A delectable serving of Tudor dish.
Another “historical entertainment” from Erickson, in which the third wife of Henry VIII has her say.
Queen Jane Seymour has been the focus of few Tudor historical novels, compared with her more flamboyant predecessor Anne Boleyn. In all likelihood, perhaps because Jane was the only wife to give Henry what he wanted (a male heir) and to die before Henry could tire of her, Jane is generally seen as too nice to capture readers’ interest. Erickson debunks the lackluster truth by freely imagining some unhistorical escapades for the shy daughter of the politically astute Seymours. As maid of honor to Henry’s first Queen, Catherine of Aragon, Jane serves her mistress faithfully, all the while Catherine is being maligned, discredited and ousted by Henry, who declares himself the head of the Church in England mainly to nullify his marriage. Jane hates her father for seducing her fiancé Will’s sister, thereby alienating Will’s family and jeopardizing the engagement. Seymour senior also beds his son Ned’s wife Cat, causing Ned to banish Cat to a convent and disown his two sons, whom Jane takes under her protection. But Jane has her amoral, conniving side. She joins with Catherine’s other ladies in mercilessly baiting Anne Boleyn, a newcomer to Court. While still being courted by Will, she has an unapologetic affair with Galyon, a French glazier who is repairing Anne Boleyn’s windows. Informed by Ned of a poisoning attempt on Henry Fitzroy, King Henry’s illegitimate son by Anne’s sister Mary, Jane sanctimoniously tattles to the King, implicating both Anne and the now-exiled Catherine. After Anne has Galyon killed and Will announces plans to wed another, Jane resigns herself to spinsterhood but vows revenge against Anne, who has fallen into royal disfavor after the birth of Princess Elizabeth. Jane entices Henry by going with what she’s good at: appearing to be gentle, unassuming and, above all, trustworthy. But as Erickson amply demonstrates, there is no trust among Tudors.
A delectable serving of Tudor dish.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-59690-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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