My review of Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

Good Morning, Midnight

by 

Jean Rhys

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Jean Rhys's 1939 Kafkaesque tragi-farce is an all powerful and evocative trip into a Paris of times past and the existentialist internal world of a tortured woman heading for disaster.

Middle-aged English woman Sasha Jensen has returned to Paris after a long absence. Her trip down Memory Lane is enabled by money lent by a kind friend. Close to broke, Sasha is haunted by a past loveless marriage and her baby's death.

Adrift in the city she feels connected to despite its painful memories, she bases herself in a dingy hotel room, waking and emerging mostly after dark, hence the title Good Morning, Midnight - taken from a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Sasha wanders streets and bars reminiscing. She drinks, takes pills, obsesses over her hair, clothes and creeping age, all the time ruminating scornfully over society.

This is the maturing Jean Rhys at her cynical best. Published on the eve of WWII's outbreak, when readers craved more uplifting, optimistic fiction, this was her last before vanishing into literary obscurity for decades, with people assuming her dead.

In its time it was thought too dark, too depressing, too sordid. More than a few found its storyline repellent. She was, however, a writer aeons ahead of her time, with a supreme talent for resonating with our innermost primal emotions.

My first ever reading of this was my chance introduction to Rhys, who would become my all time literary favourite. An eerie experience, it was like reading my own thoughts, penned decades before I was born ... just for me to read someday long after the author's death.

My affinity with Jean Rhys was instant and unshakeable. She was an underrated literary genius whose eventual great acclaim came far too late, when she was too old and frail to enjoy it. If only she could have been more prolific in her prime!

Good Morning, Midnight changed the way I read fiction forever and remains my favourite Jean Rhys novel. I still return regularly to it and quote liberally from its superlative narrative.

Prose at times like poetry, nihilistic yet astoundingly beautiful, everyone should read this timeless treasure.

My review of Bess of Hardwick by Mary Lovell

Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth, 1527-1608

by Mary S. Lovell

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

I relished this important biography of a fascinating woman. Among other things, Bess was maternal grandmother to the girl considered possible successor to Elizabeth I, Lady Arbella Stuart. This in itself strengthened Bess's intricately woven ties to royalty.

She was also for a long time the main keeper and confidante of the captive Mary, Queen of Scots, hand picked by Queen Elizabeth herself, so highly respected and trusted was Bess. For anyone fascinated by that legendary Scots martyr queen, as I have always been, this biography makes for essential reading. That said, Bess's story is a standalone by any measure.

Here was an extraordinary woman, especially for her time, but really against any historical backdrop. Transcending her somewhat humble beginnings, Bess married four times and rose to become an independent woman of means, materially on a par with Queen Elizabeth in wealth and power, an astonishing climb. This was the wealthiest non-royal lady in all England, keeper of rival monarchs, royal secrets and mistress of her own unique dynasty.

A formidable woman by all accounts, Bess created and left some of England's most splendiferous architecture including Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall ('... more glass than wall').

She earned respect for having retained her earthiness while becoming a breathtaking example of a new aristocracy, all the way demonstrating remarkable business acumen that many a man envied.

The story of this funny, po-faced termagant with her jewelled but work-worn finger ever on the ledger book, is an absolute must read, not to be excluded by any keen reader of Elizabethan history.

My review of Elizabeth I by Alison Plowden

Elizabeth I

by 

Alison Plowden

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars        

I just re-read this, as background revision, while watching the 2022 drama series 'Becoming Elizabeth'.

Alison Plowden is a queen of this genre. Her writing is addictive. Her research is meticulous, her detail mindboggling, her immortalised subject re-humanised. Elizabeth's life was fascinating regardless whose account you read - and I've read dozens - but this is among the better ones.

With her mother, Anne Boleyn, executed when Elizabeth was two, and her parents' marriage annulled, she was declared illegitimate. At twenty-five this dogged survivor succeeded her half-sister 'Bloody Mary', who had imprisoned Elizabeth for almost a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

Tagged the 'Virgin Queen', Elizabeth considered herself married to England, never settling on a groom when any choice of foreign prince could have worked politically against her favour. Her true great love, Robert Dudley 'the Gypsy', was beneath her in rank, of famously treasonous stock and of dubious public renown after the mysterious death of his wife Amy.

More moderate a ruler than her father and half-siblings, one of her mottoes was 'video et taceo' ('I see, and say nothing'). Her Religious Settlement evolved into today's Church of England. Her eponymous age saw English drama flourish, led by Shakespeare and Marlowe, with seamen like Francis Drake knighted as heroes.

Her forty-four year reign, for many years politically shaky after she was branded a heretic by the pope, eventually brought England stability, helping forge its sense of national identity.

Renowned by detractors as short-tempered and indecisive, Elizabeth was also famously charming and no flibbertigibbet. On the contrary, she was a wily mistress of prevarication. Blessed with the 'common touch' she was hugely popular with her subjects, nicknamed 'Good Queen Bess' and 'Gloriana'.

The Spanish Armada's failure associated her with one of English history's greatest military victories. Her Tilbury speech to the troops, delivered wearing a silver breastplate over a white velvet dress, is legendary.

The reader of Alison Plowden's Elizabeth I is left feeling entertained, informed and satisfied.

A great addition for the more widely read Elizabeth I buff, a sound starting point for novices of this the subject and genre. Can't imagine anyone being disappointed by this book about England's all time favourite monarch.

                                                                                                                            

My review of The Sisters Who Would Be Queen by Leanda de Lisle

The Sisters Who Would Be Queen

by 

Leanda de Lisle

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Leanda de Lisle undertook a bold and lofty endeavour penning this. She triumphs gloriously.

Most Tudor readers know about the usurping 'nine days queen' Lady Jane Grey who, after her fleeting, reluctant reign, was beheaded under the rightful Queen [Bloody] Mary I. Jane, languishing in the Tower of London, might have lived had the ageing Queen Mary's unsettled marriage negotiations with Philip of Spain not looked diplomatically grimmer the more lenient she was towards poor Jane.

Philip's Catholic envoys wanted Protestant Jane's head off, which left Queen Mary's hands tied. Young Jane has been depicted in varying lights by recent biographers less sympathetic than those before who had handed her down to history as an innocent victim of others' dynastic scheming (primarily, that of her parents). 

Many Tudor aficionados, however, until this book, knew only scant details of Jane's two sisters who suffered so appallingly under Mary I's successor, Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch and irrefutable villainess of this piece.

The childless 'Virgin Queen' Elizabeth's reign became fraught with nervous speculation on her successor. Enter the two 'other' Grey sisters Katherine and Mary, maternal granddaughters of Henry VIII's younger sister Mary, 'the French queen'. (The latter had, on her husband Louis XII of France's death, married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and produced four children, one being Francis, mother of these three Grey sisters).

All three Grey sisters were treated abysmally because of their positioning in the meandering line of Tudor succession. They are masterfully drawn as distinctly individualised characters: Jane Grey - headstrong, intelligent, yet martyred - was driven by her faith and principles, while torn by her sense of duty. The beautiful, romantically impetuous Katherine Grey was ruled by her heart, not her head. The plainer, diminutive Mary Grey, the least educated or threatening, just kept her head down aiming only to survive her piteous ride. 

The reader is lulled into empathy. We are left deeply moved, immensely informed and ravenous for more of this superb writer's magic. 

Never wanting to put this book down, I was saddened to reach its last page. And that's what great writing's about. A splendid achievement by a formidable writer and historian.

My review of Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser

Mary Queen of Scots

by 

Antonia Fraser

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Nobel Laureate Lady Antonia Fraser's rare combination of formidable historical knowledge and exquisite penmanship makes this book a supreme standalone piece.

For this, her first major publication, she was awarded the 1969 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The 40th anniversary edition was published in 2009, two years before she was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to literature.

Few of Lady Fraser's other historical biographies have come close, in my opinion, to this now definitive work on one of history's most unique and fascinating queens. The religiously martyred Mary, Queen of Scots, has for centuries also been politically demonised. Accordingly, Fraser enumerates in her 'Author's Note' that this book aims:

(1) To test the truth or falsehood of the many legends surrounding the subject; and

(2) To set Queen Mary in the context of the age in which she lived.

Fraser has endured considerable criticism from more recent biographers of Mary Stuart, her own portrait being largely sympathetic in stressing Mary's key virtues. Yet this grandmother of eighteen, widow of Harold Pinter and daughter of the 7th Earl and Countess of Longford, is is no doubt above such flippant critique from what must seem to her like amateur upstarts.

Anyone interested in history and monarchy will adore this. I drooled like the cat that's got the cream, stretching it out into slow, bite sized sittings. It was too superb to devour hurriedly.

Astonishingly high quality reading which educates and entertains, leaving the reader begging for more. Can't be topped by anything in its class.

My review of Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy

Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart

by 

John Guy

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

An essential element of any historical biographer's task is to put colour into the cheeks of their subject, which Professor Guy effects with aplomb in this meticulously penned tome. This queen, who has has for centuries polarised commentariats, is a personal favourite, this being the twenty-something book of her I've relished. Each biographer depicts her as predominantly innocent or guilty. This one is firmly on Mary's side and puts his case supremely.

The details that divide on the Queen of Scots are those absent from posterity, those which perhaps Mary's royal son James I & VI helped erase from record, or which Mary's accusers collectively disposed of to save their own reputations with the passage of time. Much has been powerfully theorised on the potential forgery of her incriminating 'casket letters' with as much effectively arguing their authenticity.

We'll never know for sure, without some revelation becoming unearthed. Such are the tantalising dynamics of the relationship between this and her cousin queen and executioner Elizabeth I, of whom similarly divided thought tribes have evolved for similar reasons. Both queens have benefited and suffered from each other's propagandists.

In the face of excellent wider reception, this author has by some been unfairly accused of being as enamoured with Mary Stuart as her contemporary devotees were, his detractors complaining of his bias in her favour. Yet septuagenarian Professor Guy, who read history at Cambridge before teaching there, is a veteran historian of the highest order. He is as entitled, perhaps more so than his armchair critics, to an informed opinion.

It never fails to baffle me, reading critiques from those a half or quarter Guy's age, qualifying their pickiness citing not a single academic endowment of their own – I'm not talking critiques of his style but of his capacity to know his material – just how ferociously opinionated today's readers still find themselves on this dividing monarch. The bare facts still trigger kneejerk moral reactions to her legendary deeds.

I agree with John Guy on the reality of Mary of Scots' personally redeeming qualities. Without a religious agenda to my name and having equal fondness for her arch rival, Elizabeth, I too have always kept an open mind on Mary's broader innocence and have consistently concluded that, like so many martyrs of her age put to death for treason, she cannot have been entirely guilty of everything charged against her. Such was the politico-judicial machine's modus operandi and still is. Evidence is, and always was to some degree, controlled, manipulated and confected by those in power over any such accused.

Nor can any rational apologist concede Mary's total innocence (anyone so unjustly imprisoned for so long would have plotted towards their liberty on whatever ethical ground presented itself). The truth, as always, must lie somewhere in the centre. I once more concluded, nevertheless, that here was an extremely likeable woman. One I still find intriguing enough to keep reading on as more gets written with the sophistry of modern research. One I remain unable to side either with or against. It's a stimulating position.

Highly recommend this book, especially to the unbigoted.

My review of Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters By Laura Thompson

 

Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

By Laura Thompson

My rating 5 out of 5 stars

After finishing this biography I flipped back to the first page and began again (something I almost never do), so much did I love it.

The key to its "un-put-downability" lies not in just the intriguing Mitfords, but in Laura Thompson's biographical prowess.

Her vivid character studies, the immediacy of her situational narrative, are beautifully sealed with Thompson's passion of tackling this astonishing family's history, as a group and as separate people (each of which are entrancing).

As with only those few, special biographies, this work transcends its primary purpose - the study of notable persons - becoming a literary achievement in itself.

A key question facing any biographer must be: how to explain the inner-world of such notables? (Because regardless how 'public' these may seem, their most private complexities underlie their outcomes).

The answer is surely, besides the formal research and some speculation, that innate understanding of human nature, that unteachable talent for explaining it away. Such is the difference between voices like Thompson's and the dread drone of academia.

So glued did I remain in my instant second reading, I was compelled to order-in Thompson's earlier work, Life in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford which, whilst containing certain 'stock' Mitford fare in 'Take Six Girls' and endless other works, I similarly golloped up in just days.

'Take Six Girls' is my favourite biographical read in years.

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