"Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel

This is the third historical novel I've read by Hilary Mantel. The first was her little-known novel about the French Revolution, A Place of Greater Safety, which I LOVED and have read three or four times. The second was the Booker Prize-winning and bestselling Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell and the rise of Anne Boleyn, which I found a little disappointing. For me, Bring Up the Bodies - the sequel to the latter, about Thomas Cromwell and the fall of Anne Boleyn - is somewhere in between those two books: definitely better than Wolf Hall, but not quite as exciting and involving as Greater Safety.

Though I prefer her historical fiction to her contemporary fiction, Mantel's writing is invariably excellent: sharply observed, psychologically acute, lightfootedly poetic and darkly witty. She clearly has a fascination with infamous men: both her Cromwell and her Robespierre are sympathetically portrayed, far more human and complex than the usual sinister cameos. I think what distinguishes her best work, for me, from her lesser work is that, in A Place of Greater Safety and in the second half of this book, I felt as if I were on the inside, as if I might have known the people involved. Wolf Hall was doubtless more authentic, certainly in its language and possibly in its history, than Greater Safety, but it was a much more distant reading experience; I felt frustrated rather than enthralled by its perfectly worked prose. The authenticity gave it a veneer of dust that, in spite of the present tense employed throughout, separated me from the immediacy of the characters' actions and thoughts and feelings.

I don't know what happened in Bring Up the Bodies to change that feeling - maybe it was just the story itself that was more obviously compelling (the climax being death rather than merely exile and annulment) than Wolf Hall, or maybe Mantel relaxed more into the telling - but either way I found myself speeding through it, inhabiting Cromwell's cold-eyed, calculating (but also at times compassionate/haunted/wryly amused) mind, breathing the same stale air as the novel's characters.

I also love the way Mantel, who looks so inoffensively hamster-like in all her bookjacket pictures, never flinches - and sometimes even seems to linger with pleasure - on sex and violence and profanity. Bring Up the Bodies, for all its Booker-winning, BBC-adapted respectability, is full of 'splayed cunts' and 'wet quims' and hints of dark perversion. I think my favorite line of all was Lady Rochford's description of her womanizing husband George Boleyn: 'No man as godly as George, the only fault he finds with God is that he made folk with too few orifices. If George could meet a woman with a quinny under her armpit, he would call out "Glory be" and set her up in a house and visit her every day, until the novelty wore off.'

Now that's what I call characterization!

The Book Club Report, Part III

Only 30 books to go until I'm all caught up on blogging (I think)! As I was looking at this list and trying to figure out how I can knock out several posts in one go, I realized I'd missed blogging about three Old Book Club selections in my previous two Book Club Reports. So, Book Club Report Part III it is! And because posting about three books isn't enough to make a satisfying dent in my backlog, I will add a special surprise at the end. Just you wait!

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. My first book by this author, and it won't be my last. Anyone who can get me interested in the birth of the comic book superhero has got to be good. Lucky for me, though comic books were definitely the main theme of the book, there's so much more to it. The writing is excellent, the characters are vivid, the plot flows swiftly, and it's a memorable and believable portrayal of 1940s New York City. I'm looking forward to reading Chabon's The Wonder Boys one of these days. 

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This is the story of a small gang of young thugs who wreak havoc to their hearts' content until the authorities decide to do something about it. I'd seen the movie years ago, but only vaguely remembered the general idea (as well as a few indelible moments that I wouldn't have minded forgetting). What stands out most in my memory from reading the book is Nadsat, the slang vocabulary spoken by the main characters. I'd been forewarned about it, and (maybe largely because I was prepared?) I found it relatively painless to grow accustomed to. The version I read had a weirdly didactic final chapter. I think the book would be better without it.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Surely it's not a spoiler to tell you that this book is about two teenagers who fall in love . . . after they meet at their cancer survivor's support group. (After all, the huge movie adaptation just came out two weeks ago, and even I've seen ads for it everywhere I've looked. If you don't already know the premise, it's your own problem.) I never, ever would have chosen to read this book if not under duress from Book Club. Love? And cancer?? I smell horrifying tearjerker. Not My Thing. But, you know, John Green can do things I never would put up with from the likes of Nicholas Sparks (I'm looking at YOU, A Walk to Remember). And--not that I'm calling him Shakespeare or anything--I have a bit more respect for teenage lovers dealing with cancer than those who end up killing themselves over a big, stupid misunderstanding. 

So, as far as I can remember, that's it for books read with my sad old defunct book club. Your special surprise? Two books that were rejected by said book club--but I read them anyway.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. This is an incredibly detailed account of the French Revolution and its three major leaders (Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins). It's an extraordinary work, more history than fiction, about a fascinating time and place. I wish I could have retained more of what I learned from it. 

Despite the fact that this one is definitely worth reading, I think Old Book Club was right to turn it down. I imagine they would have hated it. 

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. It's Victorian, it's gothic, it's naughty, it's full of mysteries and secrets, and deception is heaped upon deception. It's the story of a pickpocket (hence the title) who agrees to trick an heiress out of her inheritance. If Book Club could have overlooked the naughty bits, I think they would have had just as much fun with this one as anything by Kate Morton. 

Five down, 25 to go!

"Mrs. Poe" by Lynn Cullen

Of the four books I added to my list during last November's lovely visit to The Book People in Austin, this is the first one I read. (The second was Maggie O'Farrell's Instructions for a Heatwave, which I've already blogged about; I have yet to read the other two.)

Edgar Allan Poe is, to me, an intriguing and mysterious figure. From the rumors that surrounded him (alcoholism, drug abuse, insanity) to the somewhat strange but true aspects of his biography (he married his 13-year-old cousin) to his body of work (Wilkie Collins could have learned a thing or two from him about the creepiness factor!), I don't think anyone could call Poe boring. And yet I've never sought out a biographical work about him. I guess I'm too busy preferring fiction. So here's a good compromise: historical fiction. 

But this book isn't that straightforward (as perhaps you might have guessed from the title). Like The Journal of Mrs Pepys or The Mists of Avalon, Mrs. Poe takes a well-known subject and gives it a fresh twist: it is narrated by the women involved. One great thing about this idea is the way it gives new life to an old story. And one way it gives new life to an old story is by embellishment. Where the information known about a topic is thin, an author is more free to invent her own details.

When I first picked this book up, for some reason I assumed that it held a great deal of embellishment. But (with the help of Wikipedia) I discovered that this book is weighted much more heavily in fact than fiction. Yes, Frances Sargent Osgood was a real poetess and she really knew Poe and they really did have a relationship (or at least that's what everyone said) and everyone who was anyone in mid-1800s New York literary society was being consumed by consumption. 

So, did Lynn Cullen do a brilliant job of telling this story? Well, here's where you'll realize that this is one of those crap blog posts I warned you about. I don't remember. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed reading the book, but I'm also pretty sure it wasn't one of my Most Favorite Books Ever. I'm certain I would have remembered if I'd loved it or hated it. I'm just going to have to assume it is worth re-reading and try it again someday.

"Exit the Actress" by Priya Parmar

I've been reading The Plum Bean Project for nearly a year now. If you've ever had the chance to check it out, you know that Priya has a truly lovely writing style. I once compared it to cheesecake (delicious: rich, filling and sweet) but I think that's the wrong type of dessert. I love cheesecake, but it's so heavy. Priya's writing is much more lighthearted. Maybe like a good french silk pie with a wonderfully tender crust.

Of course I have been eager to read her debut novel, Exit the Actress, ever since I first heard about it; it was released last week, so I've finally had that opportunity. Priya has written the story of 17th century English stage actress Nell Gwyn, chronicling her rise from humble beginnings to the bed of King Charles II. The book is written in a familiar, gossipy manner, entirely composed of diary entries and various forms of correspondence.

Despite my anticipation, as I first began to read I found myself thinking that I prefer a book with bigger balls. The most recent historical fiction I read was much more boldly written and I loved it for that. During the first 80 cautious and inoffensive pages of Exit the Actress I was disgruntled and wanted a bit more oomph, but then I settled in and began to really enjoy it. The writing throughout the entire book was just as beautiful as I had come to expect from Priya, and the story gives a charming glimpse into Restoration London. Reading her wikipedia entry gives me the idea that Nell was much more bawdy and indecorous than the delightful and sprightly girl portrayed in Exit the Actress, but Priya's version makes for a much sweeter love story between Nell and the king.

If you are a fan of historical fiction I bet you can't help but love Exit the Actress. Girls only, though, I think. I'm already looking forward to Priya's next book which will take us back to London, this time during World War I.

"The Ground is Burning" by Samuel Black

Books like this are why I read.

I'm a sucker for a book about Italy, especially set during the Italian Renaissance, but there's so much more to love about The Ground is Burning. The characters are fascinating, though that's hardly surprising when we're talking about Cesare Borgia, Niccolò Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci. The plot is fast-paced and engrossing without sacrificing depth. And then there's the evocative beauty of sentences like this one: "I can smell dead leaves burning somewhere in the distance--that sweet, sad, summer's-end scent."

I must admit that before I started reading this book, I was a teensy bit afraid it might be somewhat dry and dull, mainly because I was (and still am) in the middle of reading a biography on Lucrezia Borgia (Cesare's sister) that has been slow going at times. But I shouldn't have worried. The day I started reading this book I burned my baby's toast and was late to my son's awards assembly. Good book or negligent mother? Well. Probably a little bit of both. But, setting aside my questionable parenting abilities, The Ground is Burning is bursting with life. Events of more than five centuries ago are as fresh as yesterday, and people long dead once again live and breathe within these pages.

One thing that brings the characters to life is the way their unique ambitions are laid bare for the reader. Cesare's motivation is power, wielded aggressively enough to elicit fear and dread in his supporters. Machiavelli, too, wants power, but he is willing to act with much more subtlety and diplomacy. Leonardo strives to create something that will stand the test of time and lead to immortal fame. All three men are similar in their drive to leave a lasting impression (and it's not hard to argue that they succeeded), yet they are written with distinct voices that highlight their very different personalities.

One complaint: I felt like I could detect a modern British voice at times. Would a fifteenth-century Italian teenager really say "sod it"? I could have bought affanculo or whatever the Italian equivalent is. On the other hand, that underlying contemporary feel is responsible in part for the vividly real characters. After all, the book begins with a quote from Machiavelli which says, "If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were." I suppose that's a fancier and more verbose way of saying, "there's nothing new under the sun," but it also says the people in this book aren't so very different from YOU.

I want you to read this book, so I am doing a giveaway. You can't have my copy, but if you're the lucky winner I'll buy you your own. Anyone is eligible, unless you are my mom (mainly because Cesare Borgia was a potty mouth, among other slightly scandalous reasons). Leave a comment with your email address before the end of January if you would like a chance to win.

My thanks to Faber for providing me with a proof copy of The Ground is Burning, which will be released on February 3. If you don't win my giveaway, you can purchase your own copy from amazon.co.uk.

Yum. Samuel Black, I WANT MORE!

"Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay

This is a book I came across while browsing in the wonderland that is Books-A-Million (or maybe it was Sam's Club. They have a few pretty good books too). I knew from the blurb that part of the story takes place in Paris during WWII, and involves a ten-year-old girl who tries to protect her younger brother by locking him in a hidden cupboard, only to be forcibly taken away from her home before having a chance to unlock the cupboard door. This idea was so horrifying to me that I was hoping someone else discovered the locked door and let the boy out before it was too late. And of course I was compelled to read the book so I could find out the truth.

This is one of those books that takes place both in the present and in the past, with alternating chapters, though only for about half of the book. It was odd to be jumping back and forth over 60 years and yet not continue the entire novel in this way. (The second half of the novel occurs entirely in the present.) The central event in the past is the Vélodrome d'Hiver roundup of Parisian Jews, thousands of whom were children, on July 16, 1942, also referred to as Vel' d'Hiv'. I'd never heard of this part of history, and had had no idea about the complicity and participation of the French government (French police performed the roundup as ordered by the Germans) in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. I was glad to have read this book if only for the opportunity to learn about something that needs to be remembered.

I was a little disappointed in the writing, which tended to annoy me at times. The chapters in the past, told from the perspective of the 10-year-old girl in 1942, were very repetitive (this is not a real example, but there were a lot of lines like: "Why? Why was this happening? Why was this happening to us?"), and the chapters from the present, following American expatriate journalist Julia through Paris as she researched the Vel' d'Hiv', often seemed to have an awkward syntax. I thought this might be because this is the first book the author has written in English (she was born in France) but it seems English is her first language, so maybe that has nothing to do with it. Another thing that was odd to me was how it seemed the book should have ended with the last chapter from 2002. The final nine chapters continue the story after a three year jump ahead in time, and they read like a really long, really drawn out epilogue.

Some of the plot points (which, it seemed, I wasn't supposed to figure out until the author's big reveal of each) were rather exasperatingly obvious. For instance, the fact that Sirka and Sarah Starzynski were one and the same was no surprise to me. I knew it wasn't over between Bertrand and Amélie as soon as she was introduced. I also knew that Julia had named her baby Sarah when she told William that the giraffe's name was Lucy, even though this wasn't confirmed until six pages later. The one thing I was kept guessing about, however, was the fate of little Michel. It was like a punch in my own gut when the "rotten stench hit [Sarah] like a fist." For a little bit after that I thought I didn't want to continue reading, but I did anyway. And then I couldn't put the book down. Even with irritating writing, I found myself drawn into the story. I stayed up until 1 a.m. and got within 20 pages of the end before I paused to wonder what I was doing to myself, went to sleep, and finished reading today.

Another thing that caught me by surprise was that Julia didn't end up with Guillaume. When she didn't, though, I realized I was glad she didn't get stuck with another Frenchman after Bertrand. Kind of like the way I didn't want my sister to find herself with another German, although I'm OK with it now, since I think she has picked a good one this time. By the way, I found it somewhat ironic that Julia ended up with William. Isn't that the English version of the French name Guillaume? Actually, now that I think about it, I guess we don't really know if she ended up with William, but it certainly seemed to me that she would.

A note on the book's cover: I'm pretty sure the photo shows the palace from the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. I am also pretty sure you can't see the Eiffel Tower from that vantage point. But that's OK. It's a pretty picture, anyway.

"Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague" by Geraldine Brooks

This book was loaned to me by Joyce, who said it was even better than People of the Book. (She's right, by the way). Kate wants to know what I think of it, too, since it's on her TBR list and she has enjoyed other books by Brooks.

Although this book was very well written from cover to cover, it starts in quite a depressing manner. It begins at what seems like the ending, after the plague has ravaged the town and the narrator has lost just about everyone she cared about; then it takes us back to the previous year so we can live through all of the grief with Anna Frith.

It has been a long time since I last cried over a book--so long that I can't even remember which book I might have cried over most recently. (Surely I have been brought to tears by something more recent than Where the Red Fern Grows when I was in grade school.) I don't believe I've shed a tear over any of the books I've blogged about here. But it was heartbreaking to read about the last hours of Baby Tom. Even though I expected his death (and dreaded it every moment, figuratively dragging my feet as I read) I was unprepared for the powerful grief of it. Then little Jamie quickly followed. Do yourself a favor and don't read the chapters "Rat-fall" or "Sign of a Witch" until you have some time alone. You don't want to be, say, in your doctor's waiting room and sobbing into your book.

Somehow in the midst of all the sorrow the author still manages to craft a beautiful story. I have come to the solid opinion that Geraldine Brooks is an incredibly gifted writer. I love how she makes the story all the more authentic by using period vocabulary, but that is merely one small example of what makes her writing excellent. For more evidence, just listen to the beauty of this passage:

"It was one of those rare days in early April when Nature lets us taste the sweet spring that is coming. It was so unexpectedly mild that I lingered in the garth, breathing the soft scents of the slowly warming earth. The sky was beautiful that morning. A tumble of fluffy, tufted clouds covered the whole from horizon to dome, as if a shearer had flung a new-shorn fleece high into the air. As I watched, the rays of the rising sun lit the edge of each cloud, turning it silver, until suddenly the fleece became instead a mesh of shining metal. Then, the light changed again, and the silvery gray turned deep rose-red."

When I read this, not only could I see clearly how lovely it must look, but I felt I had been there at that precise moment; even that I am there right now.

As the book reached its conclusion, there were several moments in which I felt like I turned a corner and received a whole new perspective. Kudos to Brooks for not taking the easy way out. I was sure I could not be happy with an ending that differed in any way from the one I had planned out in my head, but time and again Brooks opened my eyes to a wider world with just as much peace and joy (if not more) than I would have had in a book with my chosen ending and my narrow view. I know in my blog I claim that spoilers abound, but I absolutely refuse to ruin the story for you. I want you to come upon these discoveries in the same way that I did, with no prior knowledge of them to taint your perspective.

If you can get past the depressing and seemingly hopeless first chapter, and if you can accept an ending that is probably not what you would wish or expect, I think you will love this book as much as I did.

"March" by Geraldine Brooks

I finally settled on reading this one next, partly because I had been so looking forward to it ever since hearing about it, and partly because I thought my friend Joyce (who has loaned me 2 other Brooks books) might enjoy reading it after me.

For those of you who have not had the good fortune to hear about this book before, it is about the father of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (who, if you recall, had the surname March). The story follows Mr. March during his time away from his little women during the Civil War.

The first chapter kind of threw me off a bit. As I've said before, I generally prefer not to read books (or watch movies) about war. I don't like to read about the horrors of combat, and hearing about strategy tends to bore me. I had sort of expected this book to have a tone more similar to "Little Women," with its naive hopefulness, but "March" starts off with a vivid description of Mr. March's regiment (of which he is chaplain) retreating before the enemy, and I was beginning to dread reading the rest.

Until I came to the last two sentences of Chapter One. They may not hold the same magic for you as they did for me, but when I read, "Whatever the case, I was halfway up the wide stone steps before I recognized the house. I had been there before," I perked up and thought, Aha! Perhaps I'll enjoy this book after all.

If you read this book you must also read the afterword. I had initially struggled with the idea of labeling this post as "historical fiction," since this is a book about a fictional character from another work of fiction, but after reading the book and realizing its treatment of subjects such as the Civil War, slavery, and the Underground Railroad, I felt pretty comfortable calling it historical fiction. And after reading the afterword, all remaining doubts were dispelled. I was amazed to find the amount of research used in the writing of this book far more extensive than I had theorized. In fact, the character of Mr. March in this novel was heavily modeled after Louisa May Alcott's own father, Bronson Alcott, just as Little Women was modeled after Alcott's own family. Some of the aspects of March's character that I found most questionable came directly from Bronson Alcott's life: the extremity of his vegan commitment, to the extent that he considered a cow's milk to rightfully belong to its calf; his friendship with both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, which I found a little far-fetched until I read the afterword; and his staunch abolitionist stance and involvement with the Underground Railroad, which (according to my memory) was not even touched upon in Little Women.

I was so glad that this book did not cover the death of Beth March, although it does refer to her frighteningly serious illness with scarlet fever. There was too much awful sadness in this book already. I don't know if I could have handled watching Mr. March deal with the loss of his beloved Mouse during the slow regeneration of his body and spirit.

One minor consideration that I disagree with: I don't think that Mrs. March would have gone by the name of Marmee since her childhood. I always thought that "Marmee" was a variation on "Mommy" and was devised by her daughters. (Of course, it has been many years since I have read Little Women, so it's entirely possible that was written into the story by Louisa May Alcott and I have simply forgotten that fact).

All in all, this book contains more war, cruelty, and horror than I prefer, but (as I have come to expect of Brooks) it is extremely well written and probably an even better read than People of the Book. I must say I have even higher expectations for Year of Wonders now, and I hope I'm not disappointed.

"The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant

I was simultaneously eager to read this book and dreading it. It came very highly recommended to me, but the person who pushed it on me the most won't heat her food in a microwave because of the "bad waves," talks to her viruses so they understand it's nothing personal when she fights them off and kills them, and grew up as a Catholic but is now more of a Buddhist. So I wasn't quite certain what to expect of a Biblically-based historical fiction account of Jacob's wives and children that was enjoyed by someone who is quite possibly the weirdest person I know.

As it turns out, I had nothing to be scared of. Diamant presents a finely crafted story that left nothing to be desired. Yes, there were many points in which the novel differs from the Biblical account (I won't bore you with every single instance, but here are a few examples: the Bible says Jacob worked a total of 14 years for Laban before being able to marry both Leah and Rachel, not just 7 months for each; Dinah's first husband, named Shalem in the book, is Shechem in the Bible; and the Bible describes Leah's eyes as weak, whereas Diamant explains that there was nothing wrong with her eyesight, but Leah had the disconcerting trait of one blue eye and one green, combined with a piercing gaze that many found difficult to meet).

The differences bothered me a bit at first, but with a little thought I could see that each change had a very good reason. Fourteen years was changed to 14 months to keep the story going at a good pace; Dina's husband was renamed Shalem to avoid confusion, since the town his father ruled over was also named Shechem; and the description of Leah's eyes made her a stronger woman and more interesting character, instead of the pitiful, nearsighted and unwanted wife the Bible shows us. Diamant herself gives a good account of the changes she made in the "reading group guide" found at the end of my copy of the book:

"The Red Tent is not a translation but a work of fiction. Its perspective and focus--by and about the female characters--distinguishes it from the biblical account in which women are usually peripheral and often totally silent. By giving Dinah a voice and by providing texture and content to the sketchy biblical descriptions, my book is a radical departure from the historical text."

I probably wouldn't have used the word "radical" to describe the differences between the Bible and this novel. After all, it's not as if Diamant includes an alien invasion, or Nikola Tesla attempting time travel. She follows the general framework of the story given in the Bible, and fleshes it out in a marvelous way by "providing texture and content" out the wazoo. Every addition she made to the Bible story falls somewhere on the spectrum of "likely" to "probable." The end result is an abundantly engaging novel.

I love Diamant's idea that people who are loved never die, instead living on in our memories, just as Dinah lives on because we remember her name and her story. I also admired Dinah's "great joy in keeping [her] own house" that she found after her second marriage, and her "reverence for ordinary pleasures" that she gained after her short journey away from Benia to deliver Joseph's first child. It was refreshing to see the joy Dinah could gather just from her daily chores or watching her husband sleep. Not that I feel a shortage of joy in my life, but I don't think I've ever even bothered to try to derive any of it from my housework. But, as Dinah says,

"There was such sweetness in deciding where to place a chair, and in choosing what to plant in the garden. I relished creating my own order and hummed whenever I swept the floor or folded blankets."

I have those same opportunities for joy and I don't recognize them as such. I need to.

"The Lacemaker and the Princess" by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

This book caught my eye at my son's Scholastic Book Fair and I just had to buy it. As if my stack of books to read were not already tall enough. But it looked like an interesting story, it was only $7, and I figured if I didn't care for it I could swap it when I was through.

This is a YA novel of historical fiction set during the French Revolution; the titular princess is Thérèse, the daughter of Marie Antoinette. I picked it up expecting a fun, fast read, and was not disappointed. It served well as a palate-cleanser after Tomcat in Love, and it went by like a breeze.

Throughout the scene where the mob of hungry women stormed into the grounds of the palace at Versailles demanding bread, I had braced myself to hear Marie Antoinette petulantly suggest that they eat cake instead, even though from what I have gathered that would not be historically accurate. So I was quite pleased to find that the author resisted that temptation, never allowing Antoinette to appear as callous and ignorant as she would have to have been in order to speak so thoughtlessly. In fact, Antoinette was never portrayed as anything other than beautiful, gracious, kind-hearted and generous; it just was not enough to please a starving populace.

Although Marie Antoinette may never have said, "Let them eat cake," the book still managed to clearly convey that the royal family was in large part clueless regarding the daily trials their people suffered merely in order to subsist. The royal family in general, and Marie Antoinette in particular, did their best to aid their people whenever they saw a need; however, so comfortably ensconced in their bejeweled palace, they remained oblivious to the amount and degree of need. They had a distinct separation from and ignorance or denial of the poverty that surrounded them. Just one example of how far removed the royal family was from reality is seen in the way Antoinette thought she was raising her daughter like any other child, without the burden of being treated like a princess, while the life of Thérèse was absolutely nothing like that of a common child. The "not a princess" concept was true only in theory, not in practice.

This is a good (if not especially in-depth) review of the history of the French Revolution, with great descriptions of life in 18th century Versailles (both in and out of the palace), and an enjoyable read. I was especially impressed that the author successfully managed to present both sides of the revolution in a balanced manner that keeps the reader from deciding that one side was right and the other side was evil.

I'll probably pass it on to my book-loving daughter and see what she thinks.

"The White Queen" by Philippa Gregory

When I first started reading this book, it didn't take me very long to decide that it was a romance novel thinly disguised as historical fiction. I hope I am not talking about you, but I scorn romance novels and their readers. But since I'd started it, I had to finish it. Plus, even with all the lustful heavy breathing and yearning, it was apparent that this book is actually steeped in history, judging by what it says on the back cover and the relatively long list of sources at the end. I just wished the story could have been written by an author who wasn't so prone to bodice-ripping.

Now that I'm finished reading, I take back all the mean things I said and thought about this book. I really enjoyed reading it! It was not one of the more thought-provoking novels, but it was suspenseful and exciting. As I read I wished I knew more about the history of the kings of England. On the other hand, if I did, I might not have found this story as suspenseful and exciting, since I would know what was coming. Even if I knew what was going to happen, though, I still might not have known the route taken to arrive at that result.

Even back when I viewed this as a romance novel, I found that at least the book had some humor in it, which I appreciated. The main character, Lady Elizabeth Grey, manages to marry Edward, Duke of York and King of England by battle, and herself becomes the queen. When she first sees her father and brothers after her marriage has been announced, she is horrified when her father bows to her; however, when her brother Anthony, who had doubted her marriage and called her names, genuflects to her, Elizabeth says, "You can stay down there." Another part that made me laugh, although only because it is just so silly, is when Elizabeth tells her husband Edward, "I cannot think how to sate my desire for you. I think I will have to keep you prisoner here and eat you up in little cutlets, day after day." Gag!

As I read, I dreaded finding out what was going to happen to Elizabeth's two young sons by her first marriage. She had fears of leaving her boys with strangers because she had a sort of premonition that this would be dangerous for them. This was compounded during the first night that Elizabeth spent in the Tower of London (as a guest, not a prisoner). The back of the book gives a kind of spoiler about this, saying, "her two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown." But this turns out to be her two younger sons who she has by King Edward, not her sons from her first marriage.

This book ended far before I expected it to. England was gearing up for battle again and all of a sudden, pop, story's over. I don't even know who won. However, in the Author's Note at the end I see that this is to be the first in a series, so I guess I need to start looking for the sequel now.

This author also penned The Other Boleyn Girl, which I've seen in movie form but have not read. I enjoyed the movie; when I first saw on the cover of The White Queen that Gregory also authored The Other Boleyn Girl, I was very interested in reading that book. Then, as I read and discovered that I thought this book was a romance novel, I was less interested in reading other books by this author, though I was hoping The Other Boleyn Girl might be a little more realistic and less silly. Now that I have finished this book, I'm back to where I started--eager to read the other.

"The Birth of Venus" by Sarah Dunant

After I finally finished reading the Bourne book, I started The Birth of Venus. This is one of the books I picked up during my most recent Books-A-Million shopping spree. I don't believe I'd heard of the book or its author before; it merely caught my eye, especially because this one was part of a buy-two-get-one-free offer going on at the time. Funny thing is, a month later this same book caught my eye at Sam's, and I entertained the idea of buying it until I remembered I already had.

Another thing that interested me in this book was its historical setting in Florence during the Italian Renaissance, just as the fundamentalist monk Savonarola is rising to power. I had the good fortune to make my first (and hopefully not my last) trip to Florence just this year, and in fact I recall the plaque in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria which marked the place where Savonarola was burned at the stake in the year 1498.

Preconceived notions about the book: The back mentions a young painter who is affiliated with the main character's family in Florence. This tidbit, together with the book's title, made me wonder if perhaps that young painter would turn out to be Botticelli, who painted "The Birth of Venus" you see below. That painting is still on display at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, and--hoping this will not sound like bragging, although I'm afraid it will, but things like this are just too exciting to me to not mention it--I got to see this painting in person during my trip. Of course there are other paintings with the same title, but in my mind this one is the most famous. Anyhow, I found out fairly quickly that I was wrong about the painter's identity. Botticelli is mentioned a few times in the book, as is the painting below, along with some other work he did to go with Dante's Divine Comedy, but the artist in this book was definitely not Botticelli. In fact, he is actually never named; he is always and solely referred to as "the painter."

I normally do not favor reading historical fiction for two reasons. First, history tends to bore me (there, I've admitted it). Second, except in cases where I already know the facts (which isn't often), I never know for sure which parts are history and which parts are fiction. But I was eager to read this book since I already know a little bit about the history of that time in Florence (which might well be called that city's "heyday"), and because I foresaw that I would frequently be given the opportunity to picture the setting perfectly in my mind since I've actually seen it in real life! In this respect I was not disappointed. The majority of the novel takes place indoors, but there were plenty of scenes out in the city that took me back to the façades of the beautiful old buildings in my memory.

Several times in this book I found myself wondering, Now what did they mean by that? I wish I had marked these parts down because now I can only remember two of them, and I would really like to reread those parts now that I've finished the book and see if they make more sense now. Here is the first one I remember: At one point, Alessandra's mother insults her by comparing her to a young woman in a painting who is "engaged in such earnest conversation with the young man. I wonder how well her talk of philosophy is keeping his mind on higher things." I guess this means that, rather than sharpening a young man's mind with philosophical talk, a young woman should either A) try to keep his mind on her, which makes sense for that era of coquetry, or B) try to keep his mind on God, which is what I would assume "higher things" to mean; this second explanation also fits the time frame, but I don't see how talk of philosophy would obscure thoughts of God.

My second remembered point of confusion was answered quickly. When Alessandra mourns the fact that her daughter would grow up both without her father and her blood grandfather, I began to flip back to try to find out if her father had died and I had missed it. But as I read on I realized soon enough that this meant Alessandra had figured out the father she'd grown up with was not her father by blood. I can't understand why I didn't pick up on this right away, since I had already suspected Plautilla and Tomaso were not her full brother and sister (I wasn't sure about Luca). Plautilla and Tomaso were so nice-looking but dim-witted, while Alessandra wasn't much to look at but was a very intelligent girl. (The reason I wasn't sure about Luca was because the poor guy was both dim-witted and ugly).

As far as the remainder of the book, I enjoyed reading about the passion for art held by several of the main characters (Alessandra, the painter, and Christoforo), which reminded me of books like Girl With a Pearl Earring, or My Name is Asher Lev. I was intrigued by the secrets for which I sought answers: How and why did the old nun end up with the awesome serpent tattoo all over her torso? Why did she fake the tumor that was supposed to have caused her death? The story was given an extra shiver with the brutal murders that ran through the plot like a bloody thread (it turned out that the killings were committed by one of Savonarola's followers, Father Brunetto Datto... an example of a case where I can't tell fact from fiction in a historical novel, but I googled him and found nothing, so I assume that part of the story was a fabrication). And, although much forshadowing hinted at the fact that Alessandro's marriage to Christoforo would not be a perfect one, I never guessed the cause for their sorrows until it was spelled out for me.

This is not a very cinematic book and I don't think it would translate well to screen, but I find it funny to note that in spite of this I continually pictured Christoforo as played by Gary Oldman, similar to his role as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies (though never as disheveled and frantic as he was just after his release from Azkaban).

I enjoyed this book and found it very well-written, but now that I've read it I feel like I would have been just as happy borrowing it from the library as owning it. It's not like The Monsters of Templeton which I disliked so much that I donated it to the library because I knew I'd never want to read it again, but it's definitely not like The Amnesiac or The Time Traveler's Wife which I loved and will certainly read again someday.