THE LAST ROMANTIC: A Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania

by Hannah Pakula ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 20, 1985

The last of the flamboyant royals, perhaps--in a stodgy, plodding, vaguely feminist biography. In her time, Roumania's Queen Marie (1875-1938) was a tabloid character: the dazzling granddaughter of Britain's Victoria and Russia's Alexander II; married off to ineffectual, unprepossessing Ferdinand, heir to the shaky throne of a backward kingdom; a popular heroine for her WW I and postwar exploits (helping steer Roumania into the Allied camp, comforting the wounded without rubber gloves), a pop celebrity for her amorous conquests, her extravagant dress and manner, her florid writing and autobiographical barings, the peccadilloes of Crown Prince Carol. Pakula has had access to Marie's diaries and letters, but they add little to her published memoirs; more important, there is no vitality or color--to convey Marie's effect on her contemporaries, no less to project an alternative, more serious version. (The massive detail includes little that's even clearly indicative.) The story, as Pakula sees it, is simply that Marie was a naive-17-year-old beauty sacrificed by her domineering Russian mother to a feckless husband and a minor throne--in preference to her marrying the future George V, and remaining under hated English sway. Husband Ferdinand was an ardent lover, indifferent to her feelings, and he was helpless to prevent his uncle, King Carol, from tyrannizing over both of them. She eventually rebelled, thanks to an enduring, supportive liaison (she didn't really care much about sex), and in WW I exercised her natural leadership. There are historical episodes (including Versailles, where ""the conference leaders, with the notable exception of President Wilson. . . basked in the glow of her beauty and wit""), before the narrative subsides again into family problems--especially the marriages, defections, and conspirings of bad-joke son Carol (of Mme. Lepescu fame). Some Roumanian political history can be extracted from all of this--but almost none of it is in any way involving.

Pub Date: Feb. 20, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION