| | Reference added: 11
"Accounts of Henry VIII."
The subtitle of this massive tome is "With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers." Like much of what you'll find inside, Will is a historical fact, bent here to the author's ends.
It kind of sucks that I don't know more about the historical facts of Henry VIII's reign, though, as I can't comment too accurately on how closely the book follows what is known about Henry's character and life. I've stumbled across various minor primary sources, documents and such, from the time, and where they fit the story George tends to reproduce such details almost verbatim.
On the other hand, she is also at great pains to explain every decision Henry makes as stemming from his emotional mood at the time. When she can't make them fit tidily, the usual recourse is to gloss over them quickly as if he considered them of no account. The result is a book whose events fit neatly into place, but which seems to lack overall direction. What is the major theme that the book would have us learn? That's a bit unclear. That Henry meant to do his best, I suppose--whee.
Not too surprisingly, most of Henry's governing moods come from or relate to women: his six wives, his mistresses, his daughters. He burns with passion, with loathing, with remorse, with something at all times, anyway. His life, as portrayed in this book, is an emotional rollercoaster, a series of spiritual crisis in almost unbroken succession.
This makes the book something of a page-turner, and I suppose that in itself is a considerable accomplishment when the book spans 133 chapters. And I even felt like the thing was going somewhere for most of that. It isn't until you get near the end that it starts to feel a bit weak, as the king himself starts to think more and more about age and death. Events begin to pass with less coherence and more loose ends--Henry had promised his old buddy, the retiring Imperial ambassador, that he would do something to provide for a husband for daughter Mary, for instance, but that thread is forgotten and dropped along with others.
No, Margaret's strength is in the quick succession of events, such as when the younger kind is executing wives right and left. The "autobiography" shamelessly includes things that nobody would ever write in their own biography, of course, but that doesn't seem to worry the author too much.
Her strength is not in language, and it took me a little while to get used to her fitful attempts at archaic English accents. The book lacks poetic appeal, and George seems to try to make up for this with historical references and name-dropping (how tiresome) and grotesque or burlesque detail. And for the most part, she succeeds. Although I think it would have helped, from a historical point of view at least, if she had bothered to give the date once in a while during the story.
In some ways, interesting ways really, the book is near the opposite of Shakespeare's life of Henry (see entry 11): Shakespeare's is full of poetry and pageant, but low on action, while George's bustles with peotry-free action. Both of them are ultimately somewhat unsatisfying as portraits of a man, and I think part of George's failure is that she doesn't exactly think like a man herself. How many men base all their decisions on emotion? Her Henry is an unremitting boob--clever, in his way, but never knowing himself or really mastering his own decision-making. |
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