edward II in Fiction" page on my website, www.susanhigginbotham.com or www.thetraitorswife.com!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:48 AM 0 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2005
Alison Weir's latest on Queen Isabella
[Note from 3/10/2006: Alianor in her blog has since reviewed this much more thoroughly]
Finally drove down to the bookstore yesterday in my shiny new used van (there's nothing like a transmission going to get Mom new wheels) and picked up Alison Weir's latest biography, Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. Lots going on here, as you can tell from the subtitle!
Truth be told, I had picked up a proof copy of the British version of the book a couple of months ago (Ebay is a wondrous thing), but had refrained from writing much about it in the hopes that the errors I found would have been corrected when the book was published. They weren't.
The errors weren't major ones by any means, but they're bothersome, and they have the unfortunate effect of making Isabella look rather nicer than she was. For instance, Queen Isabella's archenemy was Hugh le Despenser the younger, whom she had hung, drawn, and quartered (nasty business). Weir gets that right, of course. But her account of what happened to his family is quite wrong, even though the primary documents are there in plain English even for a nonhistorian like myself to see. Weir writes that Hugh's eldest son was pardoned a few months after his father's death. This is true, but what she fails to mention is that despite the pardon, he was imprisoned and stayed that way for four years, getting out only after Isabella was removed from power and her lover Roger Mortimer executed. She also writes that Hugh's young daughters (none of the children was over 18 when their father died) were sent to stay in convents while their mother was imprisoned and that three of them later became nuns. In fact, the three girls who became nuns had no choice in the matter--Isabella forced them to take the veil just six weeks after their father's death.
Minor details, true. But the impression one gets from Weir is that Isabella was merciful in her treatment of her enemy's family, when in fact she was quite mean-spirited, forcing a young man into prison and little girls to become nuns because of their father's misdeeds.
The most controversial aspect of Weir's book, however, will probably be her agreement with the theory that Edward II was not killed by his queen and her lover, but escaped and lived the rest of his life as a hermit on the Continent. This theory has gained popularity lately, and has been argued most recently by Paul Doherty and Ian Mortimer. Weir, however, doesn't argue her theory very convincingly, which is unfortunate, because her sympathetic assessment of Isabella hinges in great part on her belief that Isabella was not a murderess, merely an adulteress who was driven into her lover's arms by her husband's shortcomings.
So is this book worth reading? Definitely--it's a thorough account of Isabella's life; its treatment of Edward II, who's often caricatured even by historians as a swishy misogynist, is relatively evenhanded; and it's quite readable. Just take it with a grain of salt in places.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:17 AM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2005
My minivan strikes again
I had every intention of buying Alison Weir's new book on Queen Isabella today (the very same one who appears in The Traitor's Wife) and blogging on that, but my minivan would have no part of it. It started letting out these screeching noises and acting most peculiar (well, more peculiar than usual). We took it to the garage where it spends much of its time and they gave us the cheery news that its transmission is going.
This is obviously its childish revenge for us looking at new minivans (well, used ones that were built within this millennium, at least) the other day. But we may just have the last laugh if we can trade it in . . .
Just ran a spellcheck and discovered that the online dictionary didn't know the word "blogging." Time to get with the program, folks!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:14 AM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005
P. D. James's The Murder Room
I watched Part I of the television adaptation of P. D. James's The Murder Room last night. When I read the novel, I didn't find it to be P. D. James at her best--in fact, I'd forgotten whodunit! So watching the show last night was more entertaining than usual, since I didn't remember a lot of the action or characters. (Usually when I'm watching a TV adaptation, I keep thinking, "Why did they leave that out?" "That's not what she did," and so forth.)
But I have a bad habit when I read novels--I peek at the ending long before I've gotten very far in the beginning of the novel. (I don't know what I would have done in the days of serial publication where I would have had to wait a month for the next installment.) So having forgotten how the book ended, I naturally had to dig out my copy and find out who the murderer was. (Don't worry. I'm not telling!) So now I know--and I probably won't enjoy the next episode as much as I did this one.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:00 AM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2005
Looking forward to the BBC Bleak House
I've been looking forward excitedly to the BBC's upcoming adaptation of Bleak House, and today I was pleased to learn that it will be broadcast in the States beginning in January 2006! That's fast, considering how long it takes some things to get over here. I don't know which station is carrying it in the US, but I hope it's not BBC America. When BBC America broadcast Our Mutual Friend over here a few years back, following the PBS broadcast, the BBC America version chopped the episodes quite brutally for commercial breaks.
Anyway, back to my reading blog! My husband and I couldn't resist the opportunity to buy four books for a buck from a book club, and one of the ones I selected was Miri Rubin's The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages. It's quite readable.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:06 AM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 05, 2005
Richard III
Ever go to one of those job interviews where the interviewer asked, "What is your greatest weakness?" Needless to say, no one ever answers, "Stealing from the petty cash by the coffee machine," or "Sexually harassing my subordinates." Instead, one comes up with, "I just tend to get too involved with my work," or the like.
This reminds me of recent novels on Richard III, where the king's few faults are all of this sort--not real faults, but excesses of virtue. Now, the facts we know about Richard III are open to varying interpretations, so if a writer wants to paint him as a sympathetic character, I've no trouble with that. But why paint him as a saint? And why villify everyone else who isn't Richard III? In the most recent novels I've read about the king, he's a brave soldier, a devoted friend, a considerate lover, a good son, and a loyal brother--while nearly everyone else around him is self-seeking, corrupt, greedy, lecherous, and scheming. But the known facts about Richard III--for example, his execution of Hastings without trial, his haste to have his brother's children declared bastards without bothering to submit the issue to the ecclesiastical courts where it belonged--show him to be a much more complicated character. Just for once, I'd like to see a novel that reflected this reality.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:33 AM 0 COMMENTS
Welcome to my reading blog (I hope!)
Well, I think I figured my blogging out!
I can't imagine anyone being interested in what I eat for dinner each night (though if you are, Tuesday is usually sausage pizza night). Instead, I thought I'd post on different things that I'm reading.
As I said in an earlier post that got wiped out with my blogging experiments, since reading Sandra Gulland's trilogy about Josephine Bonaparte, I've become somewhat interested in the French Revolution. Because of this, I picked up Carolly Erickson's new novel, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette. Though I found it very well written and (as far as I could tell) well researched, I was a little disappointed. There are a few well drawn characters, but most of the historical figures are merely sketched in, even those who were important to Marie Antoinette. This leads to some odd moments. For instance, when the Princess Lamballe's severed head and genitals are paraded in front of the queen by the mob, this ought to be as horrifying to the reader as it is to the queen, but as the princess has appeared only a few times in the novel, and then only to say the equivalent of "Please pass the salt," one feels only a detached sense of disgust at the mob. Erickson does a lot better at bringing these events to life in her biography To the Scaffold.
Time to see if this posts right!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:15 AM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2005
Trying to figure this out
Well, I'm trying to figure out how to post my blogs! We'll see if this works.
My computer was finally returned to me last night, but whatever caused my profile to become corrupted also made all of my Microsoft Word files disappear, including the novel I'm working on. I had a couple of chapters saved on a diskette (the humble diskette gets too little respect these days, but I'm grateful to it), but all of my latest work was lost. Rather than curse and throw small objects (all right, in addition to cursing and throwing small objects), I decided to take this as a Divine Sign that it was time to rework the chapter in question.
In the future, though, I would appreciate more subtle Divine Signs, especially as this one also requires me to do all of my income taxes over again. Just a thought.
While also restoring my website files (do you get the idea that the last day was not a delightful one for me?), I came across my oldest postings from a previous incarnation of this blog. As with my expose of James Frey, I can't find the post in which I came up with a plan for peace in the Middle East, but here's the others:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2005
More on Barnes, a new P. D. James, and book-discarding regret
While I was using the Amazon listings to add some titles to my library with Library Thing, I noticed that P. D. James has a new book scheduled for November. Something else to look forward to!
I'm still reading through Barnes's The Passionate Brood, and I'm beginning to think it should have been called The Whiny Brood. Everyone bickers and complains (sometimes in scenes that extend over two chapters), and after a while this gets quite tedious. I'll still probably make it through this one (I have to do something while waiting for my kids, and this old mass market paperback fits snugly in my purse), but I'm actively looking around for something else. Think I'll try Mary Lancaster's An Endless Exile--I've seen excerpts from it, and it looks interesting. I've also been debating whether to spring for Robin Maxwell's To the Tower Born. It looked good, but not quite good enough for me to buy the hardback, and our public library hasn't bought a copy. Maybe if I'm feeling flush . . .
Ever suffer from book-discarding regret? I gave away some of my novels on Richard III to a person who had lost hers in Hurricane Katrina, and I soon regretted it--the person later posted some remarks on a list I belong to that made it sound as if writing historical novels was just one step up intellectually from playing Go Fish. (I resisted the temptatation to ask her why, then, she had so many of the things.) There were a couple of books in the pile that hadn't done a thing for me, but there were a couple others that I liked in a way and disliked in other ways, and now I wish I had 'em back! In fact, I keep forgetting they aren't in my garage anymore. And have you noticed that when you give a book away, that's when you suddenly need to look up a quote from it? I've done that with some books I bought for various literature classes that I gave to the library or to Goodwill because they were just taking up space--same thing with some of my clothes, as a matter of fact (well, no, I've never had to look up quotes from my clothes, and I've never given my old clothes to the library, but you get the general idea).
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 11:08 PM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2005
Margaret Campbell Barnes
Margaret Campbell Barnes was, I gather, fairly big in the 1940's as a writer of historical fiction. Being interested in anything on the reign of Edward II, I picked up her Isabel the Fair a couple of years ago and liked it. Since then, I've read a few other things by her, the latest being The Passionate Brood, mostly about Richard the Lionhearted (and about Robin Hood, who turns out to have been a foster brother to Richard). I have serious doubts about Barnes's historical accuracy in places, and it's a pity she chose to kill off Henry II offstage, but Barnes excels at character studies. (Though sometimes she overdoes the analysis, particularly the self-analysis--there's a few places in Isabel the Fair, for instance, where it appears that Gaveston has taken a college psychology class.) Moreover, since she wrote in the 1940's, she didn't have the easy out of having her characters jump into bed together whenever they ran out of things to say to each other--something I've seen in a lot of modern historical novels. Pick one of her books up--they're still pretty easy to find secondhand, some with splendidly cheesy covers evidently geared toward the romance novel readership.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 11:36 PM 0 COMMENTS
Clamb?
Ooh, those lucky Brits, getting to see the new Bleak House miniseries! I've consoled myself for having to wait by paying some visits to the BBC's website, and I've noticed that the director has added a new character to the book--Tulkinghorn's clerk, a Mr. Clamb. Great name, and Tulkinghorn probably does need a clerk, so I guess I can live with that. At least other characters don't seem to have been left out--judging from the cast list, even people like the Badgers and Mr. Turveydrop made their way in. This ought to be fun.
Gotta go work.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 8:56 AM 0 COMMENTS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2005
Fun with Library Thing
As you can see by looking to the right, I've added a random list of books in my library to my blog, having noticed them on a couple of other blogs and thought it would be fun to have. I've been enjoying entering the books and seeing what pops up on my blog! As will soon become apparent, I have my favorites--Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Elizabeth Gaskell are well represented in my library, as are living writers like Anne Tyler and P. D. James. I've yet, alas, to get my Barbie-collecting books in the system.
This list is courtesy of Library Thing, which allows people to create a database of books in their personal libraries (or books they say are in their personal libraries, no one's checking!). It's nowhere near complete--I'm pretty much just working from memory right now or entering the books that happen to be nearest at hand.
Now if someone will invent a program that will allow me to find a book when I'm looking for it! Dorothy Parker once said that she shelved her books by "Good" and "Crap," but as I've moved a lot and am chronically short of space, I've long since discarded most of the crap. Right now my system is mainly hardbacks in the living room and paperbacks in the garage, but one day I hope to refine that--probably the same day I get my own little office to write in. (Dream on, sister.)
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 2:13 PM 0 COMMENTS
Arlene Okerlund's book on Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville is one of those queens who can't catch a break with historical novelists. Either she's a witch (as in Rosemary Jarman's vastly overrated We Speak No Treason--one of the few novels about the Wars of the Roses I could not bring myself to finish) or a vicious schemer (as in Sandra Worth's sentimental novel about Richard III). Even Sharon Penman, who's more objective than most Ricardian novelists, presents her largely unsympathetically.
That's why it's been refreshing to read Arlene Okerlund's biography Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen. It's a sympathetic, yet objective study of the queen as well as her family (who fare even worse at the hands of novelists than Elizabeth herself). It also has the merit of being readable. Perhaps some novelist will follow suit and depict this queen as a complex human being instead of a caricature.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:04 AM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2005
Edward II in Fiction
Someone on a mailing list I belong to mentioned the Alison Weir book on Queen Isabella and said that someone should write a novel about her. Naturally, I couldn't resist pointing out that I had written a novel in which she appears, and that there's a slew of books out there in which she is the main or a major character. Want a list of them? Wait no longer! Just check out the "Edward II in Fiction" page on my website, www.susanhigginbotham.com or www.thetraitorswife.com!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:48 AM 0 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2005
Alison Weir's latest on Queen Isabella
[Note from 3/10/2006: Alianor in her blog has since reviewed this much more thoroughly]
Finally drove down to the bookstore yesterday in my shiny new used van (there's nothing like a transmission going to get Mom new wheels) and picked up Alison Weir's latest biography, Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. Lots going on here, as you can tell from the subtitle!
Truth be told, I had picked up a proof copy of the British version of the book a couple of months ago (Ebay is a wondrous thing), but had refrained from writing much about it in the hopes that the errors I found would have been corrected when the book was published. They weren't.
The errors weren't major ones by any means, but they're bothersome, and they have the unfortunate effect of making Isabella look rather nicer than she was. For instance, Queen Isabella's archenemy was Hugh le Despenser the younger, whom she had hung, drawn, and quartered (nasty business). Weir gets that right, of course. But her account of what happened to his family is quite wrong, even though the primary documents are there in plain English even for a nonhistorian like myself to see. Weir writes that Hugh's eldest son was pardoned a few months after his father's death. This is true, but what she fails to mention is that despite the pardon, he was imprisoned and stayed that way for four years, getting out only after Isabella was removed from power and her lover Roger Mortimer executed. She also writes that Hugh's young daughters (none of the children was over 18 when their father died) were sent to stay in convents while their mother was imprisoned and that three of them later became nuns. In fact, the three girls who became nuns had no choice in the matter--Isabella forced them to take the veil just six weeks after their father's death.
Minor details, true. But the impression one gets from Weir is that Isabella was merciful in her treatment of her enemy's family, when in fact she was quite mean-spirited, forcing a young man into prison and little girls to become nuns because of their father's misdeeds.
The most controversial aspect of Weir's book, however, will probably be her agreement with the theory that Edward II was not killed by his queen and her lover, but escaped and lived the rest of his life as a hermit on the Continent. This theory has gained popularity lately, and has been argued most recently by Paul Doherty and Ian Mortimer. Weir, however, doesn't argue her theory very convincingly, which is unfortunate, because her sympathetic assessment of Isabella hinges in great part on her belief that Isabella was not a murderess, merely an adulteress who was driven into her lover's arms by her husband's shortcomings.
So is this book worth reading? Definitely--it's a thorough account of Isabella's life; its treatment of Edward II, who's often caricatured even by historians as a swishy misogynist, is relatively evenhanded; and it's quite readable. Just take it with a grain of salt in places.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:17 AM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2005
My minivan strikes again
I had every intention of buying Alison Weir's new book on Queen Isabella today (the very same one who appears in The Traitor's Wife) and blogging on that, but my minivan would have no part of it. It started letting out these screeching noises and acting most peculiar (well, more peculiar than usual). We took it to the garage where it spends much of its time and they gave us the cheery news that its transmission is going.
This is obviously its childish revenge for us looking at new minivans (well, used ones that were built within this millennium, at least) the other day. But we may just have the last laugh if we can trade it in . . .
Just ran a spellcheck and discovered that the online dictionary didn't know the word "blogging." Time to get with the program, folks!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:14 AM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005
P. D. James's The Murder Room
I watched Part I of the television adaptation of P. D. James's The Murder Room last night. When I read the novel, I didn't find it to be P. D. James at her best--in fact, I'd forgotten whodunit! So watching the show last night was more entertaining than usual, since I didn't remember a lot of the action or characters. (Usually when I'm watching a TV adaptation, I keep thinking, "Why did they leave that out?" "That's not what she did," and so forth.)
But I have a bad habit when I read novels--I peek at the ending long before I've gotten very far in the beginning of the novel. (I don't know what I would have done in the days of serial publication where I would have had to wait a month for the next installment.) So having forgotten how the book ended, I naturally had to dig out my copy and find out who the murderer was. (Don't worry. I'm not telling!) So now I know--and I probably won't enjoy the next episode as much as I did this one.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:00 AM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2005
Looking forward to the BBC Bleak House
I've been looking forward excitedly to the BBC's upcoming adaptation of Bleak House, and today I was pleased to learn that it will be broadcast in the States beginning in January 2006! That's fast, considering how long it takes some things to get over here. I don't know which station is carrying it in the US, but I hope it's not BBC America. When BBC America broadcast Our Mutual Friend over here a few years back, following the PBS broadcast, the BBC America version chopped the episodes quite brutally for commercial breaks.
Anyway, back to my reading blog! My husband and I couldn't resist the opportunity to buy four books for a buck from a book club, and one of the ones I selected was Miri Rubin's The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages. It's quite readable.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:06 AM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 05, 2005
Richard III
Ever go to one of those job interviews where the interviewer asked, "What is your greatest weakness?" Needless to say, no one ever answers, "Stealing from the petty cash by the coffee machine," or "Sexually harassing my subordinates." Instead, one comes up with, "I just tend to get too involved with my work," or the like.
This reminds me of recent novels on Richard III, where the king's few faults are all of this sort--not real faults, but excesses of virtue. Now, the facts we know about Richard III are open to varying interpretations, so if a writer wants to paint him as a sympathetic character, I've no trouble with that. But why paint him as a saint? And why villify everyone else who isn't Richard III? In the most recent novels I've read about the king, he's a brave soldier, a devoted friend, a considerate lover, a good son, and a loyal brother--while nearly everyone else around him is self-seeking, corrupt, greedy, lecherous, and scheming. But the known facts about Richard III--for example, his execution of Hastings without trial, his haste to have his brother's children declared bastards without bothering to submit the issue to the ecclesiastical courts where it belonged--show him to be a much more complicated character. Just for once, I'd like to see a novel that reflected this reality.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:33 AM 0 COMMENTS
Welcome to my reading blog (I hope!)
Well, I think I figured my blogging out!
I can't imagine anyone being interested in what I eat for dinner each night (though if you are, Tuesday is usually sausage pizza night). Instead, I thought I'd post on different things that I'm reading.
As I said in an earlier post that got wiped out with my blogging experiments, since reading Sandra Gulland's trilogy about Josephine Bonaparte, I've become somewhat interested in the French Revolution. Because of this, I picked up Carolly Erickson's new novel, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette. Though I found it very well written and (as far as I could tell) well researched, I was a little disappointed. There are a few well drawn characters, but most of the historical figures are merely sketched in, even those who were important to Marie Antoinette. This leads to some odd moments. For instance, when the Princess Lamballe's severed head and genitals are paraded in front of the queen by the mob, this ought to be as horrifying to the reader as it is to the queen, but as the princess has appeared only a few times in the novel, and then only to say the equivalent of "Please pass the salt," one feels only a detached sense of disgust at the mob. Erickson does a lot better at bringing these events to life in her biography To the Scaffold.
Time to see if this posts right!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:15 AM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2005
Trying to figure this out
Well, I'm trying to figure out how to post my blogs! We'll see if this works.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Historical Accuracy in Historical Fiction
Both on this blog and on other sites I've visited, the question of historical accuracy in historical fiction has come up. As I said in one of my earlier blog posts, I think it's the reader's ultimate responsibility to check the accuracy of what he reads. Historical fiction, after all, is exactly that--fiction.
By saying that, however, I don't mean to let writers off the hook, because I think that a writer of historical fiction has a responsibility not to distort known facts to suit her purposes—or at least if she does, to let the reader know what has been done. To me, it's an ethical obligation. That's not to say that it's an obligation that should be forced upon novelists--it couldn't be without imposing some degree of censorship, and that's certainly not what I or any other sane author or reader wants.
Ideally, the marketplace would reward those novelists and other storytellers who adhere to this ethical code (and, by the same token, penalize those who don't give a flip for accuracy). More often than not, it doesn't. The historical inaccuracies of Braveheart, for example, have been pointed out countless times, and I doubt its producers have lost a penny as a result. (Hey, they even got my penny--through ratings figures--the other night.) And readers, of course, don't always appreciate accuracy. Take a look at the Amazon reader reviews for Virginia Henley's historical romance The Marriage Prize. Several readers gave Henley two- or one-star ratings simply because she followed history in killing off Simon de Montfort. Of course, romantic fiction has a convention where one doesn't kill off the hero, but Montfort wasn't the hero of this particular novel.
There's a core of readers who both want accuracy and appreciate it, however, and I'm one of them. How to make our voices heard? Post--on our blogs, on Amazon, anywhere. Praise an author when he makes an effort to be accurate, criticize him when he deliberately distorts and leaves the reader in the dark that he's done so.
If nothing else, do this: Buy Mr. Accuracy's books new, buy Mr. Inaccuracy's books used.
That'll show 'em.
By saying that, however, I don't mean to let writers off the hook, because I think that a writer of historical fiction has a responsibility not to distort known facts to suit her purposes—or at least if she does, to let the reader know what has been done. To me, it's an ethical obligation. That's not to say that it's an obligation that should be forced upon novelists--it couldn't be without imposing some degree of censorship, and that's certainly not what I or any other sane author or reader wants.
Ideally, the marketplace would reward those novelists and other storytellers who adhere to this ethical code (and, by the same token, penalize those who don't give a flip for accuracy). More often than not, it doesn't. The historical inaccuracies of Braveheart, for example, have been pointed out countless times, and I doubt its producers have lost a penny as a result. (Hey, they even got my penny--through ratings figures--the other night.) And readers, of course, don't always appreciate accuracy. Take a look at the Amazon reader reviews for Virginia Henley's historical romance The Marriage Prize. Several readers gave Henley two- or one-star ratings simply because she followed history in killing off Simon de Montfort. Of course, romantic fiction has a convention where one doesn't kill off the hero, but Montfort wasn't the hero of this particular novel.
There's a core of readers who both want accuracy and appreciate it, however, and I'm one of them. How to make our voices heard? Post--on our blogs, on Amazon, anywhere. Praise an author when he makes an effort to be accurate, criticize him when he deliberately distorts and leaves the reader in the dark that he's done so.
If nothing else, do this: Buy Mr. Accuracy's books new, buy Mr. Inaccuracy's books used.
That'll show 'em.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
At Last, I Sit Through Half of Braveheart
The other night, my husband channel-surfed and landed on Braveheart, which I missed seeing at the time it was released (a) because it wasn't anything that interested me then and (b) because it came out when I was in law school, a time in which I was blissfully oblivious to all around me but the continuing saga of Blackacre and John Doe's valiant attempts to preserve it for his male heirs. (Now there's a movie someone needs to make: Blackacre.)
Once I became interested in the reign of Edward II, however, I did have some interest in seeing Braveheart, though this quickly evaporated when I found out how historically inaccurate it was. Nonetheless, I was curious enough to come into the living room the other night to see the last half of the movie. So here at last, is my report.
I can't see why the moviemakers bothered creating a love interest between "Princess Isabella" and William Wallace--it didn't add much to the story except to give Isabella a chance to whisper a spiteful farewell to the dying Edward I about Edward II not being the father of the child she was carrying. She could have done the same thing by whispering, "Longshanks, when I get the chance I'm going to bump your son off the throne, and it's not going to be pretty."
Gory as this movie was supposed to be, I thought Mel Gibson stayed remarkably well-groomed during his execution and the prelude to it. When the crowd threw rubbish at him, for instance, it didn't seem to mar his appearance in the slightest.
My favorite part, however, was the very end, when Robert Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn gives an inspirational message to his troops while the English army facing him patiently wait for the Scots to start the battle. How gentlemanly of them.
Still, I'll have to admit the whole thing was pretty moving--it made me feel a twinge of Scottish patriotism, even though the only true Scotsman in our family is our cairn terrier. But it would have been a much better movie if all the nonsense had been left out.
Once I became interested in the reign of Edward II, however, I did have some interest in seeing Braveheart, though this quickly evaporated when I found out how historically inaccurate it was. Nonetheless, I was curious enough to come into the living room the other night to see the last half of the movie. So here at last, is my report.
I can't see why the moviemakers bothered creating a love interest between "Princess Isabella" and William Wallace--it didn't add much to the story except to give Isabella a chance to whisper a spiteful farewell to the dying Edward I about Edward II not being the father of the child she was carrying. She could have done the same thing by whispering, "Longshanks, when I get the chance I'm going to bump your son off the throne, and it's not going to be pretty."
Gory as this movie was supposed to be, I thought Mel Gibson stayed remarkably well-groomed during his execution and the prelude to it. When the crowd threw rubbish at him, for instance, it didn't seem to mar his appearance in the slightest.
My favorite part, however, was the very end, when Robert Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn gives an inspirational message to his troops while the English army facing him patiently wait for the Scots to start the battle. How gentlemanly of them.
Still, I'll have to admit the whole thing was pretty moving--it made me feel a twinge of Scottish patriotism, even though the only true Scotsman in our family is our cairn terrier. But it would have been a much better movie if all the nonsense had been left out.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Back Bloggin', and Been Reading Jean Plaidy
Well, I'm back, having spent the last few days at the hospital where my daughter was having surgery. I'm sure she'll be blogging about the subject soon.
I took the precaution of bringing several books with me, including Jean Plaidy's In the Shadow of the Crown and Murder Most Royal. The first, about "Bloody" Mary, I found somewhat disappointing, mainly, I think, because it spent comparatively little time on Mary's life as queen.
I was very impressed, though, by Murder Most Royal, which from its original copyright date of 1949 must have been one of Plaidy's earliest novels. In many of Plaidy's novels, particularly the later ones, I get the sense that she's writing straight from notes or reference materials, with very little time spent on developing character and with dialogue that is little more than exposition. This novel, by contrast, develops character at a leisurely pace and has characters who speak to each other instead of to the reader. I also liked the way Plaidy interspersed episodes from Anne Boleyn's life with those of Catharine Howard's life.
Next on the list? Well, I've got another Plaidy, and I've also picked up Karen Harper's novel about Mary Boleyn.
I took the precaution of bringing several books with me, including Jean Plaidy's In the Shadow of the Crown and Murder Most Royal. The first, about "Bloody" Mary, I found somewhat disappointing, mainly, I think, because it spent comparatively little time on Mary's life as queen.
I was very impressed, though, by Murder Most Royal, which from its original copyright date of 1949 must have been one of Plaidy's earliest novels. In many of Plaidy's novels, particularly the later ones, I get the sense that she's writing straight from notes or reference materials, with very little time spent on developing character and with dialogue that is little more than exposition. This novel, by contrast, develops character at a leisurely pace and has characters who speak to each other instead of to the reader. I also liked the way Plaidy interspersed episodes from Anne Boleyn's life with those of Catharine Howard's life.
Next on the list? Well, I've got another Plaidy, and I've also picked up Karen Harper's novel about Mary Boleyn.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Where Am I?
Family obligations have kept me offline for the past couple of days and probably will until the weekend at least, but I'll be back posting soon--I've had plenty of time to read!
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