Bliss is all dressed up and there's no one to dance with.
Just watched the entire first season of Heroes and have started on the second. Why did I not watch this show when it first came out? It's fantastic! And I'm so happy that Peter has lost the horrible emo!hair. Thank God.
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. Anything by Bill Bryson is usually good - this no exception - although it is very short, very easy to read, a good introduction to Shakespeare as a man and the time he lived in. The point of the book is to explore exactly what we know about Shakespeare, rather than just guess, assume or theorise and to show that really, we don’t know much at all.
Rhett Butler’s People - Donald McCaig. Claims to tell the story of Gone with the Wind from Rhett’s point of view. The novel is interesting, the new characters and depiction of the time period is done well but really, you don’t get any more insight into Rhett than you do by reading the original. Most of the novel isn’t even in his pov, and he is missing for a big chunk of it. A large number of chapters are even in Scarlett’s pov, and what's the point of that? We know what she was up to the whole time. It does continue after the ‘tomorrow is another day’ declaration, which would probably suffice for those who just want to see the two of them reconcile, but what I wanted was character insight, and it didn’t really deliver.
The Other Queen - Phillipa Gregory - Her latest Tudor novel focussing on Mary, Queen of Scots. I read her books for the same reason I watch The Tudors - and certainly not for historical accuracy (although, for some strange reason, she always lists a bibliography at the end of her books, and not in a ‘hey, these are some books you might like to read about the historical figures in this story’ but ‘this book is historically accurate, see! I did research!’) I do enjoy them because they are easy reads and I like the period. But I had a few problems with this one.
The first is that it is written in first person, which, just as a personal preference, I’m not fond of. But if it is done well, it works for me. I don’t think it’s done well in this book. Because there are three povs in the novel - Mary Stuart, George Talbot and Bess of Hardwick, with alternating chapters. And they’re all in first person. I just found that annoying. And it constrains the story, because often a character has a chapter when they don’t have anything to say or do. Therefore the entire first half of the novel goes like this:
Mary: I am queen. I am sacred and eternal and better than that ugly bastard Elizabeth. I must be free.
George: Queen Mary is so fragile and beautiful, I feel I must protect and help her, but must remain loyal to Elizabeth. Woe is me.
Bess: That Mary may be beautiful and charming but she costs far too much. I’ve been married four times and stole my fortune from the churches. I am good at business and will do anything to keep my houses and money.
Something that has annoyed me in Gregory’s writing before is her depiction of opposing women. It seems she can’t write a strong female character without introducing another female character to debase, in order for the heroine to look good. In The Other Boleyn Girl, in order to make Mary seem sweet and innocent, Anne had to be a manipulative bitch, in The Queen’s Fool, Elizabeth I had to be a scheming, false strumpet, to make Mary I seem pious and righteous. And in The Other Queen Elizabeth gets the treatment again, constantly described as so old and ugly, incapable of making a decision without her advisor Cecil, who ‘rules England’ through her. This is, I assume, to emphasise that Mary Stuart is so beautiful and charming and good and so much more deserving. Her depiction of Bess of Hardwick isn’t much better, as she doesn’t really come off very interesting or sympathetic until the very end.
I have to wonder whether Gregory has an issue with Anne Boleyn and her daughter (and the Reformation?) - or maybe strong female historical characters in general? Because as far as historical female figures go, Anne, Elizabeth and Bess are among those most revered. Or perhaps she just wants to present historical characters in a new light and I am overreacting? I have noticed the trend of giving history a ‘twist’ in her novels - the character things mentioned above, and the depiction of Katherine of Aragon in The Constant Princess lying about the consummation issue, for example.
The next aspect of the novel that didn’t really sit well with me - Mary’s constant writing/longing for her husband Bothwell. Every man she meets is compared to him, because he was so strong and manly and decisive. He is all but called a white knight in shining armour. And yet this is the man who organised a plot to kill her previous husband and raped her so she had to marry him. Maybe it was Mary deluding herself into being in love with him so she didn’t have to deal with what was done to her, but still. It made me squick. Just like Gregory’s insinuation that Anne and George Boleyn did commit incest - and the depiction of a fourteen year old Elizabeth encouraging and enjoying Thomas Seymour’s sexual abuse, made me squick.
However, having said that, I did enjoy Gregory’s other books despite the faults. I couldn’t really enjoy The Other Queen. Virtually nothing happened for the entire book, and there wasn’t even any good character study. Just repetitiveness. And the glorification of Mary by virtually everyone.
I almost got the impression that Gregory wanted to make us wonder what history would have been like had Mary’s rebellion succeeded and she was crowned Queen of England. If that was the case, she doesn’t do a very good job of it, because the most interesting chapter in the book is the only one that contains Elizabeth I. Mary, prattling on about her beauty and strength and divine right to rule, did not come off very sympathetically.