(no subject)

[rebness]

So I finally finished that bloody Boleyn novel. It was okayish. Mary Boleyn was a blank, idiotic character who was painted as some bumbling clown tripping her way from one bed to the next. Henry was a tyrannical oaf, which at least amused me. The characterisation of Anne and George Boleyn was much better and I ached for them whenever I was dragged off to Another Summer with the Children at Hever or Mary's Amazing Adventures Learning How to Make Butter. Then the conclusion just came rushing up, with no satisfying end at all - dropping the book from amusing bodice-ripper to *eh*

But what really got my goat was reading up on the main characters afterwards and finding out that several annoying liberties had been taken with the story. This is what I get for willfully refusing to learn about British royalty. Anne wasn't the completely cold bitch who cut her sister off, but the only Boleyn family member who helped her out financially. And ___ never adopted Elizabeth! AND WHUT all the timeline was screwed up. It's just fiction, I hear you cry! Except if you were writing some fannish work and got the canon timeline all screwed up, you'd be trolled into next week. I wish I could troll Phillipa Gregory.

Ah, 'tis no matter, strumpets! I ache for IRL reads, now. I would really like to read a sympathetic biography of Anne Boleyn; she seems so fascinating. I note that Antonia Fraser has one out about Big Fat Henry's six wives, so I'm going to buy that. She did an absolutely brilliant job with Marie-Antoinette's biography and was the only writer I had read who didn't paint her as an evil Teutonic hobag. She also has a book out called Warrior Queens I might buy, which talks of such famous queens as Jinga of Angola.

Me neither.

I would love to read something about other pwning queens and warriors, like Catherine the Great  or Gorgo, interesting enough to be mentioned by Herodotus more than once. Except that neither she nor Leonidas will EVAR BE THE SAME AGAIN after the lulzfest that was 300.

Comments

[keep-warm.livejournal.com]

I read a novel once that was narrated by Marie Antionette which was quite sweet and symapthetic, but I don't know who it was by or what it was called.Genius.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Dammit! I really should go looking for some MA fiction...

[versailles-rose.livejournal.com]

See if you can get hold of 'The Light Years' by Elizabeth Jane Howard. It's the first book in her Cazalet Family series. WONDERFUL books. Very real characters.

Or get a book about Lady Randolph Churchill, Jennie. What an amazing woman she was.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks! I'll keep it in mind.

I don't know that much even about Churchill, to be honest *is awful Brit*, so I could go with that...

[jaffacakequeen.livejournal.com]

no go see the film and watch further inaccuracies played out on screen. arrrgh. i getting easier with watching completley made up stuff on tele, but i have to launch myself on wikipedia or other historical site to refresh my mind of what really went on.

when it comes to historical writers, i recommend Sharon K. Penman and start with Here Be dragons. its so full of english and welsh medieval history. its not fluffy at all in Phillipa Gregory way, but still fantastic page turners all 800 pages or more.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Even the trailer for the film annoyed me. Do not want!

Thanks for the rec, shall check it out!

[mothergoddamn.livejournal.com]

I was nuts about the Tudors at school. Read up on Jane Seymour, the forgotten Queen!

[rebness.livejournal.com]

All I ever learned about at school was the Tudors and World War II. It was so annoying! But now... I remember very little of it.

But Anne was hotter than Jane! :(

[pandorasblog]

How irritating! I can understand the need to fiddle with timelines in some instances (like a film that conflates two incidents for runtime reasons), but to change a historical figure's motivation as you describe in Anne Boleyn's case is just so stupid and pointless.

I like Elizabeth Chadwick; she explains at the end just how little or much may be known about a certain period, and it feels a whole lot more honest to have it all clearly delineated that this is fiction based on X that really happened, Y that may have happened, and Z that is theory based on what we know of the times in general. Bernard Cornwell is also good that way.

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's pointless. What else is historical fiction for but to play around with possibilities and change things? If you want straight facts you read non-fiction. If you want a reimagining of how things might have happened, how it might have felt, beyond the facts and figures, then that's what histoical fiction can do for you.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

I didn't have any problem with the characters and their motivations -- I thought Anne and George were really well-drawn and I loved the intrigues that Gregory fleshed out -- apparently, her version is a load of bull, but it was entertaining. It was timeline that got me. Fine, work in anything you want (after all, it's basically fanfic and I love teh fanfic), but timeline is unforgivable. It's just sloppy.

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

Meh, personally I'd be okay with it. But possibly because I'm used to reading medieval literature where the same story is never told the same way twice?

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Understandable, given that you're lucky if the protagonist's name is spelt the same way twice.

[saffronlie.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Possession, btw? I'm trying to like it but I think I might hate it.

[pandorasblog]

I'm not opposed to change in itself, but if you're changing how someone fundamentally felt it seems to veer more into the alt. history sub-genre... it'd be like changing a character's allegiance in a war so that they suddenly become a traitor, for instance.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Hannah's pestering me to read some Cornwell. Shall have to give him a go!

[pandorasblog]

I like the Saxon series. Start with The Last Kingdom...