The Other Boleyn Girl was a different view of merry Ole England than 1984. Though it was almost as dark at times. To be honest my heart isn't really in this post. Don't misunderstand, the book was good in a historical romance novel type of way, but it fizzed at the end and has left me a little dry. The narrator for this book is Anne's younger sister Mary, in the film played by Scarlett Johansson, but she doesn't narrate the film. Now I'm not sure how I feel about this quasi first person way which Ms. Phillipa uses. Because it's obvious that she wants to tell the story from a lesser known character's point of view, and as such invent an interesting new character. Where I distaste such an approach is that Phillipa has her narrators quite naive to the torrid turmoil of the royal court. But for all their innocence they are very aware of how the whole affair is unfolding. Also there are lapses where the narrator describes things in 1st person that she didn't experience in 1st person. Conversely the reader and the narrator are at other times jointly kept in the dark about some shady dealings of the other characters. These inconsistencies don't really bother me they're just stylistic hazards.
As the narrator Mary Boleyn(pictured here) really steals the story. Anne Boleyn is the classic historical character but she really takes a back seat in this book. It is called The Other Boleyn Girl because the two sisters are rivals. At first Mary is King Henry's lover and Anne is overshadowed, then they switch places as Anne steals the King's attention. The images of these historical characters is very engaging, but initially the part I wanted to get to was Anne and Henry's marriage. This also brings me to my major problem with the book. The book annoyingly stalls out along with Henry and Anne's wedding. It just blah blahs along while Henry tries to divorce his first wife. Then it just glazes over their wedding. Somewhere in all of this the book hits its climax when Mary courts and marries William Stafford. Once this happened I was satisfied and disconnected from the story which just fell apart along with Anne's life. By the time they chopped her head off I didn't care and could have chopped the book up without much remorse.
Overall King Henry was kind of a major douche, shagging any girl flaunted in front of him. The Other Boleyn Girl tries to throw in some medieval feminism but whatever. It peaks early and is very good up to that point. Then an overly long fizz follows. Dragging so much that I didn't really care who lost their head. At least I now know some good methods for flirtatiously snagging power men, so look out Luke!
5 comments:
I probably will never read this book. BUT, I did comment first on your post which gives me some kind of credit right?
Here's a fun little mnemonic to remember the fate of Henry's wives: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
And you can take that to the bank.
LUKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I learned that same device as a child watching the cartoon Histaria!!! I've sung it for years!!! Divorced, beheaded, died. . . divorced, beheaded, survived!!
Histaria was the greatest show eva and it's a crime against humanity that it's no longer shown. There was one skit where a boy is sad and alone and so Hitler or Stalin (I can't remember which) befriend him and it plays out like a sitcom. Everyone who's mean to or bullies the kid gets taken away by the dictator's stormtroopers. So hilarious.
I remember a skit on the Roman Vomitorium. It was all about the Romans stuffing themselves with food then going to the vomitorium to puke it back up. It showed all these Romans running back and for between the table and the areas built for vomitation.
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