Resolutions, update 3.
2011 Resolutions:
Get a bartending job.
Finish four cross-stitching projects.
Read thirteen ten books.
Knit an afghan.
Get an Australian working holiday visa.
Leave the US.
Also, I finished that latch-hook the other night. Fwee!
*The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson.
When I flipped to the author's note in the back of the book and saw that Ms. Erickson prefers to call this book historical entertainment, rather than historical fiction, it should have been a red flag. I can understand stretching facts and creatively filling in historical blanks in order to create an exciting narrative, but this is not what she did in this book. What she did was to ride rough-shod over well-documented and established historical fact. This book about the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaievna, second-eldest daughter of Tsar Nikolai II, pays no regard whatsoever to the real Tatiana's personality, upbringing, and relationship with her family. Her parents are one-dimensional and unlikeable. She has a borderline-adversarial relationship with her sister Olga, and her sisters Maria, Anastasia, and brother Alexei are scarcely mentioned at all until toward the end of the book. Most unbelievable of all is that Tatiana regularly disguises herself and makes forays out into St. Petersburg unchaperoned. Oh, and she has sexual relationships with two different men by the time she's eighteen. In short, nothing of the real person was left except her name, and I find this unacceptable and insulting. Thumbs emphatically down.
*The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
This book covers the life of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV, mother of the princes in the tower, and maternal grandmother of Henry VIII, from shortly before her secret marriage to Edward IV in 1464 until just before the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. I quite liked this book, although I could have done without all the references to Elizabeth's supposed ancestress, Melusina the water goddess. As with all of her novels about the English royal family, Ms. Gregory operates under the assumption that all of the "what ifs" of history are true - notably here, Elizabeth Woodville and her mother are both witches, and Edward and Elizabeth's son Richard, the Duke of York, is substituted with another child in the Tower, spirited away to Flanders, and will grow up to become Perkin Warbeck. One thing Ms. Gregory leaves ambiguous - to her credit, I think - is the exact fate of the princes in the Tower. We never know definitely whether they were killed, by whom, and on whose orders. Leaving this question open makes for a more compelling narrative.
*The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory
Margaret Beaufort is Elizabeth Woodville's foil in every way. Margaret is deeply religious while Elizabeth is worldly. Margaret is a descendant of Edward III and a Lancastrian heiress to the English throne who goes through three loveless marriages to minor nobleman, while Elizabeth is a commoner who falls in love with and ensnares a king. Both are ruthlessly ambitious when it comes to advancing the interests of their children, however. I wasn't expecting to like Margaret at first, but I did come to like her. She gains the reader's sympathy during the first act, as a bewildered child-bride who is quickly widowed and becomes a mother before her fourteenth birthday, and manages to keep it. Ms. Gregory goes overboard with all the references to Margaret Beaufort's saintliness and in particular her affinity to Joan of Arc, but otherwise this is a solid novel.
Get a bartending job.
Finish four cross-stitching projects.
Read thirteen ten books.
Knit an afghan.
Get an Australian working holiday visa.
Leave the US.
Also, I finished that latch-hook the other night. Fwee!
*The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson.
When I flipped to the author's note in the back of the book and saw that Ms. Erickson prefers to call this book historical entertainment, rather than historical fiction, it should have been a red flag. I can understand stretching facts and creatively filling in historical blanks in order to create an exciting narrative, but this is not what she did in this book. What she did was to ride rough-shod over well-documented and established historical fact. This book about the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaievna, second-eldest daughter of Tsar Nikolai II, pays no regard whatsoever to the real Tatiana's personality, upbringing, and relationship with her family. Her parents are one-dimensional and unlikeable. She has a borderline-adversarial relationship with her sister Olga, and her sisters Maria, Anastasia, and brother Alexei are scarcely mentioned at all until toward the end of the book. Most unbelievable of all is that Tatiana regularly disguises herself and makes forays out into St. Petersburg unchaperoned. Oh, and she has sexual relationships with two different men by the time she's eighteen. In short, nothing of the real person was left except her name, and I find this unacceptable and insulting. Thumbs emphatically down.
*The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
This book covers the life of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV, mother of the princes in the tower, and maternal grandmother of Henry VIII, from shortly before her secret marriage to Edward IV in 1464 until just before the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. I quite liked this book, although I could have done without all the references to Elizabeth's supposed ancestress, Melusina the water goddess. As with all of her novels about the English royal family, Ms. Gregory operates under the assumption that all of the "what ifs" of history are true - notably here, Elizabeth Woodville and her mother are both witches, and Edward and Elizabeth's son Richard, the Duke of York, is substituted with another child in the Tower, spirited away to Flanders, and will grow up to become Perkin Warbeck. One thing Ms. Gregory leaves ambiguous - to her credit, I think - is the exact fate of the princes in the Tower. We never know definitely whether they were killed, by whom, and on whose orders. Leaving this question open makes for a more compelling narrative.
*The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory
Margaret Beaufort is Elizabeth Woodville's foil in every way. Margaret is deeply religious while Elizabeth is worldly. Margaret is a descendant of Edward III and a Lancastrian heiress to the English throne who goes through three loveless marriages to minor nobleman, while Elizabeth is a commoner who falls in love with and ensnares a king. Both are ruthlessly ambitious when it comes to advancing the interests of their children, however. I wasn't expecting to like Margaret at first, but I did come to like her. She gains the reader's sympathy during the first act, as a bewildered child-bride who is quickly widowed and becomes a mother before her fourteenth birthday, and manages to keep it. Ms. Gregory goes overboard with all the references to Margaret Beaufort's saintliness and in particular her affinity to Joan of Arc, but otherwise this is a solid novel.