Helps - certainly in the UK - if you want to get on the tele though.

And if your hair looks really nice it means you are dead brainy (rather than brain deady?).

Oh, I don't know about her hair, looks a bit ditsy and hippyish to me. Keep expecting her to flutter around some trees in the moonlight or something.

Quote :

Oh, I don't know about her hair, looks a bit ditsy and hippyish to me. Keep expecting her to flutter around some trees in the moonlight or something.

Lookswise, she reminds me of Lucy Worsley who's another of these elfin women but at least Dr W has the credentials even if she's also a bit fey in her style for my taste.
I fear that even those of us who aspire to rising above these things don't quite manage it when it comes to women or sometimes men, viz Michael Wood's jeans. I'd be interested in what the men here think: does the visual appearance of an academic or another serious commentator (male or female) influence their opinion of them?

Islanddawn wrote:

Oh, I don't know about her hair, looks a bit ditsy and hippyish to me. Keep expecting her to flutter around some trees in the moonlight or something.

Perhaps she dresses up as Melusina (mermaid) and goes swimming by moonlight just like Elizabeth Woodville did in "The White Queen". Worked a treat with Edward IV.

Here's a picture of our Philippa:

Oops no - it's the crocodile again. Back in a minute.

I really can't imagine Mary Beard posing like this. Or any of us for that matter (when our books are published!).

Has anyone read "The Women of the Cousins' War"? I haven't, but I've been told that Philippa Gregory's essay on Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford (Elizabeth Woodville's mother) is actually very good. Gregory's essay is one of three - the others are by the "eminent historians", Michael Jones, an authority on Margaret Beaufort, and David Baldwin, who has written a very sympathetic study of Liz Woodville. Apparently Gregory drops all the nonsense in this essay and shows that she can "do academic" when she chooses to.

I like Dr. W. She's a lively, interesting presenter and she knows her stuff. The other glamorous young one - can't think of her name - lovely red ringlets, a lisp and a couple of Oxford degrees - is also excellent. Catigern is a big fan of hers.

Gawd Temp, Philippa is wearing a Turkish carpet! As for the hair....enough said.

If Gregory can "do academic" when she wants to then her lapses into gross factual inaccuracy are simply all the more dishonest.

On the question of being influenced by the narrator's appearance when presenting history on TV I would be inclined to say that it is their voice, rather than their appearance, which produces bias in their audience. I find Starkey irritating to listen to - his unjustifiable and completely irrelevant pomposity when presenting simple points of deduction (and not always his own) tend to overshadow their importance as composite parts of a general point or thesis. By the time one has reached his delivery of that point one is almost geared up to disbelieve it having been so unnecessarily lectured to en route. If one filters out this instinctive reaction then his data is however often quite interesting.

On the other end of the scale one has Mary Beard whose delivery seems designed to deflect from the importance of certain salient data in order to promote the importance of other less salient data, but which she wishes us to regard in a new light as being perhaps more important than we had previously assumed. This leads to a rather complicated audience experience in that one finds oneself having to evaluate each comment of hers in the context of data being promoted or demoted in that way. If it is a book then one can pause and consider before one reads on. On TV it leads to concentration lapses as she blithely continues while one is still digesting the previous chunk.

Michael Wood's jean-clad arse may have gone down in history in its own right (along with his fleece-collared lumberjackets), but what always irritated me about Michael was the injection of "breathless awe" in his tone when the subject matter didn't always warrant it. It's fine if you're documenting Alexander's progress across the Afghani plains, but rather silly when employed to descibe a Saxon toilet in Deptford.

nordmann wrote:

If Gregory can "do academic" when she wants to then her lapses into gross factual inaccuracy are simply all the more dishonest.

You are no doubt right, but I'm sure Philippa Gregory wouldn't give a hoot for your opinion of her, or for the comments of anyone else around here.

We may criticise and bitch all we like about Gregory's inaccuracies, Starkey's pomposity, Wood's vanity etc., but the fact remains that they are best-selling authors, respected TV presenters or tele-dons, even indeed proper-dons. They are all famous, successful and no doubt earning an extremely good living from their endeavours.

Being all moral and lofty counts for little these days - honest or dishonest - who's to say? Who's the wise man, and who's the fool? I'm sure I don't know.

Michael Wood's bottom has always left me quite unmoved. I am very jealous of Kate Williams though - I'd swap places with her any day. Sad, but true.

I'm sure a Saxon toilet can be awe-inspiring, especially one in Deptford.

I realy don't give a hoot whether Gregory gives a hoot either (it's beginning to sound like a sullen owl snactuary in here).

That they are best-selling authors and highly rewarded financially is neither here nor there too. Or do we invest the late Barbara Cartland with skills and intelligence even she did not claim on her own behalf?

My criticism is centred on honesty, or more precisely its lack. In Gregory's case this might mark her out as personally despicable, I don't really know, I care as little about her personability as I do her bank account. But it reveals her to be part of the problem which those who enjoy and respect a knowledge of history encounter with all too frequent tedium and despair - the popularisation of propaganda and untruths as history which is more effort to undo than it would have taken to research and publish "real" history, be it fictionalised or not.

If she's writing crap off the top of her head and making money out of it then let her be honest and admit as much. Dressing it up as history and fooling people on that basis just to make even more money is about as low in terms of character and morality as one can get.

Being all moral and lofty was never a profitable business in any day. I dismiss that remark as completely irrelevant if it was meant to exonerate Gregory from the charge of duplicitousness. Or is it maybe you who have a sneaking regard for others who profit from such duplicity?

In this case the wise man and the fool are easily spotted, I'd say. When profiteers are judged wise (as they often are) then Gregory is as wise as the rest of them and it is foolish to criticise them. When wisdom is based on something more than squeezing pennies out of the little one knows then she's as thick as they come.

Golden goose and all that.

nordmann wrote:

Being all moral and lofty was never a profitable business in any day.

Do you think I don't know that?

nordmann wrote:

I dismiss that remark as completely irrelevant if it was meant to exonerate Gregory from the charge of duplicitousness. Or is it maybe you who have a sneaking regard for others who profit from such duplicity?

No, I do not - that suggestion is actually pretty offensive. But no doubt I should have written, "Being all moral and lofty sadly counts for little these days..."

I believe I made my views on Gregory quite clear when, in answer to your original post, I answered, "Yes."

No offence intended - and I probably therefore have completely misunderstood your post above. I apologise.

Bemoaning the success of charlatans however as a new phenomenon is misleading. And bemoaning them hoodwinking the majority in order to achieve that success by the same token is actually to ignore a (depressing admittedly) fact about commercial dissemination of academic theory and scientifically adduced material. Whether it's Gregory or Marco Polo it amounts to the same scam and one which enough people want to buy, quite literally, so that fortunes are to be made from them.

What separates the scammers is not their avariciousness or the particular academic fields in which they each choose to operate but the extent of the dishonesty they employ in so doing. This is a moralistic assessment of their activities, I admit. Yet it is the only one I know which best parallels the damage they do the academic fields in which they operate, and in such an assessment Gregory is approaching the nether regions of morality the more she portrays or allows herself to be portrayed as an historian.

The moral high ground of historians is, I suspect rather thinly populated. Whilst researching in works of considerable - and original scholarship I came to know one historian's work very well. Then heigh presto in jumps a recognised and 'respectable' historian with books and pretty coffee table editions on the same theme using the scholar's translations from obscure texts. I soon realised where much of that historians work had come from. The original scholar was only mentioned in the refs very far down the list and in one book not at all and not the titles of the papers/sources he used of that material.

The famed historian does not write novels but his reputation is widely quoted in the academic world for his period. I also 'caught him out' on using fine and detailed reasearch books and papers by continental scholars in another area that I happened to use to try to get a hand on background truths. They were not acknowledged either.

nordmann wrote:

No offence intended - and I probably therefore have completely misunderstood your post above. I apologise.

That's OK - I should have made myself clearer.

Re the rest of your post - agreed.

What is worrying is that so many students are avid readers of Gregory's books. I have heard one dreadful tale of an A-level candidate actually *quoting* her...

PS I do not recommend Dita von Teese as a role model either!

I suppose it must be very tempting for writers to be able to use ready made characters and a ready made outline to their story, a little more reading and add a few tumbles in bed and the story is complete. that is probably how a lot of "historical" novels are written. We read different versions of the same story over and over and still (mostly) enjoy them.

Gran wrote:

We read different versions of the same story over and over and still (mostly) enjoy them.

I don't think there is any problem with "different versions", Gran. Surely that's part of the endless fascination of history: different times; different writers; different interpretations. But original, intelligent, even if controversial, *interpretation* of the known facts is different from mindless *distortion* of them!


Take "Wolf Hall" for instance. I am lost in admiration for Hilary Mantel, but I think her sympathetic presentation of Thomas Cromwell as a modern, humanist, working-class hero and her demonisation of Thomas More in the same novel as an arrogant, middle-class, bigoted, Catholic bastard (Mantel is a lapsed Catholic which is significant, I think) is all wrong. But God does she do it convincingly and well: the woman's research is impeccable, and where the *facts* are concerned she never gets it wrong. As for her writing style - well, it is so good it makes one want to weep, although whether out of joy or despair I'm not sure. Probably both. Yes, I disagree with her views and her interpretations (well, I think I do...), but Mantel's integrity as a historian (which, unlike Gregory, she never claims to be) and a writer is beyond reproach.

No, what this thread is all about is the wanton *mucking about* with history that seems to go on all the time these days. We know Shakespeare did it too, but that's no excuse. He perhaps knew no better . We do. It strikes me as similar to cheap, gratuitous violence in a film. Just what is the point? Remember the nonsensical "The Tudors"? How could we ever forget? The infuriating, mindless, ridiculous stuff they devised - such as the "amalgam" of Henry VIII's two sisters, Margaret and Mary (just one example - the errors in the production are too numerous to mention). It is historical *fact* that Margaret married the King of Scotland, Mary the King of France. What did the scriptwriters do? Had Princess Margaret-cum-Mary marry the King of *Portugal* and then had her murder him. Absolutely unforgiveable.

Gregory is one of the worst offenders. In the dreadful "The Other Boleyn Girl" she uses the perfectly respectable academic research of Professor Retha M. Warnicke ("The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn") concerning George Boleyn's possible bisexuality and the incest allegations, but she makes an absolute mockery of the American historian's evidence: Gregory simply takes Warnicke's research findings and alters them to suit herself! Warnicke's ideas *have* been dismissed by many authorities (perhaps harshly?), but they are nevertheless very interesting and deserve to be treated with respect, especially the notion of what Warnicke calls "sexual heresy" in 16th century England. Gregory turns it all to lurid nonsense. I should have liked to have seen a skilful writer show how the poisonous atmosphere of the Tudor court - all the malice, sexual gossip and intrigue, combined, crucially, with *religious* fear and superstition - *possibly* contributed to the downfall of the Boleyns. Other Gregory abominations in the same novel have been listed above.

I'm typing this against the clock; they're turning my electricity off at 9am (I have paid my bill - it's for "essential repairs"). No power until 4pm and the battery on my computer's knackered! This is rushed and probably incoherent - back later, I hope.

A link to an interview with Hilary Mantel here. Mantel's comments are all relevant to the ideas being discussed in this thread, but her response to the question which begins, "Some defenders of Philippa Gregory have argued that 'all history is interpretation anyway....' " is of particular interest.

And I wonder what RH readers make of the admission by Natalie Portman that, while preparing for their roles in the film of "The Other Boleyn Girl", "neither she nor Scarlet Johansen nor Eric Bana did much research beyond reading PG's novel because 'all you get from historians was competing views anyway' "?

http://thecreationofanneboleyn.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/susans-interview-with-hilary-mantel/

May I just add that I agree with Mantel when she says, "I don't think Anne Boleyn was brought down by facts, but by the power of rumour." That's *exactly* how a novelist could have used Warnicke's ideas. Rumour, gossip and innuendo - much suspected, nothing proved - both of Anne and her brother and their friends. I have to admit I am dismayed that Mantel describes Warnicke's "sexual heresy" theories as "eccentric". Any more eccentric I wonder than G.W. Bernard's suggestions in his "Fatal Attractions" (dreadful title) that Boleyn was actually guilty of adultery?

Professor Warnicke has, by the way, "publically distanced" herself from how her thesis was used by Gregory in "The Other Boleyn Girl".

The story which I seem to have read most often would be differing versions of Eleanor of Aquatain and her brood. I remember your recomendation of "Wolf Hall" way back in the Beeb days I loved it, I may have another go at it soon. iI liked Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, probably because I also liked her description of Thomas More. I have never had much time for that gentleman. "The other Boleyn girl' never attracted me I have read about Mary Boleyn years ago but I am unable to remember anything about the book or the author.

Right now I am still working my way through the works of Stella Rimington, it must be my spy period and she is one of the best.

I do hope you are managed ok without the electricity, it seems you shared the problem with Caro.

I'm wittering on far too much about Retha Warnicke - will shut up about her now. But her book is worth reading. Warnicke believes by the way that the charge of incest brought against Anne and her brother, and the allegations of the queen's adultery with *four* other men were false - were in fact a frantic cover-up to prevent any blame being attached to Henry VIII for the latest catastrophe in the royal nursery. It is possible, Warnicke argues, that Anne miscarried a defective foetus in January 1536: such a tragedy would have been seen as a visitation by God, an horrendous punishment for "abominations" and "unnatural" acts (and incidentally a "wonderful" example of divine justice).

PS I did enjoy Mantel's story about Cromwell and the snowmen.

PPS Gran - had a lovely quiet day sans electricity. Got so much done without the distractions of TV, DVD, computer etc. Trying not to open the freezer door was the worst!

I have just ordered the Retha Warnicke book from the library. Will let you know what I think, in the meantime I will read another Michael Jecks for recreation, he dosent pretend to write anything but fiction!!

Glad you had a nice peaceful day.

At our library today I noticed a book described as an undemanding page-turner, or similar. Then it said it would appeal to people who love Kate Moss and Philippa Gregory. Which is why I don't really understand why we are discussing Gregory so seriously, and giving her so much credence. What programmes does she front or take part in that discuss serious academic history?

And while she is probably more popular than Hilary Mantel, twice this week someone has told me how much they are loving Wolf Hall and how I should read it. No one has told me I must read Philippa Gregory. I had thought Wolf Hall would be a rather difficult and long read, but the woman mentioning it today said it hadn't taken her long at all, and it was quite easy to read. (Unfortunately today I mentioned my father was at Cassino and the person, who I hardly know at all, brought in the Official History of the 23rd Battalion and a couple of other books, so now I have this rather daunting lot of reading to get through.)

Side-tracked again, sorry.

Oh, let's just shoot her, and be done with it.

Ah but is shooting too quick?

Well I was unable to find a Michael Jecks book, and a Phillipa Gregory stood out on the shelf, so I am now reading "the White Queen" up to now it is a nice romance which I know is all guesswork but I have never read a PG before so had to check it out.

Reckon we'll impose a stay of execution then until you're finished it

I note that Gran used the words "nice romance" to describe her book too. Maybe someone should break the news to PG, that a historian she ain't?

It's more like an anglers' guide. All that fish nonsense.

"He knew then, as she knew always, that it does not matter if a wife is half fish, if husband is all mortal. If there is love enough, then nothing - not nature, not even death itself - can come between two who love each other..." (The White Queen p.405)

PS I think I may have got it wrong about Thomas Cromwell. I'm reading the John Schofield biography at the moment and I'm starting to wriggle a bit...

Temperance wrote:

"He knew then, as she knew always, that it does not matter if a wife is half fish, if husband is all mortal. If there is love enough, then nothing - not nature, not even death itself - can come between two who love each other..." (The White Queen p.405)

It all sounds very fishy to me, Temp......

Melusina doing the 100 metres Freestyle up the Thames is the best bit.

Melusina is the ancestress of Elizabeth Woodville, by the way. She is a mermaidy, staggeringly beautiful water goddess, and she regularly communicates with the Dowager Duchess of Bedford (LIz Woodville's mum) and Liz herself.

But life is never easy when you're half (choose your own fish here), half woman:

"The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand."

The worst thing is I bought a copy of "The White Queen" when it came out in 2009.

Oh dear Temp, I can see a car boot sale in your future with all PG books. I wonder what the Priest thought when a half fish was brought in for baptism, and did said half fish swim around the font?

I have only arrived at page 65 but there was an interesting arguement between Lady Rivers and Duchess Cecilly which artfully filled in a lot of detail about both families just in case I did not know already. I will sneak a look at P405

Now Nordman, who is going to be executed PG or me?

There's a website devoted to arranging snipers to be sent out to Gregory press conferences, Gran. I didn't know that when I started the thread.

At this stage I think I'd better withdraw the term "execution" and just call it "humanitarian action all round".

Would her inaccuracies e forgivable were she to have genuine literary mert though?

ferval wrote:

Would her inaccuracies be forgivable were she to have genuine literary merit though?

Ah - that's the big question, isn't it? We forgive Shakespeare (well, most of us do - God knows what Minette would do to him if she could get her hands on him).

Have historians forgiven Robert Bolt? Does he actually *need* their forgiveness? He got the facts right, after all, but his Thomas More is now judged to be all wrong...

In forty years time I wonder what they'll be saying about Mantel's hero? Her Cromwell is certainly the man for our season - her facts are certainly correct too, but has she got her man all wrong? Who is to say?

I've always liked Margaret More's question to her father when he reminds her that Cardinal Wolsey is Chancellor of England: "No, that's his *office*, what's the *man*?" I suppose historians are concerned with the office, writers with the man. And men aren't easy to fathom. We sometimes can't even fathom ourselves, let alone folk who lived 500 years ago. And of course we all fathom differently, according to our own needs and desires and experiences.

But I must get dressed. Here I am again at the computer still in my dressing gown, and I've been up for three hours. This is what history does to you.

There was a kerfuffle in Ireland back in the late 60s or early 70s. The Catholic church prescribed a religion text book for older primary school children which, post Vatican II, concentrated more on general spiritual issues rather than the traditional catechistic approach of earlier. One chapter dealt specificially with morality and principle, and of course Robert Bolt's Thomas More was rolled out as the archetype of both. However there was of course no mention of the fact that this was a fictional concoction - the character as portrayed in the then recent film was simply taken as historical fact and the children invited to discuss the issue with that assumption in mind.

When Bolt heard about this he was apparently livid. It had never been his intention to portray an historically accurate character - his play intentionally took More as a starting point for the construction of a dramatic dilemma of principle simply because the wider public perception was (and still is) that this is how More saw the issue which led to his execution. Basing the story around More meant that he could cut to the quick in the narrative - the bones of the dilemma were familiar to every schoolchild at the time. His publishers and the film's producers Highland Films claimed that the excerpts and images used in the text book had not been authorised. Bolt's real objection was that his play had gone to considerable lengths to show that it wasn't just More who faced ethical dilemmas during the whole incident - his Henry is one of the most sympathetic portrayals, at least in the first half of the story and this had been totally ignored in the church's interpretation (More = Martyr, Henry = Antichrist). A case against the Catholic publishers was started in the Irish High Court.

The Catholic church's response? Veritas their publishers used as the main plank in their defence that Bolt's objection was effectively groundless in that his own proven lapses from morality indicated that he was in no position to judge anything in that light, not even the content of his own dramatic work. They won their case though agreed to pay Highland Films (not Bolt) a nominal royalty.

Oh how times have changed ...

nordmann wrote:

The Catholic church's response? Veritas their publishers used as the main plank in their defence that Bolt's objection was effectively groundless in that his own proven lapses from morality indicated that he was in no position to judge anything in that light, not even the content of his own dramatic work. They won their case though agreed to pay Highland Films (not Bolt) a nominal royalty.

Oh how times have changed ...

I told that story to a couple of people last night; I was horrified that their response was to laugh. I don't find it funny at all - it's frightening. What a horribly sinister twist to the idea of authorial intent being irrelevant: not only will we decide your intent for you, but if we deem you incapable - for one reason or another - of having "correct" intent, any protest you make will be disregarded. Surely this is the ultimate nightmare for any creative person? The ultimate nightmare for *any* person, in fact. Let's hope things *have* changed - I'm not so sure they have.

Isn't this the sort of dangerous absolutist control that Thomas More was actually warning - fighting - against? Wasn't More very wary of the whole idea of any kind of "supreme" authority - whether royal *or* Papal - that could not be challenged? From my general reading (and I admit it is just general, so perhaps I've got this all wrong) it seems that More was actually in favour of a sort of Church Council - a body rather like a Vatican parliament whose authority would be above that of the Pope - and which would have the power to "exhort, punish and even depose" a Holy Father should he prove incorrigible? The Pope as a kind of "removeable President of Christendom"? No one man in complete charge, pronouncing on "the truth"?

TM's comments, quoted by Will Roper, on the dangers of having too much enthusiasm for the "maintenance of the Pope's authority" (Henry's stance in his Assertio septem sacramentorum) make interesting reading.

More was acturally far from cherishing a slavish reverence for the Papacy. He had no illusions about the Pope or the Catholic Church - and neither did Erasmus. What would the pair of them think about TM's elevation to Catholic sainthood? Are they having a good merry laugh in heaven about it, I wonder, but also shaking their heads in disbelief at the folly of it all? I read somewhere that Erasmus was too good a Protestant to become one; I wonder if the same could be said about More? I believe they were both admirers of Pico della Mirandola who surely had a spiritual affinity with the Reformers - "the semi-heretic Pico was More's ideal". (Would they all be secular humanists today?)

That said, More had no illusions about the aspirations of the Reformers either. Would-be tyrants were/are everywhere - not just in the Vatican. Did More see the mini-Stalin in Cromwell? *Was* Cromwell a mini-Stalin (Hutchinson) at all, or was he in fact a decent fellow, kind to widows and orphans, a sort of Tudor Aneurin Bevan, who wanted social justice for all (Schofield)? I'm sure I don't know any more.

In fact, I'm not sure I understand anything any more - the more you try read, the more you question everything - even ideas you've had for forty years or so. But perhaps that's not a bad thing.

What a muddled message - I'm all over the place this morning. Reflects the current fragmented state of my mind, I'm afraid. Perhaps I'd better stick with mermaids and worrying about Tudor headdresses.

Strayed away from Greggers too - sorry.

Edit: Found the rest of my quotation: "Luther was too good a Catholic to stay one, and Erasmus was too good a Protestant to become one."

But it's not a very academic source, so I'm not saying where it's from (it's not Jean Plaidy).

But I do seriously wonder if More, like Milton, was "of the Devil's party without knowing it." Perhaps that's what all that self-flagellation was about.

"Anne of the Thousand Days" was on TV this morning and I recorded it. I'm watching it at the moment. I'd forgotten just how good this film is. Yes, I know it's a "Hal B. Wallis Production" (you have to say that with a pronounced American accent), but the script, based on the Maxwell Anderson play, isn't half bad. It's certainly a far, far better film than that other Gregory Girl "Other Boleyn Girl" rubbish.

Richard's Burton's speech about excommunication is superb - just watched that bit, and I still think Genevieve Bujold's Anne is the best portrayal of the character I've ever seen. Michael Hordern is an interesting, very nervous Thomas Boleyn, and Anthony Quayle, as you would expect, is a convincingly worldly Wolsey.

Another glass of wine and then back to the film - bliss! This is better than watching boring football.

Goodness, how many years has it been since I saw that movie. But Richard Burton could make the telephone book sound interesting!! anyway I plough on through PG. there is far too much witchcraft, ie blowing through the window and causing a storm in the chanell, blowing again and causing a fog on the battlefield etc. I must have a different version as page 405 does not have anything special I'm sure I will get to the swimming in the Thames part, does she have her tail then?

One part which I was interested in was the story of Anne Neville, PG writes that George locked her in her room, and dressed her as a servant girl; in a couple of other books Anne escapes from George's house and works as a servant girl at an inn. Then (This is a lovely romantic bit) Richard rescues her. Is there any evidence for either version?

Lastly there is a revue in our newpaper of "Bring up the Bodies' Quite a good revue here is an excerpt.

"Mantels risk as it was in Wolf Hall is to tell the story in the present tense, to give us Cromwell, who will himself be dead in four years' time, not seen from above, hurtling towards his inevitable end, but living his life moment by terrifying moment in a world where every day might be the last"

I will have a fair wait for the book because I am no. 153 on the waiting list.

Gran wrote:

Goodness, how many years has it been since I saw that movie. But Richard Burton could make the telephone book sound interesting!!

Hi Gran,

Actually Richard Burton did not make a convincing Henry - there were a couple of scenes when he shone, but on the whole he was miscast, I think.

I was watching the film through the rosy glow of several glasses of excellent Chateauneuf-du-Pape, I'm afraid - had I been completely sober, I'm sure I would not have been enthusing so much!

PS Did you know Elizabeth Taylor was in "Anne of the Thousand Days"? No lines to say and if you blink you miss her - but she's there all right!

Mantel's worth the wait!

Well, Gran - there's one person at least who won't be on the waiting list ahead of you. Susan Bassnett is a professor of comparative literature (I intentionally left out the capitals - can't see why they should be there at all really) at the University of Warwick. This is what she had to say prior to the publication of "Bodies" as quoted in a very entertaining essay by Daniel F.Melia, an associate professor of rhetoric and celtic studies (capitals omitted again by me) at the University of California in Berkeley;

"High on my list of Really Bad Books are two best-sellers: Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, both of which I rate as dreadfully badly written. Brown wrote to a computer game formula: solve one level and move on to the next, whereas Mantel just wrote and wrote and wrote. I have yet to meet anyone outside the Booker panel who managed to get to the end of this tedious tome. God forbid there might be a sequel, which I fear is on the horizon."

I enjoyed Wolf Hall immensely. The conceit of omitting the eponymous location from the narrative was excellent (it sucked in the Seymourites and immediately spat them out again - lovely, it's as much as that lot deserve!), as was the portrayal of More which, if controversially biased on Mantel's part, at least provided a perfect antidote to the saccharine version I grew up with. Mantel chose instead to land Cromwell with the character which squares least with what we think we know about the man, but I didn't mind that since my own favourite Cromwell is always to be found in the early C.J. Sansom "Shardlake" detective stories where he is portrayed as "M" (without a Moneypenny). That's where I go for my reality check if I need one.

Yes, I enjoy Sansom's Cromwell too, far more credible than some of the other versions that are out there. Sansom's Henry VIII and Cranmer are also well done.

Islanddawn wrote:

Yes, I enjoy Sansom's Cromwell too, far more credible than some of the other versions that are out there. Sansom's Henry VIII and Cranmer are also well done.

Indeed, but is that not the whole point: Sansom is writing an historical whodunnit and his main character is just an anonymous, crook-backed lawyer whose dealings with known historic people: Cromwell, Cranmer, the King etc are usually in private or even in secret. Nothing Sansom writes about these real people contradicts known verifiable fact, and if he does, for the sake of the plot, make things up (it is crime fiction after all) he usually states very clearly where and why he has done so, and what he has based his fiction on. Very much like Steven Saylor's Roma-sub-rosa series set in ancient Rome.

But writing crime/detective fiction set in an historical setting is very different from presuming to be an historian whilst at the same time re-writing history just to get a good story (eg. PG!).

Yes, and unlike PG, CJ Sansom has both BA and PhD in history.

Islanddawn wrote:

Yes, and unlike PG, CJ Sansom has both BA and PhD in history.

As well as once being a practising lawyer....

... so I suspect one cannot easily contradict him when he dips into the finer points of late medieaval common, criminal, secular, and ecclesiastic law.

I do like the way CJ Sansom tells you what is factually known and what he has fictionalised. Different writers have different ways of dealing with this, many of them just using a few figures from the past scattered in the background. But some (like Gregory) use actual people as their main characters and weave fiction round them, not necessarily giving the reader many clues as to what is verifiable and what isn't.

And then others use a main fictional character in ways that are confusing. I remember a CK Stead (NZ writer) novel where his character is the son or grandson of a well-known NZ person, but this grandson was fictional. He didn't have any notes or information about this, and it was uncertain, to me at least, who was real and who wasn't. And I have mentioned before the Maurice Shadbolt one where he gives detailed information at the end about the real lives of his characters, but it's proved impossible to find them in the war records where they should be.

I suppose these things don't really matter - one should accept a work of fiction as that, but some writers and some details are very true to reality, so finding ones that aren't is confusing.

Caro.

Caro wrote:

I do like the way CJ Sansom tells you what is factually known and what he has fictionalised.

I suppose these things don't really matter - one should accept a work of fiction as that, but some writers and some details are very true to reality, so finding ones that aren't is confusing.

Caro.

The "true to reality" bit is always going to be tricky though - apart from known names, dates and places. Who is to decide what reality is? But maybe training as a lawyer is the best preparation for becoming a writer of historical fiction (Mantel did a law degree). Perhaps the logical mind, trained to develop an argument carefully and methodically, is the best for writing anything to do with history. Historians and lawyers have a lot in common. The Eng. Lit. brigade (Philippa Gregory is an English graduate) should stay away from history: they are usually all over the place - illogical, wild and undisciplined and often downright silly. Perhaps they should all be shot.

PS I feel very foolish for suggesting that Thomas More, arch-conservative and ruthless persecutor of heretics, was perhaps a repressed heretic himself - a sort of Tudor St. Paul who was determined never to take the road to Damascus. Poor Sir Thomas - he's become that most dismal of things, a dreadful old bore. I got told to shut up about him last night - and that was before the penalty shootout.

EDIT: Especially when they make spelling mistakes.

persecutor persecutor persecutor

Well I took a sneaky look at the authors notes of The White Queen and PG wrote that there was very little fiction in the book, which I have problems with even knowing as little as I do I can see it on every page.

Yes, Gran. She fibs. A lot.


BTW. I like Temp's system at home for deciding Thomas More's true character. In fact the notion of knotty historical puzzles being settled by penalty shootout has some merit to it. Mind you, that would put a lot of English historical theory at a huge disadvantage.

Dan Brown is another in the mold of PG, in that he also attempts to pass twaddle off as historical fact, in order to make a fast buck from the unsuspecting.

Brown is a plagiarist to boot, or at least he attempted to pass off theories and research conducted by others (however weird these might have been) as his own. How he won that case defeats me, though it seemed to hinge on the author's duty (or not) to cite the source of factual data presented in the narrative. I assume Brown argued that this is an impossible convention to enforce, which of course is quite correct in the case of a n individual with bad manners enough not to at least thank the others whose own work made his scribbles possible.

In a sense historical fiction authors are all something of plagiarists in that sense themselves since they often engage in spinning yarns based on particular historical theories formulated by others. And some are more up front than others in acknowledging their sources. In that sense Gregory is not at the extreme end of the dishonesty scale - she does make some attempt to explain her data and who else might have originated it. Her dishonesty is based more in how she passes off extremely unsubstantial theory as fact, pretends to have engaged in research which she (or anyone else) has never conducted (she misdefines research to facilitate this lie), allows and even encourages a misapprehension to exist that she is an historian, and basically fails to admit that her flights of fancy are more corruptions of the historical record than enhancements to it due to the popularity of her books. Of course should she rectify any of these failings she would risk losing sales, and the avoidance of admitting this is the biggest evidence of dishonesty on her part of all.

A friend insisted I read Dan B’s tripe and I pretty much instantly recognised his source; I’d read Holy Blood, Holy Crap when it first came out. To be honest, I had a bigger gripe with his atrocious writing, appalling dialogue and cardboard characters than I did with his pseudo historical nonsense.
I’m still struggling with this historical fiction business and why someone like DB or PG feels the need to justify what could be simply a work of imagination and a good story with a gloss of historical accuracy. Is it so that the reader can feel that they are reading something more elevated and worthwhile than just a tale and the writer can feel that they are producing something of more import than they really are? To what extent does this alleged historical content add to their popularity and sales - and why?

In Gregory's case it's the case of Scott's "tangled web we weave". Having first promoted herself as such she is now lumbered with justifying her exaggerated role, even in the light of the ample evidence to the contrary which, with rather delicious irony, she is piling up against herself. If sales of her books initially had succeeded without recourse to that particular lie she would be in a lot less trouble now. Her problem now is that exposure as a fraud will definitely damage her saleability.