26th August 2010
Can't find any group notes – this from Steve:
A long read for several reasons:
- It's a long book
- The sun shone on my holiday in Ireland, leaving me far less time in an armchair waiting for the rain to stop than usual
- Style: her curious present tense and 'third person from a first person standpoint' meant I had to read every word, sometimes twice, to get the sense. This made me cross early on but once I got used to the fact that 'he' almost always referred to Cromwell, it became easier. I'm not quite sure it was an entirely successful approach though.
- Difficult to remember who was who - too many Marys and Thomases, but she was dealing with real people so one can't really hold that against her. The cast list and family tree were useful, but even then it wasn't always clear who was being referred to.
But a great read because:
- I learned more about Henry VIII, the Tudors, the dissolution of the monasteries, the context of the Reformation, etc etc, along with several individuals who were familiar in name but not always in deed (More, Cranmer, Wolsey...) than any history book ever taught me (I failed O-level history, mind)
- Her approach allowed her to paint fascinatingly personal pictures of individuals, and I didn;t really care whether she was using literary licence
- I'm sure it was her intention to draw parallels with the modern world ('These days the news could be across Europe within a month...') and I think she did that successfully and interestingly
- I felt close to the times, the people and the events - the narrative rolled along as historical event followed historical event
- The research was awesome (though as she admits herself, not necessarily new - more like a different perspective on what we apparently already know) - I have to admire the achievement
So I was sorry to finish it and will be up for reading the sequel when it emerges. Proof that a good book doesn't have to be an easy read - an 8 from me.
From Neil:
If anything it underlined the elements that frustrated me about the book and I thought More' demise could have been completed in half the number of pages, highlights for me being pages 528-530 in the paperback edition. I also found Cromwell's depiction as a compassionate man in private became more and more incredible against the public figure who drew up legislation that saw so many subsequently put to death and in the absence of hard evidence to defend this belief it became somewhat ridiculous in my mind. Rather like the suggestion that Goebbels was secretly the sponsor of an orphanage for deprived kiddies and loved furry white pussycats. Similarly I couldn't help feeling there were other historical inaccuracies which suggested that many more important flaws might lie beneath the surface. She talks about dictionaries, but surely they didn't come about for many years after this time? The suggestion that Cromwell does Italian chess puzzles from a book sounded rather unlikely and on investigation it seems that the book she refers to was written as a treatise on chess but never published.
6.15
