The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory (2013)

It has been a while since I have read one of Philippa Gregory's intricate historical novels, so I tried this. I had to pull out my most trusted reference on Britain's kings and queens - meant for children, but gives me the grounding on where this fits in their long history and gives me the simple, at times funny explanation of these royal machinations, which can get lost in the details of the story. I am just glad we live in a time with term limits and that the outgoing ruler does not need to be killed or imprisoned to change governments. I also realized that Queen Elizabeth II has been ruling (well, presiding) my whole life - and I am no spring chicken.

The main character is Anne, the kingmaker's daughter. Her father raised the royal York boys Edward, George and Richard, and when he didn't like the way Henry (the sleeping king, as Anne calls him) ruled, he placed Edward on the throne, imprisoning Henry. When he didn't like the fact that Edward's wife and her family had too much influence on him, he tried to put the second son George in his place, but lost that bid. 

Anne's sister is married to George, at 15 Anne gets married off to old King Henry's son, her father thinking he can get one of his daughters on the throne and be grandfather to a king. Then Anne's young husband and her father get killed in battle. She ends up marrying Richard, the third York son. Her nemesis - real or imagined is King Edward;s wife Elizabeth Woodville, who is not only beautiful and fertile with 10 children, but skillful in getting her family into positions of power.

Oh, the constant machinations and bids for power, trying to disprove the rights of one or the other to be king or queen, calling marriages illegal, children bastards, praying for a male child, trying to rule through children, accusing people of bewitching them. And this struggle for power, at least through Anne's eyes, doesn't mention how one or the other could be a better ruler for the country, but who can hold the most elaborate Christmas feast or wear the most elegant dresses with silks, gold, and furs.

At times this all sounded so petty, but then we have our own ways of being petty, and I don't even want to start with the power plays in American politics. Even today we follow the lives British royalty - Princess Charlotte was just born to Prince William and Kate. I'm not clear who will be king after Queen Elizabeth, I've read that she will pass the throne on to Price William or maybe her son Prince Charles this year.

I think I have had enough of a dose of British royalty for a while, but it is an interesting read, especially the details of daily life.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (2008)

I don't think I will ever tire of reading good novels about books. Here's another. The main story that ties all the other together is about Hanna, a rare book preservationist, who gets the opportunity to examine and stabilize a 500 year old book, a Jewish Haggadah in Sarajeva. She finds small anomalies and things in the book that lead us to stories about the books travels over the years and through southern Europe. Each story is a heart wrenching one of the Jewish plight over the centuries.

The butterfly wing led to the story of how the book was saved during World War II and the harrowing destruction of the Jews by the Nazis. It also gives us a glimpse of Tito in his youth.

Each of these flash-backs into history not only tells the immediate story of the book itself, but gives a broad brush illustration of numerous people's lives - their lives, sorrows, families, lovers, castes, religious groups, which all end up affecting the fate of the book. For a while I couldn't understand what a doctor in Vienna in 1894, who discreetly treated STD's, had to do with the Haggedah. It turns out one of his patients was the one to rebind the Haggedah, and his illness influenced how he did that.

The wine stain leads to a priest, who worked as one of the main censors in Venice of 1609.

The minuscule crystals of sea salt lead to the story of the books creation in Spain of 1492, during the times of the Spanish inquisition and when all Jews were expelled from Spain.

The hair leads to the story of the creation of the illustrations, another very interesting peek into the history of Spain. May be another topic worth exploring. I now I've been fascinated by the story of the Moors in Spain, but I didn't realize what an interesting combination of Christians, Muslim and Jews have created Spanish history. One of the quotes I liked in this book was that the Christians made war, the Muslims build buildings and the Jews raised the funds. I still don't understand how Spain got to be such a huge empire. (Some of the other books I have read about Spain: The Spanish Bow, Zorro, Constant Princess (Katharine of Aragon was from Spain), and I am sure there are others.)

Some parts were hard to listen to - the torture, the killing, exile, etc. But then I had a sense of being privileged to get a glimpse of "what really happened" to the book, while the main character Hanna, just had a crumb of that history - the book had been in such and such a place because that is where this type of butterfly lives. I plan on buying this book for friends.

Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

Another wonderful book of historical fiction about Tudor England by Gregory! I regret listening to it instead of reading it, as the audio recordings are abridged, and I miss all the descriptive detail provided by Gregory. This book took a look at the childhood and early years of Katherine of Aragon - daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, married to Arthur, prince of England, who dies within five months of their marriage. She holds out until she can marry prince Henry, and only then it dawned on me that she was the first wife of the many wives of King Henry VIII.

As always, there were so many things that fascinated me about the historical facts and lives of the people of those times, which Gregory brings forth in such rich detail. Among them - Queen Isabella was an amazing woman, warrior and leader in her time. I need to read more on the conflict between the Spanish and the Moors. The Moors had a higher level of knowledge in healing and probably other things, which the Spanish lost when the pushed the Moors out of Spain. (When Katherine is forced to ask a Moor doctor for help to bear a healthy child, she has to fight an inner battle to accept his help.) When descendants of royalty are betrothed in their cradles, it leads to a strange non-courtship and husband - wife relations. The whole process of public bedding on the wedding night seemed strange. This can be a very ackward time for the couple, as Gregory shows in both this book and Earthly Joys. The importance of virginity and consumation of marriage is incredibly important in those days and a key to Katharine's story. The importance of bearing an heir, a male heir, is so great, that it is considered the main, if not only responsibility of the queen of England.

I liked that Katherine had learned the organization of war campaigns from her parents, so when Henry is ready to take off and do battle, she prepares the supplies needed, trains the soldiers, get the ships ready, etc. And while he is in France, she does her own battle with the Scots, defeats them, but doesn't destroy them and creates an alliance instead, insuring peace (at least for a while.) This is in sharp contrast the totally unprepared campaign described in Earthly Joys, where the King and Lord Buckinham set sail totally unprepared, without supplies, with great delays, at the wrong time of year, etc.

The book ends with Katherine walking into the court room proud and tall, though we all know that this is where Henry VIII will get permission to divorce her, and her life will change profoundly, but Gregory leaves her in that state of hope. (Listened May 2006)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I read (listened to) this book when it first became popular and promised myself I would buy it when it came out in paperback. Well, I ended up spending as much, or even more than I would for the hardback, but I got the illustrated version - and love it. I am always frustrated when books talk of paintings or architecture and I would like a visual to see what the characters are seeing. This was perfect for an illustrated edition, as it mentions so many works of art and architecture. For example, I had seen pictures of the new I.M. Pei pyramid addition to the Louvre, but to see the inverse pyramid in the lower courtyard helped me visualize the after hours activities in the Louvre described in the book. When I first read the book, I went looking for the Leonardo Da Vinci paintings mentioned, especially the Last Supper. I also have a wondrous childhood memory of going to see the Mona Lisa in some museum in New York, waiting in long lines to see this small, but significant painting.

Though I remembered the basic plot, I still enjoyed all the twists and turns in Brown's book. I am also very sympathetic to the basic premise, that the feminine or "sacred feminine" as Brown calls it, was squelched by the male leaders in Christianity. I don't care very much if Jesus was married or if some of his descendents are still alive today, but I am angry at all the women that were persecuted by the church, and how so many natural processes became sinful.

One thought that converged in my mind while simultaneously reading this and the Constant Princess (to be entered into the blog soon), where a Spanish princess is forced to receive treatment from a Moor doctor, who knows so much more than the English or Spanish about herbs and natural healing. When the Spanish forced the Moors out of their land, they also lost that knowledge and many became sick. So too the church fought so hard against the wise women throughout the lands, and later the "medical profession" fought against midwives, thus losing a wealth of knowledge about healing that we are trying to regain today.

I liked the characters of Robert Langdon, that tweedy academic, and Sophie Noveu, the French cryptologist who is the granddaughter of Jacques Sauniere, the curator of the Louvre. Sauniere is killed in the prologue and leaves a series of cryptic messages for his granddaughter to decipher, with the help of Langdon. It is an exciting mystery novel, so that I could even tolerate it when it started getting too preachy.

This book has created lots of controversy. We even had a discussion with one of the critics, a religion professor at our university. I actually read one of the criticisms (see next entry), but found I really didn't care for the arguments. Some are faith based, so if you don't believe in the basic premise, the criticism doesn't make sense. I liked the speculation in the book. This is a work of fiction, so it is not expected to reflect all truth. I think am intrigued enough to do some more reading on this.

(Finished reading 5/1/06)