Books recently read

My reading schedule is a bit higgledy piggledy but I have recently finished three unrelated books of various sizes. One was George Orwell's first novel Burmese Days which is a fine novel, despite what Orwell came to think, and an unsentimental insight into English attitudes in the 1920s as the British Raj began to wind down. The more Orwell I read the more I admire his skill. The other two books are non-fiction. Victorians Undone is a large roving thing by the journalist Kathryn Hughes. With chapters on Darwin's beard and George Eliot's hand it is an unusual approach to history but a fascinating read. Some will want to avoid the book because of some of the subject material it gets into and the very occasional lapse of judgement in the expressions used. Otherwise it is well written, informative and thought provoking. The third and final one to mention is a little SPCK hardback by Tudor historian John Guy. The first half is excellent but it is supplemented in the second half with discussions of More's impact down the years, including the fascinating story of how he was made saint and how first Robert Bolt and then Hilary Mantel got hold of the character and shaped him to their own purposes. Really worth a read.

More on The Tudors

With Wolf Hall staring next Wednesday (see here) I'm not the only one going Tudor. BBC2 were showing a documentary on The Last days of Anne Boleyn recently I see (a repeat from 2013 with Hilary Mantel, David Starkey, Philippa Gregory, etc), which I hope to get round to watching soon (see here). Philippa Gregory in The Times recommends, on the Tudor theme, the anonymous painting at Hampton Court Palace The Family of Henry VIII, c. 1543-1547 (see here), Mark Twain's novel The Prince and the pauper (see here), the 1970 TV series with Keith Michell as Henry VIII (see here), Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena (see here), the 1969 Richard Burton film Anne of the thousand days (see here) and Edmund Spenser's unfinished poem The Faerie Queene (see here). No room for Rick Wakeman's six wives I see. Leave it to me.

Hilary Mantel Trilogy

I have now read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring up the bodies. I was attracted to the large volumes by their subject matter - Thomas Cromwell (a key figure in Henry VIII's reign) the Tudors being my best loved and known historical period - and their award winning success. They certainly are very well written and I think give an insight into the period not easily gained from ordinary history books. I am not a fan of historical fiction. When doing A level history many years ago Jean Plaidy (Eleanor Hibbert was her real name - she also wrote as Philippa Carr and Victoria Holt). The class was nearly all girls and they would always ask if Plaidy was worth reading. The teacher's cautious answer meant I never bothered. In fact, one of the Philippa Gregory Boleyn novels is the only venture into historical fiction I have made, I believe. Anyway, Mantel is clearly superior to either of those authors but still you have this problem - not knowing what is credible fact and what is patent fiction. I tend to look behind every sentence of a book wondering what prompted it and reading these books I was constantly wondering what prompted it - whim or research. So, given that these are such long books I am not altogether satisfied but I'm glad I've got through them. Given that there is one more book to come (The Mirror and the Light) I am rather tied in I guess but that is not until 2015 they say. Meanwhile, the thought of Mark Rylance and a presentation of the material as Shakespearean drama does appeal. See here.

Anne Boleyn at the Globe

We are back in London now and last night we had a real treat courtesy of my father-in-law, passing through en route to the USA. An avid reader of reviews, he had noticed that Howard Brenton's drama Anne Boleyn was playing at the Globe Theatre. He was only able to get tickets for the four of us (we and our wives) to stand and with an atrociously rainy day we were fearful of a soaking. As it turned out, there was hardly a drop. We really had two things for the price of one then - a positive experience of seeing a play in the interestingly reconstructed Globe as groundlings (something I've not done before although we have gone to the Globe itself more than once) and a very well acted and thought provoking play too.

Current day groundlings are thankfully much, much quieter than Shakespearean ones I guess but we got a real idea of what it might have been like to stand under an open sky and see a play in Shakespeare's time.

The play itself was of great interest to us featuring not only as it did Ann Boleyn and Henry VIII, etc, but also James I commissioning the AV and William Tyndale in unlikely but plausible scenes with Ann (the play takes place in two time periods - that of Boleyn and that of the early years of James I). Boleyn (Like Henry adn James) is an endlessly fascinating figure and although there was much speculation here the play cast an interesting light on her undoubted Protestantism and on Tyndale and the effect of the Bible on the English nation too. There were sadly some crudities that marred the beauty of the piece but many could enjoy it. For reviews see here.

New Photo Series 19

Gold Tudor Rose Bosworth

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