Read-a-thon

Today I'll be participating in Dewey's Read-a-thon. It's my first time doing this "event" so good luck to me. This is my stack:

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.
The Earth Made of Glass by Robert Edric.
Tambourlaine Must Die by Louside Welsh.
Auriel Rising by Elizabeth Redfern.
Thurdsbitch by Alan Garner.
Three Power Plays by David Pinner. (theatre)
The Magic Apple Tree by Susanna Hill.
Unthinkable by Mark Sable. (graphic novel)

Henrich Schütz - Psalm 150

A Visit To Turnham Green

These glriously sunny days are an invitation for a little trip around the city. All Civil War-related, of course.

Today I decided to venture a journey to the west in search of Turnham Green. It shames me to admit that I do not know the West of London very well, compared to other neighbourhood, which is ironic considering I live pretty much on the west. Research can get you out of your comfort zone and expeditions are literal as well as inner.

From UK Battlefields Resource Centre:

The battle of Turnham Green was fought on the 13th November 1642. Following the battle of Edgehill, and after taking Banbury and Oxford, the royalist army eventually advanced on London along the Thames valley. On 12th a royalist detachment attacked two parliamentarian regiments quartered in Brentford, which were covering the approach to London from the west. The royalists were victorious but their army was delayed by the parliamentarian resistance and halted, probably on Turnham Green at nightfall. This allowed the parliamentary field army and London militia to form-up on Turnham Green and Chiswick common field the next day.

Both armies appear to have deployed in traditional 17^th century style with cavalry on the flanks and infantry in the centre. The parliamentarian line extended further than that of the King’s army on the northern side of the battlefield and the royalists deployed musketeers in the hedgerows there to counter this threat. These were driven out by parliamentarian troops, which then outflanked the royalists on that flank with a march to Acton. Despite this favourable position the parliamentarian commander, the earl of Essex, recalled this detachment due to fear over splitting his army and the battle settled into a stalemate. The royalist army was too small to force its way past the parliamentarian forces and, as night fell, the King had to withdraw.

Recriminations occurred on both sides following the battle. On the royalist side, there were some who judged the King had missed an opportunity to end the war, though in reality had he launched an attack on the parliamentarian lines his own army would probably have been defeated. Others on the parliamentarian side, who saw Turnham Green as a missed opportunity to defeat the royalist army, particularly following the successful outflanking manoeuvre, probably had more of a case.

Turnham Green is now largely encompassed by the urban development of Greater London. However there are limited areas which remain undeveloped – parts of Turnham Green and Acton Green, though now municipal parkland, provide a sense of the open ground, which extended as far south as Chiswick House in the 17^th century.

Turnham Green is one of the few chances to visit Civil War battlefields inside London and since I'm short of cash to make trips to more glamurous locations like Edgehill at least for the moment, I took the bus towards Chiswick with high spirits and a copy of Eliot's The Wasteland in my bag, pen and paper, and my camera. (I always carry poetry with me, it's absolutely balsamic.)

Chsiwick itself is a tranquil and pretty part of the city; an explosion of green and things that scream "local goverment", with that feeling of tight community one finds in a village, not in a metropolis. It also looks tremendously fashionable and unaffordable.

Turnham Green turned out to be a small, flat, humble business of a park, not really atmospheric. This is the closest the Royalists came to London. I tried not to feel too esoteric about it - much as I like the idea of psychogeography I think of it as more of a poetic notion than real phenomena. But the sunlight was generous and the noises were few and I spent a nice morning sitting on benches reading and writing.


Then it was time to change scenery and make the most of a day in the West and in the 17th century but visiting another cultural, if less well-known, spot. After a long stroll along the Thames - strange, unfamiliar sights and moods, like those near the Steam Museum, and the treetops of Kew on the other side - I set off for Boston Manor Park.



The house in Boston Manor Park was built in 1623 and only converted into a house-museum in the early 20th century. The park itself is a mix of the mundane and the wild, with spots you'd find in Regent's or Hyde Park and then dark, untamed corners. (A man walking his dog passed my way and we exchange greetings - that doesn't happen in Spain, you don't exchange greetings at public parks, not in my experience anyway). The Lake was definitely a highlight. It felt refreshing under the shadow of the trees and once again I was reminded of my love of public parks.



I was excited to see the 17th century house - it looked interesting from the outside, not too grand - but alas, I had made a mistake checking the opening times and it was not open today. Oh well. The walk alone was worth it.


More info about the Battle of Turnham Green from the BBC.

Check out the website of the Friends of Boston Manor for history of the house and events.

REVIEW: Saint Thomas's Eve, by Jean Plaidy

Title: Saint Thomas's Eve
Author: Jean Plaidy
Pages: 352
Rating: 2.5/5
Bought/Borrowed/Loaned: On loan from Kensington Library.

SUMMARY
The rise and (deadly) fall of Thomas More under the reign of Henry VIII is the central spine upon which the story of Jean Plaidy's Saint Thomas's Eve is constructed. More is first seen having left a life in the monastery for the possibility of starting his own family. We follow him from humble but respected lawyer and man of learning untile he becomes one of the King's most trusted advisors. The More family grows and changes as Thomas's first wife dies and he marries - children are born and adopted and we can see the love Thomas has for all of them, but particularly affectionate is his relationship with his older daughter Margaret who becomes his confidant and best friend.

For this is Margaret More's story as much as her father's. She goes from little girl to young woman, a loving and loyal companion to Thomas More. But then Henry begins his battle to divorce Queen Katherina and pursue a relationship with Anne Bolyen. The King becomes obssessed that nothing comes in the way of his desires and Thomas More becomes more and more fanatical in his religious views, the two of them colliding in a clash of faiths and wills that would send More into his unfortunate and infamous end.

REVIEW
Having finally read one Jean Plaidy book I can easily see the appeal of her novels to a wider audience. The simpleness of her prose makes for a quick, swift read and it's easy to devour the book in a couple of days. The story was easy to follow and provided with enough interest to make you want to turn the page.

That said, I must admit this kind of book wasn't my cup of tea. I read it, and I enjoyed it well enough while at it but it also frustrated me. I love historical fiction but too often I despair at how much of it is historical fiction for the sake of historical fiction and there's not enough literature in it. I will always seek literary value and style above anything else in what I read, that's why Jean Plaidy couldn't satisfy me. She is just not that much of a great writer. There is a diference between having an unintrusive voice and being colourless, and this book's prose didn't fly. A fun but underwhelming read.

The other thing that annoyed me was the use of an ommniscient narrator at times; I have real trouble with that sort of point of view, and the novel would have been much more interesting without the added psychology and the paragraphs and paragraphs about the character's inner thoughts. I liked the idea of the switching POVs but sometimes they weren't consistent and the telling of the story slipped into this omniscent narrator.

There are things I enjoyed about the book, nonetheless: I liked the portrayal of Margaret's relationship with her father, and that's the heart of the book. I felt they had good and touching scenes. It was a good thing to see how, while her feeling of devotion towards Thomas More remained untouched in Margaret as he grew up, she started questioning some of his more fanatical actions. As a side note it was a curious read, this book that portrays More as a very likeable and sympathetic character, after having read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, with its view of More as a dangerous extremist. Most of the story is seen through Margaret's eyes and I always have a soft spot for an external-to-the-action point of view and here it really works. The book makes good and constant use of parallel and opposite scenes - for example the scene where Henry VII decides to make Thomas More his enemy out of a grudge and the scene where newly-crowned Henry VIII warmly welcomes More and his poetry.

Bottom line, even though I had a good enough time reading this I'm not very likely to pick any other Plaidy in the future, unless the subject really interests me.

In any case, be sure to check out Jean Plaidy's Royal Intrigue (and its blog), an excellent site dedicated to the author that continues to delight.

Historical Fiction Event Alert

Today, March 18, you can swing by the Waterstone's bookshop in Notting Hill Gate for an event focused on three writers and their latest books - Adrian Tinniswood, Paul Strathern and Douglas Ronald.

Adrian Tinniswood is also the author of The Verneys: Love, War and Madness in Seventeenth-century England, a really entertaining and fascinating book on the Civil War that has been of great help in my research.

EVENT INFO: (link to Waterstone's website)

WATERSTONE'S NOTTING HILL GATE
Thursday, 18 March 2010, 6:30PM - 8:30PM
£3 redeemable against purchase of a book on the night
Come and meet these three history experts as they discuss their latest books

A Researcher's Weapons

So my highlighting pencils have arrived from Amazon.co.uk; it's not that I've become so dependent of internet shopping that I couldn't just go to a normal stationery shop and just buy them. It's that none of the Ryman or WH Smith or Paperchase or such places near me stock them. That was surprising but I guess in Spain we are much fonder of the pencils than here, where people seem to use only highlighter pens.

Now I can go about doing the rest of my research with a little more method to my madness.

News: New Shakespeare

Double Falsehood; or, the Distrest Lovers had been thought a "false Shakespeare", a hoax, for over two centuries. Now the Arden Shakespeare has decided to publish a complete version, placing it in the Shakespeare canon, and the Royal Shakespeare Company will stage a version of it this next summer at Stratford-upon-Avon. The version is being developed by associate director Gregory Doran. The story is based on parts of Cervantes' Quixote.

Read the whole article in The Times.

Library loot.

- Lindsay Davis, Rebels and Traitors.
- Jean Plaidy, Saint Thomas' Eve. (my first Plaidy)
- Elizabeth Redfern, Auriel Rising.
- Richard Tames, Shakespeare's London.
- Malcolm Airs, Tudor & Jacobean country house.
- John Banville, Kepler.

REVIEW: Havoc, in its Third Year, by Ronnan Bennett

Title: Havoc, In Its Third Year
Author: Ronnan Bennett
Pages: 320
Rating: 4/5
Bought/Borrowed/Loaned: Bought at Waterstone's Notting Hill


SUMMARY

Set during the very tense times of 1630s in England Havoc opens with its protagonist, John Brigge, coroner and governor of a small, tight community in the cold north, is called to examine the case of a baby murdered by its mother, a helpless Irish woman. Brigge's own wife is about to give birth for the first time and the character is assaulted by fears and bad premonitions. The town is on the brink of war with itself, the Puritans taking over the goverment of the place and becoming more restless in their prosecution of Catholics. Brigge himself is of the "old faith" and so he only brings more suspicions upon himself when he appears determined to defend the Irish woman's innocence, searching for the truth of the crime whatever the cost.


REVIEW
A curious thing happened in reading this novel: as I was going through the pages I was liking the book, indeed enjoying it, but I didn't think too much of it in terms of quality, somehow I considere it "minor". But then in hindsight I realized I was more impressed with the book than I thought initially.

Bennett delivers an atmospheric book, easy to read and hard to forget - the sombre mood, the constant hissing of the wind, the feeling of riding in the middle of the night, in complete darkness. The writing, deceptively simple, is very powerful and paints a very believable picture of a world on the edge, a prelude of sorts to what's to come, the open Civil War. This aspect of the book was very relevant to me and my research because I felt like Bennett had succeeded in taking the reader to those years, that soil, the constant threat in the air, the thinly-veiled Puritan inquisitions, the centuries-old prejudices against the Irish... The mystery and thriller elements of the book were less interesting to me, because in general I'm not interested in those genres. It's not a perfect book: it has some false steps (the protagonist predictable relationship with the young maid) and some of the dialogue felt a bit forced in places (the authorities and their threats) but in the end it's a gorgeous book, with sharp, tight language that never makes the mistake of trying to copy 17th century speech but at the same time feels very much of the period. That is the illusion good historical novel writers should be after. That is Ronan Bennett's triumph.

New Adquisition: Ireland 1649-52

Michael McNally, 1649-52: Cromwell's Protestant Crusade.
Bought in: Waterstone's, Oxford Street.
Price: 25 pounds (pricey, I know, specially for 96 pages, but I had a whim)

Having about a third of my novel set during Cromwell's campaign of Ireland I realized I knew very little about the actual military intricacies of that period of the war. Military strategy is by far my weakest subject so after a really crappy day it felt good to spend an unreasonable amount of money (I could have got the book for less than half at Amazon) on a glossy book. Not to be indulging in clichés but I always enjoy the fish-out-of-the-water feeling I get whenever I spend some time in the Military History section of a bookshop. I look around me and mostly I see middle-age men. Sometimes younger, but definitely always men. I feel like such an impostor, browsing the shelves for ulterior motives and not because of a true passion for German tanks.


Self-conscious bookshop experiences aside, this little book is exactly what it says on the tin, which was what I was looking for. Part of the Osprey Campaign military series, it provides with (mostly) clear information and useful maps and things like list of the officers in the regiments (which is very inspirational if you are trying to pick names for the supporting characters). I did not mind too much that the author's take on the Cromwell campaign in Ireland was so different from mine - he glossed over Cromwell's military skills and overlooks the atrocities he comminted. But I don't get bummed over these things anymore, after reading 20+ books on the subject, I've started to tune those things off.

It is a rather slim and basic volume but since I intended to use it as a tool that was exactly what I was looking for. A good buy, despite the price.

Links: One interesting review at Wikio, where the user summarizes the content in detail.

Summary (from Random House):

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Following the execution of King Charles I in January 1649, the English Parliament saw their opportunity to launch an assault on the Royalist enclave in Ireland. Oliver Cromwell was appointed as Deputy of Ireland to lead a campaign to restore direct control and quell the Confederate opposition.

The first battle in Cromwell's bloody offensive was at Drogheda, where an assault on the city walls resulted in the slaughter of almost 4000 defenders and inhabitants. The Parliamentary troops then proceeded to Wexford where battle once again lead to a massacre. After Cromwell returned to England, his son-in-law, Henry Ireton, continued the operation which ended with the surrender of Galway in 1652 and led to the Act for the Settlement of Ireland, in which Irish Royalists and Confederates were evicted and their lands 'settled' by those who had advanced funds to Parliament.