Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

[sarahmichelef]

*love*  I plowed through this faster than I've read anything since Wicked.  Review is not very coherent, for which I apologize.

I'm not Tudor/Eliz person, so I went into it sort of a blank slate, other than reading then entire book chanting "divorced, beheaded died; divorced, beheaded, survived" in my little head.  I loved Mary's perspective, her disenchantment with the court, the description of the change in Henry, her struggle with following her own desires versus her loyalty to her family.  In general, the central characters were very well-developed, especially (obviously) Anne and Mary.  I wanted to know more about William, but probably that wasn't so important to the story.  I would have liked to know more about George, for sure.  I really liked the way she set up the alleged incestuous relationship between and how Mary thinks that her siblings are being a little weird but shrugs it off and at least outwardly refuses to believe it even to the end (whereas a modern reader, even one who doesn't know that Anne was accused of adultery with her brother, will probably go "ewwww" right away).

So, yeah.  Fans of historical fiction of any period should read it.

Comments

[ursulagoddess.livejournal.com]

I'd agree, I really like this book. I hear they're making it into a movie for fall 07.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

Quite right! I like the look of the cast, too. :^D

It was apparently also a tv movie in the UK in 2003.

[ursulagoddess.livejournal.com]

The TV movie wasn't that good. I saw it as part of the, "Six Wives of Henry VIII" DVD set.

Some of her other books in the series are okay, but this one is still my favorite.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the reviews of the TV movie on IMDB were pretty mixed. I'll hold out for Scarlett Johannsen and Natalie Portman. And Eric Bana. :^D

[kass-rants.livejournal.com]

Now I heard it really sucked and was horribly inaccurate. But granted, this wasn't from people whose tastes I necessarily share. But because I have endless faith in your Right-Thinking-People-ness, my dear A, I am going to have Apprentice #2 smuggle me home a copy from the Borders where she serves coffee. =)

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

As I said, I'm not up on the "real" history of Tudor England, but it's a damn entertaining read. Here's what Gregory herself says about the history (my edition* has a Q&A with the author at the end) - there are spoilers here, if anybody actually cares...:

"Is Mary a real person? If so, what is actually known about her?"

We have the barest details about her. We know that she was born at Hever Castle in Kent, that she married William Carey, as in the novel, that she was the queen's lady-in-waiting and the king's mistress. That she was supplanted by her sister Anne, that her husband died of the sweat and she remarried a poor man for love and went to live in Essex, as in the novel. The invention of the novel is her motives and feelings, the broad facts of her life are accurate.

"How about Mary and Anne's brother, George? Did he really sleep with his sister so that she could give Henry a son?"

Nobody can know the answer to this one. Anne was accused of adultery with George at their trials and his wife gave evidence against them both. Most people think the trial was a show trial, but it is an interesting accusation. Anne had three miscarriages by the time of her tiral, and she was not a woman to let something like sin or crime stand in her way - she was clearly guilty of one murder. I think that if she though that henry could not bear a son she was quite capable of finding someone to father a child on her. If she thought that, then George would have been the obvious choice.

"It's uncommon to read about homosexuality in Henry VIII's court. Why do you think it's important to include it here?

This is based on the interesting thesis of Retha M. Warnicke**, who suggests that the circle around Anne Boleyn was a hommosexual group, and it is his homosexuality that George apologizes for on the scaffold.

Basically, one of the major premises of the book is based on scholarship that alleges 1) that George Boleyn and the other men who surrounded Anne were gay and involved with one another and 2) that George and Anne had an incestuous relationship that resulted in at least one pregnancy. If you disagree with that scholarship, you're going to hate the book. If you're agnostic or un-informed on the matter, you can ignore that stuff and enjoy the story.

*Gregory, Philippa. 2001. The Other Boleyn Girl. New York: Simon & Shuster. ISBN 0743227441.
**Warnicke, Retha M. 1991. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. (Amazon link)

[kass-rants.livejournal.com]

I always try to remember the word "fiction" in historical fiction. So if it takes liberties, as long as they didnt fly in the face of reality, I wouldn't mind.

The criticism I heard was more about Philippa Gregory's writing. But if you loved it, I think I'll give it a look.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

See, you are reasonable. It's fiction. (There's actually an interesting bit in the author Q&A about her research method and why she likes historical fiction.) The broad brushstrokes of the history are there, and the fiction's in the details.

The writing? Well, as I said, the character development was fantastic, and I couldn't put it down.

[ferriludant.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, it makes Elizabeth into a conniving slut, which is a considerable liberty... close to flying in the face of reality, if you ask me, but I'm a big lizophile.

But that aside, it was a lot of fun to read.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

You're probably thinking of The Virgin's Lover - Liz was no more than 5 or 6 when her mother was executed, and figures not a whit in The Other Boleyn Girl, other than as a disappointment due to her lack of boy-parts.

[collegecate.livejournal.com]

this is by far Phillipa Gregory's best book. Though some of the others aren't bad either, I also liked the "Queen's Fool."

[tashadandelion.livejournal.com]

Years ago I read a Philippa Gregory book that turned me off something awful. It was called The Wise Woman and it was fascinating and compulsively readable... until about halfway through, at which point the heroine became someone horrible and unlikable (obsessive, murderous, self-destructive, etc.), and finishing it was torture for me.

If that book was the unfortunate exception, I'm willing to try something else by her, but if this is pretty much her usual characterization arc, I'll avoid. Can you give me the skinny on that?

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

I found Mary thoroughly likable through the whole book. Anne, not so much, but that's kind of the point. ;^)

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

I really liked The Queen's Fool and the Virgin's Lover wasn't half-bad either. I wasn't as fond of The Constant Princess, but I haven't yet read The Other Boleyn Girl...I'll have to pick it up now.

[blazing-sun16.livejournal.com]

I read this right before Christmas and I loved it too. I love historical fiction, though, precisely because of the detail-filling in. But my favorite part of The Other Boleyn Girl was kind of a very small, very snarky aspect: Jane Seymour. In the "divorced, beheaded, died" mantra she's just a footnote, usually portrayed as sweet and weak and feeble (and then dead). But in this book she was a calculating, manipulative bitch just like Anne... and I totally bought it.