Guilty pleasures: On reading Philippa Gregory

So yeah, I read Philippa Gregory's latest, The Lady of the Rivers, over the weekend. It's the third in her Cousins' War series, after The White Queen and The Red Queen. All concern women who were involved in the Wars of the Roses -- the battle over the English crown that was ultimately resolved with Henry VII's establishment of the Tudor dynasty -- and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth of York's mother, Elizabeth Woodville, is the White Queen of the first book. Henry VII's mother, Margaret Beaufort, is the Red Queen of the second book (even though she was never queen). The new book is about Elizabeth Woodville's mother, Jacquetta. People who sound knowledgable on sites like LibraryThing sometimes knock Gregory for historical accuracy. I understand their frustration; if you notice details about certain things, inaccurate portrayals can ruin an otherwise well-done production. I have a hard time with any TV or movie  portrayal of newspaper journalism, or horse riding, for that reason. But even though I'm a history buff (in the sense of someone who likes popular histories and will watch almost any costume drama), I'm not an inaccuracy cop when it comes to historical fiction. If someone in pre-New World Contact Europe were eating a potato or a tomato I might not even notice. And I take popular works of fiction like Gregory's as just that: fiction. I don't assume that she's got some kind of time capsule that gives her access to the definitive version of what happened. I assume that she's done some research into her characters and their situations and come up with her own portrayals of the events and how her characters viewed them. If I wanted rock solid factually based referenced and sourced account of the events I'd read ... nonfiction. Something like She-Wolves by Helen Castor, or the nonfiction works of Antonia Fraser or Alison Weir, whose new book on Mary Boleyn -- you know, the Other Boleyn Girl? -- is high on my TBR list at the moment.

In the meantime, I enjoyed this particular piece of brain candy. It's not a work of history; I'm not going to claim from now on that the York-Lancaster-Tudor settlement was in fact based on the magical properties Jacquetta of Luxembourg inherited from the mermaid Melusina and passed on to her daughter and granddaughter. But I do have a better understanding of the various players in the Wars of the Roses, and their relationships to each other.

Teaser Tuesdays: Contested Will by James Shapiro

Still prepping for arguments about Anonymous -- which still hasn't made it to Key West -- by reading up on the Shakespeare authorship issue. My current title is Contested Will by James Shapiro, acquired via Interlibrary Loan (thanks, Alachua County!). Here's my teaser:

"This was no parlor game for Twain, nor was his interest in Shakespeare and the authorship question a passing fancy. Quite the contrary; no writer of his day had wrestled longer with both." - p. 131

Want to play along? Check out all the Teasers in the Comments section of the Should Be Reading blog -- post your own link or, if you don't have a blog, just post your teaser in the comment. Happy reading!

Good dog

My review of Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean ran in Solares Hill today. Here's the brief version: I really liked the book. This despite the fact that I usually avoid dog books because of the inevitable problem of the dog's lifespan relative to the people. I already felt that way and going through a dog tragedy of my own recently just strengthened the conviction. But this is a different kind of dog book -- it's really a social history of 20th century America, told through the lens of a German shepherd who started out as a silent film star and, through his onscreen if not biological progeny, continued in movie serials and TV shows to become part of the culture. I think it's Orlean's best book. I liked the Orchid Thief although I thought that one worked better as a magazine story than a full-length book. This tale, with all its succeeding generations and interesting background and context (like the history of the German shepherd breed and the evolution of dogs from work animals to pets in American society) did not feel stretched out at all. I'm hoping there's a documentary in the works -- with lots of footage, including whatever is available of the original silent film star Rin Tin Tin, a dog so dominant in that new medium that when the first Academy Awards ballot was held in 1927, he won the most votes for Best Actor.

As long as I'm praising books I've read recently I'll throw in a link to my recommendation of The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, written for the Key West Library's Staff Favorites page.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Leftovers by Tom Perotta

I gave up on The Victorians by A.N. Wilson yesterday and turned to some newly published fiction -- Tom Perotta's The Leftovers. As I expected, his engaging style had me humming along in no time -- 116 pages in without realizing it. The novel, in case you haven't read the reviews, takes place about three years after a Rapture-like event in which millions of people are taken up. Actually they simply disappear, without regard to religious affiliation or devotion level. The titular leftovers are those left behind and they cope in a variety of ways.

"Laurie wanted to do her part for the G.R. [Guilty Remnant], she really did. But the thought of walking over there, ringing the doorbell, and asking Kevin for half of everything she'd turned her back on filled her with shame."

Want to play along? Post your own teaser on your blog and then link to it int he comments section of Should Be Reading. Don't have a blog? You can just post the teaser in the comments.

*10/29 update: Finished the book, liked it a lot, wrote a recommendation for the Staff Favorites section of the Library's website, which you can read here.

Who is this guy?

Even though I'm certain the movie "Anonymous" is going to irritate the hell out of me, I will see it. Mostly because I will watch just about any Elizabethan costume drama. And because some weird voyeuristic part of me gets a kick out of seeing people get all worked up over the Oxford vs. Stratford argument. This is the century-old debate over whether William Shakespeare as we know him -- the author of all those comedies, tragedies, histories and sonnets -- was a glovemaker's son-turned-actor from Stratford or the aristocratic Earl of Oxford, who merely used the actor's name to shield himself from potential social and political reprisals. The movie tells the Oxford version of the story and will doubtless create endless new arenas for debate, a bunch of new Oxfordians and irritate the hell out of Stratfordians (which includes the vast majority of the scholarly establishment). I only hope longtime Oxfordians get equally riled up because now most of the public is going to believe Roland Emmerich -- a guy best known for disaster pics like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 -- came up with this theory. My position is: I don't really care. I'm a sentimental Stratfordian merely because I like the idea that a schmoe of ordinary birth could turn out to be the greatest literary genius of the English language. I'm also cynical about conspiracy theories, especially those that would require conspiring on behalf of a whole lot of people. (This piece in the New York Times has a great line about the ability of Shakespeare scholars to pull off conspiracies.) But I think the plays are the things -- what matters is that we have this treasure trove of literary genius, not which guy's hand held the pen.

At least the whole tantalizing question of Shakespeare's identity and his legacy, and all the unanswered questions around him, has left us with so much material for so many interesting books, fiction and non. If you'd like to read a Shakespeare biography without signing over a couple weeks of your life, I highly recommend Bill Bryson's. It's part of the Eminent Lives series of briefish biographies by popular writers (as in nonacademic specialists, not potbiolers). The Key West Library has a large print copy which is 240 pages and it concludes with a chapter dealing with the various "claimants," ie. people who are not Shakespeare that people have proposed as the writers of Shakespeare's work. Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World and Peter Ackroyd's biography also come highly recommended, though they're both quite a bit longer than Bryson's. And after reading this ringing Stratfordian defense by Simon Schama I've put in an Interlibrary Loan request for James Shapiro's Contested Will. Shapiro himself has also weighed in on the movie, in a New York Times op-ed.

But what I really like are modern crime novels where a long-lost Shakespeare talisman serves as the MacGuffin.  My favorite is The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber. In that one, the Shakespeare artifact that has mysteriously surfaced after the centuries is a lost play about Mary Queen of Scots. Another that goes directly to the Stratford-Oxford question is Chasing Shakespeares by Sarah Smith. So does The School of Night by Alan Wall though it's less effortlessly entertaining (though highly intelligent) than the previous two. I'm told good things, too, about The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips -- not so much a crime novel as a literary puzzlebox, from the descriptions, but it's got its own lost Shakespeare play, this one about King Arthur.

One thing I have not yet done, the stuff I have not read -- though I really should, if only justify lugging the giant Riverside Shakespeare around with me for the last 25 years -- are the works of Shakespeare. (I have read most of the works of Shakespeare -- I was an English major -- but not in adulthood, which I find makes a big difference in how you understand a lot of stuff they made you read in high school and college. Wasted on the young, as they say.)