Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The White Queen



I admit that I approached reading The White Queen with more than a little hesitation.  First, I put myself firmly in the RIII fan club, having first encountered the theory that Shakespeare might have been a propagandist for the Tudors back when I was in college.  Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time and Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour simply fueled my conviction that RIII has been slandered for the past 500+ years.

Then, there is the whole issue of Philippa Gregory playing fast and loose with historical facts to suit the story she wants to tell.  Much as I admire her storytelling skills, I do like historical fiction to be accurate.

I pushed all that aside when I discovered that there was a TV series based on the Cousins War series by Gregory and that it would be shown in the U.S. starting in August.  I knew I would have to watch it and so wanted to read The White Queen first.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I now have a much better appreciation for Elizabeth Woodville--who she might have been, and what motivated her--and her whole family.  I never lost sight of the fact that The White Queen is told from Elizabeth's POV, which enabled me to still hold fast to my image of  RIII as a much-maligned good guy (ala Penman's version).  When Elizabeth rants about Richard I can remind myself that she didn't like him, trust him, or know him.

In a way, that is one of the things that made The White Queen work for me.  Elizabeth, the protagonist, is an unreliable narrator.  Her past, her ambition, her fears, her prejudices, her loyalties all distort her perspective so that the reader gets her version of events, which may or may not be exactly the way they happened.  As a character, she is a witness to history, not a historian.  This is brilliant on the part of Gregory and is actually aligned with my own view of history and storytelling...everyone has their own side of the story to tell, and they're all valid.  Well, maybe George, Duke of Clarence, doesn't really have a valid reason to gripe, but that's George!



I also loved the magical elements that Gregory added.  Magic and witchcraft interspered with battles and politics made the whole experience more like The Mists of Avalon, especially when you realize that being descended from the river goddess Melusine is actually more important in the long run (e.g., inheriting the ability to see the future, make charms, and curse) than being descended from Edward III.  Taking that a step further, it is a matriarchal line that descends from Jacquetta to Elizabeth I and even to James I and the Stuart kings.  The men fight the battles but the women determine who sits on the throne. Pretty heady stuff when you think about it.

I just picked up a copy of The Red Queen from the library and am eager to see whether Gregory can work her magic again and make me sympathetic to Margaret Beaufort, my least favorite character in The White Queen and mother of nasty Henry Tudor.



8 comments:

  1. I've never read Philippa Gregory, but I do like the occasional book set in that time period. Hmm. Maybe I'll give her a try. Thanks for the review!

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  2. The Red Queen is easily the most irritating of the Cousins War series. You might feel a little bad for Margaret but her core character doesn't really change.

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    1. I'm expecting to understand Margaret, but not to like her! :)

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  3. I agree that Shakespeare gave Richard III a bad rap. That is one reason that we should always keep in mind that in the end a historical work is fiction. If Shakespeare could take liberties with historical reality I think anyone will at times be tempted to.


    This was a really interesting time. The book sounds really entertaining.

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    1. I agree that all historical works are fictional, to a degree.

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  4. The TV series is getting a lot of attention! There seems to be a bit of a trend now for historical mini-series like this - I think The Tudors maybe set it off. Hopefully it might inspire people to read more about the period, maybe even a little history in with the fiction!

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    1. I do think The Tudors sparked the current interest in historical dramas set further back than 100-200 years. My son, a Game of Thrones fan, started watching The White Queen at my recommendation, and is now peppering me with questions about the War of the Roses. He's thinking about adding an English history class to his freshman college year so that he can actually learn more about the time frame.

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  5. I have recently become familiar with Philippa Gregory and have read two of her books in this series. I did not read them in order, but enjoyed both of them. Thanks for your review. I am looking forward to eventually reading all of them.

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