THE GIRL WHO MADE TH EKING DANCE TO HER TUNES

The Other Boleyn Girl - Review

Two sisters and as unlike each other as can be. One a shy, fair haired girl. The other bold and dark haired. One longed to be in the simplicity of the country side. The other loved the glamour of the court. Mary and Anne Boleyn make interesting characters for a novel. And their ambition to win the heart of a vain and eccentric Henry VIII makes the novel a gripping read.

The novel is told from the viewpoint of Mary who enters the court of Henry as a fourteen year old lady in waiting to Katherine, Queen of England. She catches the eye of the King, whom she learns to love even though she is already married to William Carey. However, she soon realizes that she is a mere pawn in her family’s ambitious plots. The king’s interest wanes and she is forced to step aside for her best friend 

and rival - her sister, Anne. 

Creating captivating characters 

The triumph of this novel is in Gregory’s skillful handing of her brilliant characters - the two sisters, Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, the Duke of Norfolk, Jane Boleyn or even George Boleyn. Each one of them sparkles in their own right. However, Anne’s mysterious character steals the show. Quick witted, temperamental, extraordinarily determined, and almost cruel in her ambition, she is one woman who knew what she wanted and made it against all odds.

At a time when the word ‘divorce’ did not exist, it is she who attempts to think the unthinkable. 

She plants the idea in the King’s mind that Katherine was not a virgin when she married him 

and therefore, he is not married to her. One is almost forced to think that Henry is a mere puppet in her hands not the King of England.

Whether Anne was still a virgin when she got married to Henry is doubtful. However, in the novel she played Henry VIII till he kept coming and then turned him away till he couldn't bear it.

When Mary is pregnant with Henry’s child her mother says, “Thank God Anne has him in her toils. She plays with him like you might tease the queen’s dog. She has him on a thread” and Anne tells Mary that she is going to “hold out till he sees that he has to make me an offer, a very great offer”.

Pace of the narrative

Despite the gripping plot and interesting characters, Gregory’s hold slackens towards the middle of the novel. The long drawn delay in the annulment of the marriage to Katherine, Anne’s bouts of temper, the successive miscarriages all seem repetitive.

Historical accuracy and creative license

The historical accuracy of a number of facts can also be doubted. Whether Mary was the younger sister or the elder is not sure. Mary is worried about sleeping with the King and says to George and Anne, “I don’t know how to do it… You know, William did it once a week or so, and that in the dark, and quickly done, and I never much liked it. I don’t know what it is I am supposed to do.” 

But in truth, Mary was not a naive maid. Before coming to Henry’s court she was in fact a mistress to the King Francis I of France.

Likewise George’s homosexuality and attraction towards Anne is also unclear.

THE TUDOR SERIES - THE CONSTANT PRINCESS

If you are the kind of person who is fascinated by Henry VIII’s six wives then Philippa Gregory’s books could make for an interesting read. Although the books are not written in strict chronological order or even like a series, the correct order to read them would be The Constant Princess followed by The Other Boleyn Girl, The Wise Woman, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Queen's Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, and The Other Queen.

The first book in the series, The Constant Princess introduces one of Gregory’s most unforgettable heroines - Katherine of Aragon. Known to history as the Queen who was pushed off her throne by Anne Boleyn, here is a Katherine the world has forgotten, the enchanting princess that all England loved.

The best part of the novel is easily the depiction of Katherine’s childhood in Spain. Her early years were spent on the battlefield, as her parents drove the Moors from Spain, and later in residence at the Alhambra. Since her infancy Katherine was betrothed to Henry VIII’s older brother, Arthur. When at 15 she makes the journey to England, she is shocked by the comparative barbarity of the people (though she admits that the luxuries she’s used to—indoor plumbing, hospitals, good food—were introduced by the very people her parents have tried to exterminate). At first she dislikes Arthur,

“When I first saw him I thought he was as beautiful as a knight from the romances, like a troubadour, like a poet. I thought I could be like a lady in a tower and he could sing beneath my window and persuade me to love him. But although he has the looks of a poet he doesn't have the wit. I can never get more than two words out of him, and I begin to feel that I demean myself in trying to please him.”

Katherine is infuriated by the ungraceful ways of Arthur, especially when he boasts that he has been in Spain all night after spending the first night together.

“In Spain," indeed! He would have got no closer than the Indies if I had not showed him how to do it. Stupid puppy.”

Gregory masterfully captures the trials and tribulations of a new bride in a foreign country, in the home of a rude and lecherous father in law and a weak husband. With time however, Katherine’s passion turns their arranged marriage into a love match. Soon the young couple is full of plans for a progressive England. Unfortunately, even before they could celebrate their first anniversary, Arthur dies. On his deathbed, Arthur forces a promise from Katherine - tell the world the marriage was unconsummated, marry little brother Henry and carry on with Arthur’s dreams.

The merciless English court and her ambitious parents, the crusading King and Queen of Spain -- have to find a new role for the widow. Ultimately, it is Katherine herself who takes control of her own life by telling the most audacious lie in English history, leading her to the very pinnacle of power in England. This lie becomes the turning point of the novel and eventually in the later novels the reason of Katherine’s downfall.

In a cruel twist of fate, while Katherine is eyeing Arthur’s brother, she catches the eye of her father in law. At first the lecherous king makes a play for his daughter-in-law, but Katherine holds out for ten-year-old Henry. After years of living in poverty, she finally becomes Queen. Of course, our Catalina is not destined for a happy ending, but the early years of her marriage to the devoted Henry are joyous.

The Constant Princess is strongly informed by historical events, but is more engaging and exciting than most historical novels. At its heart, The Constant Princess wants to be a love story about the Spanish princess and her first husband, and her efforts to keep a promise she makes to him.

Gregory’s Katherine is a consummate actress, a head strong, role defying woman who has the audacity to lead a king like Henry VII, her father in law to boot. Ambition is the sole driving force of her life, for which she is ready to marry even her father in law at one point of time. Yet she is an endearing woman and beloved of the people whose constancy helps her endure betrayal, poverty, and despair, until the inevitable moment when she steps into the role she has prepared for all her life - Henry VIII's Queen, Regent, and commander of the English army in their greatest victory against Scotland.

Cuckold I

Writing a review is a really funny thing, because it begins on the presumption that you know a book better than writer and therefore are in a position to judge it. Nevertheless, I too am making this presumption. The book is concern is Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar.
Here’s an excerpt from the book’s intro.

“The time is early 16 century. The Rajput Kingdom of Mewar is at the height of its power. It is locked in war with the Sultanates of Delhi, Gujarat and Malwa. But there is another deadly battle being waged within Mewar itself. Who will inherit the throne after the death of the Maharana? The course of history, not just of Mewar but of the whole of India, is about to be changed forever. That is the bare plot-line. It is a singularly inadequate description of the scope and richness of the novel.
Nagarkar subtly plays with form and tradition and breaks new ground, enlarging our notions of fiction. He takes the sweep and breadth of the epic with its panoply of war, intrigue and action and introduces a deeply introspective and reflective note into it. He sets up the old triangle of man, woman and lover and pushes it to the edge to make it a love story like none other.
At the centre of Cuckold is the narrator, heir apparent of Mewar, who questions the codes, conventions and underlying assumptions of the feudal world of which he is a part, a world in which political and personal conduct are dictated by values of courage, valour and courtesy; and death is preferable to dishonour."

Nagarkar picks up the legend of Meera, and turns it into an analysis of a wide spectrum of complex characters, political upheaval, Rajput patriotism, Mughal ambitions and finally the huge ramifications it has on the course of a country’s history. The story told from the viewpoint of the cuckold breaks all conventions of the stereotypical hero. It allows us to explore the possibility of having a God, none other than the Flautist as a competitor.

Nagarkar takes the liberty of drawing a hero who is sensible, progressive despite facing unrequited love. Yet he too is a Maharaj Kumar, and his definition of love does not necessarily mean a monogamous affair. He has no qualms of have an incestuous relation with his Dai who breast fed him, and also seducing the woman who is under trial for adultery and he the presiding judge of the trial to boot.

Maharaj Kumar, despite his accurate intuitions failed to curb the power of his brother and secure the thrown for himself. One may also doubt the actual role played by him in the wars against Gujrat and Malwa. And yet Maharaj Kumar is no Othello, there are many redeemable qualities in his character. The fact that he shunned second marriage till the time it was possible for him, and even donned on the garbs of the Flautist to meet Meera on an equal footing are some of the endearing facets of his persona.
The story of Maharaj Kumar raises the question of many possibilities had he succeeded to the thrown after his father. Would he have successfully conquered Delhi from Babur? Would he be a cruel heartless murderer as the wars he fought against Gujrat suggest? Wondering these possibilities one may very often forget that the character of the Maharaj Kumar one knows, is actually nothing but a figment of the writer’s imagination.

To be continued…