(no subject)
I wish I could find a good historical/historical-fiction book that wasn't filled with corniness. Recently I read Sex with the Queen" and Queen of this Realm.
"Sex with the Queen" is about affairs queens of the European monarchy had, and was quite interesting, except included with the facts were blantant huge leaps of speculation, written very cornily, like (paraphrasing), "perhaps she risked leaving the king's bed because of the fire she felt in heaving inside her lover's bosom," etc., etc. The good thing was you could pretty much tell where the author was speculating. It was read a bit like Ye Olde Time Cosmo, but then I think it was supposed to. (Two facts that freaked me out - Catherine the Great had half her jawbone torn out when she had a tooth removed - yikes. And Queen Victoria sent anesthesia to her grandaughter Marie of Romania when she was due to give birth in the late 19th century. It was new at the time, and the doctors and priests refused to give it to her, citing that women were supposed to suffer in childbirth because of Eve's sin. If there's a hell, those guys are there. Feeling labor pains. A lot.)
"Queen of the Realm" was a historical-fiction novel about Elizabeth I, fake-memoir style. It was good, except it was so repetitive. For example, after Robert Dudley died and his stepson was brought to court, it was mentioned at least 5 times that she loved Essex but it wasn't the same true love she felt her Dudley. And it wasn't even worded differently, it was the same sentence more or less in about 2 chapters. By the last time I read that sentence I was ready to throw the book across the wall. And I'm torn, because the author has a whole big serious about queens, and I'm interested in the subject, but I don't think I can go threw another novel of repetitive sentences again. Bah.
I guess the only way you can escape these flaws is to just read a dry textbook, and I don't particularly want to read one of those either. I thought both books were worth reading, it's just that if there are better books on the same topic, I'd rather read those.
"Sex with the Queen" is about affairs queens of the European monarchy had, and was quite interesting, except included with the facts were blantant huge leaps of speculation, written very cornily, like (paraphrasing), "perhaps she risked leaving the king's bed because of the fire she felt in heaving inside her lover's bosom," etc., etc. The good thing was you could pretty much tell where the author was speculating. It was read a bit like Ye Olde Time Cosmo, but then I think it was supposed to. (Two facts that freaked me out - Catherine the Great had half her jawbone torn out when she had a tooth removed - yikes. And Queen Victoria sent anesthesia to her grandaughter Marie of Romania when she was due to give birth in the late 19th century. It was new at the time, and the doctors and priests refused to give it to her, citing that women were supposed to suffer in childbirth because of Eve's sin. If there's a hell, those guys are there. Feeling labor pains. A lot.)
"Queen of the Realm" was a historical-fiction novel about Elizabeth I, fake-memoir style. It was good, except it was so repetitive. For example, after Robert Dudley died and his stepson was brought to court, it was mentioned at least 5 times that she loved Essex but it wasn't the same true love she felt her Dudley. And it wasn't even worded differently, it was the same sentence more or less in about 2 chapters. By the last time I read that sentence I was ready to throw the book across the wall. And I'm torn, because the author has a whole big serious about queens, and I'm interested in the subject, but I don't think I can go threw another novel of repetitive sentences again. Bah.
I guess the only way you can escape these flaws is to just read a dry textbook, and I don't particularly want to read one of those either. I thought both books were worth reading, it's just that if there are better books on the same topic, I'd rather read those.