My review of Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys

Wide Sargasso Sea

by Jean Rhys

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Let me first say that this literary masterpiece deserved every last ounce of global acclaim that it won - so special that no film adaptation has come anywhere near to the book. This is the perfect novel, in form, in cadence, in concept. Pure magic.

That said, this glittering tome is my least favourite, plot-wise, of Jean's novels. Maybe because it is a standalone, with little in common with any of her other, less appraised works.

She herself saw the irony that this atypical epic, published in her dotage, from handwritten scrawl, was what it took to deem her a literary luminary. Of all the plaudits and her prestigious literary award, she said only, in pure Jean Rhys form: 'It came too late.' Only her old cult following could appreciate this understatement. For too many long decades she had been unfairly underestimated and shunned by highbrow critics and readership masses alike.

Rhys had lived in obscurity for decades after her previous work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939, with publishers presuming her dead. Wide Sargasso Sea, her astonishing and unanticipated comeback, became her most successful novel, winning her the 1967 WH Smith Literary Award, and seeing her later appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). 

A prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, this is the backstory of Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole heiress, from the time of her Caribbean youth to her unhappy marriage to an unnamed English gentleman (implied as Jane Eyre's 'Mr. Rochester'). The story elaborates on how her captor-husband came to move Antoinette to England, rename her Bertha, falsely declare her insane and lock her away in his attic, where she then actually descends into madness.

Rhys uses multiple narrative voices (Antoinette's, Rochester's, and Grace Poole's), masterfully merging this plot with that of Jane Eyre. For the most part, however, protagonist Antoinette relates her life story from colonial childhood, to arranged marriage, to her attic room confines under servant Grace Poole's watch in [Rochester mansion] Thornfield Hall.

The novel begins circa 1834 after the Abolition Act ended slavery in the British Empire. Part One, set in Jamaica's Coulibri, is narrated by Antoinette who reflects, fragmentally, on her childhood, her mother's mental instability and her mentally impaired brother's tragic death.

Part Two alternates between perspectives of Antoinette and her unnamed English husband during their honeymoon in Dominica's Granbois. Antoinette's childhood nurse, Christophine, travels with the newlyweds as servant. We witness the advent of Antoinette's mental downfall after her husband receives a malicious blackmailing letter from one Daniel, an acquisitive native, demanding hush money and claiming to be Antoinette's distant illegitimate brother. For good measure, Daniel also alleges Antoinette carries a hereditary half-madness.

Loyal Christophine, resenting the groom's semi-belief in Daniel's crazed claims, aggravates matters with her open hostility. Perplexed and frustrated, Antoinette's new husband, feeling alienated in this foreign land, eventually lashes out, becoming openly unfaithful to his bride. Our heroine's swelling paranoia and despair at her failing marriage unbalance her already frail emotional state.

Part Three, the novel's shortest section, is from the perspective of Antoinette, now renamed Bertha. She is confined in the attic of Thornfield Hall which she calls the 'Great House'. We follow her relationship with servant-guard Grace Poole, as Antoinette's captor-husband hides her from the world. Promising to see her more, he pursues relationships with other women (eventually with his new young governess, Jane Eyre). In a final act of despair, Antoinette/Bertha decides to take her own life.

Her magnum opus, this is not your typical Jean Rhys, not that younger, wilder Jean her select following knew and loved, but it has nevertheless been justifiably hailed as one of the most important works of English literature ever penned.

Anyone who reads would be a fool to pass on this one.

My review of Letters 1931-1966, by Jean Rhys, Francis Wyndham (Editor), Diana Melly (Editor)

Letters 1931-1966

by Jean Rhys, Francis Wyndham (Editor), Diana Melly (Editor) 

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I was bought this as a birthday gift by someone who knew my fanaticism for Jean Rhys. This intimate glimpse into the personal comments of my all-time favourite writer had me mesmerised from start to finish.

The letters include those from 1931, when she was recently estranged from her first husband French-Dutch journalist-songwriter (and spy) Jean Lenglet. Jean was still enjoying the acclaim of her first three books, The Left Bank and Other Stories (1927) Postures/Quartet (1929) and After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931).

Like a fly on Jean's various walls, we watch her bumpy life unravel until the 1966 death of her of her third and final husband, solicitor Max Hamer, who had spent much of their marriage jailed for fraud. Jean was now a frail old woman reduced to a life of obscurity, alone in her ramshackle West Country home. Publicly long forgotten and presumed dead, her books were mostly out of print. 

She was, however, on the brink of major rediscovery with the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea, which she had spent years drafting and perfecting. Unlike any of her earlier works, this final tome was a fictional perspective of the 'madwoman in the attic' from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. It would win Jean the prestigious 1967 WH Smith Literary Award, of which she famously said: 'It has come too late'.

Like all Jean's penned words published or not, this is like sitting all alone with her, listening to a voice that speaks only the pure, haunting truth.

A remarkable, intimate journey through her life that validates and authenticates the integrity of everything she had published and explains so much more about her than we, as diehard fans, could have known.

The most beautiful birthday gift I was ever given. Truly. It will never be allowed out of my house.

As an afterthought, it's interesting that those reviewers who don't "get" the Jean Rhys letters tend to be American, whereas those who do appear to be British.

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 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 archrival, 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 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 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 Mae West: It Ain't No Sin, by Simon Louvish

Mae West: It Ain't No Sin

by Simon Louvish

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I loved reading about this skilful, acutely intelligent performer who haunts my foggy formative years' recall. I still visualise her swagger, hear her distinct drawl in scratchy, early '30s movies that TV showed late at night, like 'She Done Him Wrong,' 'I'm No Angel' 'Bell of the Nineties' and 'Klondike Annie'.

What we learn from this book is that Mary Jane 'Mae' West, born 1893, turned her hand to many things including scriptwriting and jazz singing. She did some astonishingly risqué work long before there were any movies, or talkies anyway. Learning her stagecraft treading the boards, she wrote prolifically, including some fiction and much that was banned.

She produced some extraordinarily daring comedic material, loaded with double entendres outrageous even by today's standards. This was long, long before the age of political correctness, way before anything like the Hayes Production Code was even thought of. She subsequently became a pioneer in fighting censorship.

Her celluloid glory days need no elaboration here.

By the '50s she was such a legend she was blithely turning down roles like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. By the early '70s she was appearing in gender-bending things like Gore Vidal's 'Myra Breckinridge' with Raquel Welch. How long can any mortal keep going so, really? But she kept at it.

By the late '70s, making 'Sextette', she needed her lines fed to her through a tiny speaker hidden inside her wigs. She reportedly seemed disoriented and forgetful, having difficulty following direction. Failing eyesight made navigating around the set difficult for her. The camera crew started shooting her from the waist up (one official account is that this was to hide an out-of-shot production assistant crawling on the floor, guiding her around the set, but another I've read is that she had sandbags strategically placed for her feet to feel and guide her as she shuffled her way about the set floor).

I didn't mind Simon Louvish's academic style of documentation here, which accorded fine balance between the unavoidably outlandish subject material and the sensibly erudite final draft.

Fascinating and well-crafted biography about a greatly underestimated gal, the remarkable woman behind the legend of Diamond Lil.

My review of Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. 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 Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, by Flora Fraser

Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III

by Flora Fraser

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I was intensely immersed in Flora Fraser's impressive, high calibre tome. Historical royal biography is an addictive genre that leaves its readers ever hungry for something to top their favourites. This is a difficult call on authors. There are only limited options without repeating what others before have done brilliantly.

This author's notary mother, Lady Antonia Fraser, is an impossible act to follow. Think of most talented daughters living in their famous mothers' shadows and this syndrome becomes clear.

Being any such diva's daughter may have that advantageous head start insofar as many already know who you are and will finance your enterprise if only from curiosity. But there are accompanying soaring expectations, ones few mortals could realistically live up to.

Any established readership like Lady Antonia's is so loyal it can be wincingly unforgiving in its natural comparisons. That brilliant mother has already covered the most popular subjects and periods, leaving only the duller choices for her daughter to embark upon.

Flora Fraser has proven herself a chip off the old block to this first-time reader. Her characterisations are sublime, her detail meticulous, her research suitably mindboggling - I'd have expected nothing less and would have been greatly disappointed with less.

While this is admittedly not the most interesting period to me, the book covers a fascinating royal court. The civility and humanness of Mad King George III's cultured female offspring is striking. We like these women. They are deserving of such coverage. I came away better informed, further educated and entertained, if little more enthralled by the Hanoverians generally.

Perhaps only Lady Fraser's daughter could have achieved what has been pulled off here. A fine piece of work on a challenging group of subjects to document interestingly. As with her mother, I will read more of her, regardless which subjects.

My review of I'll Cry Tomorrow by Lillian Roth, Gerold Frank, Mike Connolly

I'll Cry Tomorrow

by Lillian Roth, Gerold Frank, Mike Connolly

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Riveting 1954 memoir of 1920s & '30s star of stage, screen and radio, Lillian Roth.

Her horrific journey through alcoholism, making for confronting reading at times, was an unprecedented international sensation. Courageously penned, this became a global best seller of its era, in seven languages.

She was widely praised for passing on the message of recovery to millions in an era when alcoholism was seldom discussed in polite society. She was also harshly criticised by certain overly zealous self-appointed Twelve Step fellowship spokespeople wary of celebrities making themselves 'recovery' icons (some who disclosed their fellowship membership were accused of damaging 'the program's' reputation when they publicly relapsed).

Recovery controversies aside, this was, and remains, a brilliant standalone book, not at all the sort of tacky celeb tell-all that would evolve in subsequent years.

At six, as Educational Pictures' trademark, Lillian was painted as a living statue holding a lamp of knowledge, and her painter molested her, which she describes in chilling detail as the defining event that would forever haunt her.

Lillian's signature song was "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)". That's about the best-known legacy many of today's generations may have of her. And this hair-raising book.

Actresses considered to play Lillian in the 1955 film adaptation included June Allyson, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Jane Wyman, Jean Simmons, Jane Russell and Piper Laurie. It was Susan Hayward who won the role and was nominated for an Academy Award for her gritty portrayal. That movie became the fourth-highest money maker of 1956.

Still an awesome read more than 50 years after its publication, this candid memoir gave me cold shivers, goose pimples and left me wanting to read more and more when I'd finished the last page.

My review of Marilyn: The Last Take, by Peter Harry Brown

Marilyn: The Last Take

Peter Harry Brown

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Regardless of its seeming irrelevance in the fifty-year blizzard of Marilyn biographies, I was unable to put down this curled and yellowed artifice, lent to me by a diehard fan, complete with pressed and mummified cockroach legs. So many Marilyn pieces are unreadable pulp non-fiction. This one earned its place in that handful of standout efforts.

Easy flowing, unpretentious yet thoroughly slick, the quality of workmanship held me throughout. Whilst lacking the glitzy hallmarks of more iconic, full-life biographies, this steers clear of popular Monroe mythology, sticking solidly to documented facts concerning only that contentious period imminent to her death. 

So much was ado in 1962, as Marilyn, 20th Century Fox's most bankable star of the 1950s, commenced that studio's ill-fated Something's Got to Give, an updated remake of screwball comedy My Favorite Wife (1940). We read how, for months, she was insidiously undermined, goaded on-set, bullied by proxy, misrepresented by studio and media alike, defamed to the point of despair (and that was only her work life, without even starting on her personal life). 

This vicious campaign of intimidation was spearheaded by ageing, drug-addled, acid-tongued director George Cuckor, aided by his buddies higher up the studio ladder. What's more, the film's already insultingly flimsy budget was being further siphoned away to cover that farcically expensive Burton-Taylor debacle, Cleopatra, which the ailing studio hoped would save it.

The effects of Cuckor's malicious vendetta on this, Marilyn's final movie, were compounded by a throng of Hollywood gossip columnists led by notorious Hedda Hopper and her archrival Louella Parsons. Fox's publicists also played a perversely pivotal role in wrecking her morale, as did the White House fraternity and its undercover henchmen, shielding the cracking image of a president at a critical time in his leadership.

In production reports and press releases, Monroe's genuine health issues were passed off as the temperamental play-ups of an unreliable diva. An underlying will to be rid of her simmered from office to office, coast to coast, awaiting some opportune moment. This involved studio heads and backers on one side and more sinister, undercover forces on the other, moving to prevent her affairs with President John F Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Bobby, becoming publicly confirmed (or, better still, to end them).

Before Something's Got to Give's shooting commenced, Monroe had notified producer Henry Weinstein that she had been asked by the White House to sing at President Kennedy's Madison Square Garden birthday honours on May 19, 1962. Weinstein had granted her permission, believing it would not hinder production. JFK had even personally assured her he would pull any necessary strings to prevent her Madison Square Garden appearance causing any contractual conflict with Fox.

Yet soon after the event her romantic and professional tide turned. Kennedy suddenly disowned her, and Marilyn was publicly fired, amidst widely publicized plans to replace her with Lee Remick who was fitted into Monroe's costumes and photographed with Cuckor. This was to backfire, with her fans up in arms and her select remaining handful of powerful industry allies resolute about saving her. 

Similarly, co-star Dean Martin, with final approval of his leading lady, loyally refused to continue without Monroe. After an extended stalemate and a personally engineered campaign aimed at her furious fans, Marilyn was reinstated under new terms and conditions with public popularity on her side. 

Her detractors became more peeved than ever. She had, infuriatingly, triumphed once more, in yet another battle of Hollywood egos. 

Awaiting resumption of the troublesome shoot, she had never been healthier or happier. 

In the damage control wake of her 'Happy birthday, Mr. President' appearance, amidst the prelude to an important by-election, Monroe was callously cut-off and ostracized by both Kennedy brothers and their phalange of bureaucrats and relatives. Politically vulnerable and under the supervision of political spin doctors and their ruthless father, each Kennedy brother changed his direct telephone number and refused to take her calls, offering Marilyn no explanation or farewell, resulting in the easily derailed star, with her lifelong abandonment issues, feeling used and discarded. 

Yet now, no longer a forgotten orphan, or an impoverished starlet, but a legend at the peak of her stardom, she had the guidance, support and encouragement of therapists, minions and mentors, along with her money and fame.

Heartbroken yet more determined than ever before to fight back at life and re-empower herself, she planned a press conference to end all press conferences - one that would have blown the lid off the Kennedy administration and embarrassed its tentacular web of connections which, unsurprisingly, extended to entertainment kingpins, studio heads and financiers.

Having correctly assumed her house was being bugged, many of her calls pertaining to this messy strategy were made from roadside pay phones. But written notes on her planned press conference were kept at hand, along with intimately detailed diaries pertaining to the Kennedy affairs.    

The rest, as we know, is history. She was suddenly found dead, tagged with the 'accidental suicide' label in a bungled post-mortem case that never concluded but saw scandalous levels of sensitive information swept under carpets and left there for decades. Her house, the scene of unidentified comers-and-goers in the still of that fatal night, was cleared before investigation teams even arrived at her death scene, those highly sensitive press conference plans vanishing along with her revealing diaries. As if working in with all this, publicity machines covered up as much as they could by elaborating on her mental health problems and self-medication habits, emphasising the likelihood of suicide.   

Monroe's autopsy, conducted August 5 by deputy coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, was pointedly clouded by the inexplicable disappearance of key liver and kidney tissue samples that would have proved she could never have self-administered the quantity of drugs that killed her.

For years, classified government files on her demise were kept tightly locked away, as were endless reels of Something's Got to Give footage showing she was never in better form, far from how the studio and its Washington connections would have had the world believe she had been in her final fourteen weeks on earth.

This book is no cheap conspiracy yarn, but a well-documented account of Marilyn Monroe's final months. A comprehensive lowdown on the contributing parties standing to benefit from the melee of cover-ups surrounding her premature and unresolved end.  

Despite my sneezes with each crumbling page, it was well worth the tissues. An excellent read.

My review of Princess Margaret: A Biography by Theo Aronson

Princess Margaret: A Biography

by Theo Aronson

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Princess Margaret was, when I was growing up, the royal rebel people cheered on. As much a '60s icon as The Beatles or the miniskirt, she was always up to some exotic mischief, usually in some scorching Caribbean place and more often than not with the wrong man. My parents' generation (Margaret's slightly elder peers), and their own parents, had a soft spot for this princess whose personal dreams never came true. 'Poor Maggie,' was a common catch cry whenever she made tabloid headlines with yet another scandal.

Theo Aronson tells another side of the public's ideas on her – how she earned widespread disapproval and media condemnation, not to mention much high Establishment tut-tutting. This the author qualifies with anecdotes which are entertaining, if not as thoroughly sourced as this reader would have liked (a good proportion of these could have been plucked from the air just to amuse).

That much of the content is, conversely, very well documented, leaves the reader sceptical over quotes by so many unnamed people, e.g. 'family friend', 'guest at the event', 'high ranking official', etc. Of course, this also adds to the sense of intrigue we have come to expect from juicy royal biographies, yet this glaring feature places parts of the work more into the gutter press bundle than the authorised, legitimate one. Indeed, certain passages degenerate to gossip level, cheapening the overall effect.

That said, this is, for the most part, an entertaining and well written piece, even with workmanship notably weaker in some parts than others. Like his subject, Aronson is often a split case – sycophantic in many of his praises of Margaret, whilst vitriolic in some of his judgements and criticisms. This extremist swinging to and fro, between kindness and harshness, whilst matching perfectly the woman of whom he writes, lends the work a hyperbolic quality. The author seems in parts to defend his contentious subject to the hilt, whilst in others viciously slapping her beautiful face (curious, given that the princess was still alive at the time of this book's publication to read it). Even so, I was compelled to read on.

Here was arguably the last grand royal princess, cavorting around with the louche arts and pop communities, often a maverick at odds with her status, often hysterically funny and theatrical, yet equally often a diva of the most pompous, imperious kind imaginable. There was simply no predicting which of these polar-opposite split characters she would be. As if she had a deeply set identity crisis. Just as there is never any predicting which route this author will take when relaying some episode – will it be compassionate or condemnatory? This shifting objectivity and judgement I found disconcerting yet interesting.

Like Diana who followed, this princess gave the monarchy that much needed humane element by being an openly flawed and self-contradictory figure we all related to at some level. She was brave, tragic, spoilt, vulnerable, mercurial, dutiful, extravagant, haughty, cynical, catty ... yet when it boiled down to it bore the capacity to be infinitely kinder, more personally loyal and more down to earth than many royals we read of – it all depended on who you asked, and which occasion it related to.

I enjoyed this lightweight read. Though it could surely doubtful ever be considered the definitive work of its kind on this princess, I highly recommend it to the diehard royal biography buff.

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 Vivien: The Life of Vivien Leigh by Alexander Walker

Vivien: The Life of Vivien Leigh

by Alexander Walker

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It was on reflection of what would have been Vivien Leigh's hundred and tenth year, 2023, that I revisited Alexander Walker's biography, one I had previously relished, but which had triggered disappointment in some. I've said before: if it's a movieography you want, click on Wikipedia or the Internet Movie Database. There isn't much to see. Leigh didn't make a long list of films comparable to other legends of her standing. This serious actress was at heart a great theatre performer, like her husband Sir Laurence Olivier who, likewise, made some celluloid epics but less than you might think.

So obviously this is no beginners' handbook on Vivien Leigh's movies. It's hardly news that she won two Best Actress Academy Awards for her performances as 'Southern belles': Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the screen adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had played on stage in London's West End in 1949. Unsurprisingly, she also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway version of Tovarich (1963).

This biography is about the person more than her films. Like many extraordinary talents, Leigh lived with bipolar disorder, no easy thing for any sufferer to work with let alone a star of stage and screen with those impossibly demanding schedules. This affected her twenty-year marriage to Sir Laurence Olivier so much that it ended in heartbreak, Olivier taking up with the great Joan Plowright who became the next Lady Olivier.

This multi-award nominee and winner of Oscars, New York Film Critics, Golden Globes and Tonies struggled with major health issues beside her mental ones. Her life and career were marred by those episodes. Recurrent bouts of tuberculosis, first diagnosed in the mid-1940s, claimed her life at 53. Understandably, she had earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, her career suffering periods of inactivity.

She was born in India, daughter of an English army officer in the Indian Cavalry. The family returned to their native England, Vivien later attending London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She cut short her studies to get engaged to a man who disapproved of theatre work. She had therefore already been married, had a daughter and separated before she resumed her career, doing numerous quality but low-profile acting jobs for several years as she honed her stagecraft.

Then along came Olivier, her great love, and in turn came her brilliant career. Olivier really was her life more than anything, hence this biography's pronounced emphasis on her private life. She was utterly devastated by her divorce and never recovered.

The reader wonders whether it might have been some small consolation to Vivien being posthumously ranked 16th greatest female movie star of all time, in 1999, by the American Film Institute.

A more tragic private figure than any she publicly portrayed, here was a soul we feel for yet celebrate as we work our way through her life, care of this ever-reliable biographer of screen goddesses. I could not help wondering, on my second reading, whether a hundred-and-one-year-old Ms. Leigh might have eventually driven out her demons and made peace with her life, time healing all things and wisdom a natural product of years passing. She would surely have become one mightily wise dame. But as with all the great tragediennes, her life was cut short in her prime, which was perhaps her ultimate preference. She was, after all, quoted by US journalist Radie Harris as confiding that she 'would rather have lived a short life with Larry [Olivier] than face a long one without him'. Once more, I finished this book hoping this great star and tortured soul is at peace, if not for having kept her great love in life, then in the compensatory assurance of how treasured she will always be by her fans.

My review of Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey

Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne

by 

David Starkey

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars 

There's something to be said of the feministic slant common among Elizabeth's female biographers which make this sometimes-princess, sometimes-not a sympathetic young character. Just being Anne Boleyn's daughter would have been problematic for any individual regardless of character and circumstances. We recognise that these female biographers have done their job when we're compelled to empathise with the young Elizabeth. Such personal connection allows us special access into her psyche.

I was unsurprised to find this often-unforgiving exploration less empathic than bluntly incisive. I was able to factor in that Starkey was famously tagged misogynistic by historian Lucy Worsley in a heated moment of sensitive scholarly debate. Even his famous sobriquet as the 'rudest man in Britain' I knew was partly just the result of an old television debate panel beat-up.

I took into account that reviews of Starkey's own more recent TV documentaries unfairly drew on this aspect of him, calling him 'pompous' and 'acerbic'. David Sarky was one nickname.

I could therefore put aside Starkey's overt dismissal of other historians' ideas here. His provocative, self-opinionated manner is partly a contrivance, I knew.

This is a great historian of our time, a master of his genre, no mere popular history writer. To enjoy his quality, we must compromise by accepting his style. The effort is worth it.

Elizabeth's early years are undoubtedly what forged much of her persona. These are finely scrutinised without sentiment or bias. Starkey's erudite points are masterfully fleshed out, eloquently phrased and expertly documented.

Elizabeth's formative years of being pampered royal heiress then shunned royal bastard are satisfyingly cited as one trigger of her later infamous episodic neurosis.

Her much-debated time spent in Queen Catherine Parr's house is examined at length. So is the overwhelming probability of her being systematically seduced by her stepfather, the scheming Thomas Seymour, Baron Sudeley, who lost his head for his treasonous shenanigans. This well covered ground, consistent with general consensus, shines the obligatory light into Elizabeth's later famous reluctance towards open romance.

Her confusing return to royal favour under half-brother Edward offers context as plots thicken around replacing her and half-sister Mary with cousin Lady Jane Grey, the nine days queen who then lost her head on the block under the more rightfully placed Queen Mary I.

Elizabeth's subsequent persecution as heir again, under childless Mary, is well explained, with the effect of Elizabeth growing shrewder, a defining feature she would put to great use once on her throne.

Her potential involvement in Protestant plots to dethrone Catholic Mary is perhaps contentiously asserted, with Starkey gratuitously cherry picking to back up his conjecture. We are left with little doubt that she was at least privy to more than she owned up to being involved in, all of which she naturally denied to save her own neck.

A superbly written study, by a talented academic, of perhaps England's most popular queen. Notwithstanding its conspicuous departure from kinder, more feministic angles, this important book deserves its place on our shelves.

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 Left Bank, and Other Stories by Jean Rhys

The Left Bank, and Other Stories

by Jean Rhys

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

A must for all Jean Rhys aficionados. This was her first ever published writing, which came about by chance and desperation. Those who read her posthumously published unfinished autobiography Smile Please will know that the story behind these Left Bank stories is a great one:

In 1924 Ella Lenglet nee Williams (later Jean Rhys) was alone, destitute and starving in a run down Paris hotel room. Her husband of five years, French-Dutch journalist and songwriter (and spy) Jean Lenglet, was in a French jail for what she described as 'currency irregularities'.

After visiting him one day, she took articles he had written to a newspaper contact to try and sell, so she could eat. The newspaper contact sent her on to someone else who asked her to go away and translate them, which, being multilingual, she successfully did. That contact finally declined her husband's translated articles but liked her translation style and so, as a final thought, asked her whether she, Ella, had ever penned anything herself.

Perplexed but desperate, she showed the person some samples of her diary, which included a few rough sketches of life in the Paris she inhabited.

So impressive were these that the rapidly thinning Ella was sent on to another contact, eventually coming face to face with English writer and publisher Ford Maddox Ford.

He was instantly impressed and took her under his wing, mentoring her and inviting her to move in with him and his common-law wife, Australian artist Stella Bowen. Under Ford's tutelage her stories were developed into The Left Bank, and Other Stories and published in his Transatlantic Review.

It was with this release of her first published fiction that Ford persuaded her to use nom de plume Jean Rhys.

Ford published a generous introductory foreword, praising her 'singular instinct for form', for which she became so loved by her readers many decades on. 'Coming from the West Indies,' Ford explained here, 'with a terrifying insight and ... passion for stating the case of the underdog, she has let her pen loose on the Left Banks of the Old World.'

Such was the advent of Jean Rhys' unlikely writing career.

It was also during this period, while living with Ford & Stella, that Jean's turbulent affair with Ford took place under Stella's nose, resulting in the breakup of Jean's marriage to her jailed husband - all to be later fictionalised into what would become the first Jean Rhys novel, Quartet (1928). But that cathartic act of vengeance is another story.

So, these Stories From The Left Bank have quite a tale of their own.

These preliminary short stories that made young Ella Williams history and launched newly invented Jean Rhys are filled with her personal hallmarks: her vivid characterisations, her evocative, filmic scenes, her succinct, incisive take on life through the eyes of the downtrodden, of the outsider looking in.

Breathtaking. Not to be passed over by any of her readers.

(NB A selection of these are also included in Jean's Tigers Are Better Looking anthology).

My review of The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy

The Forsyte Saga

by John Galsworthy

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This is for me the definitive period saga, by Nobel Prize-winning John Galsworthy. The reader follows the intertwined characters' lives for many years and several generations, with the collection comprising three hefty novels breaking down into five volumes:

The Man of Property (1906)

Indian Summer of a Forsyte (1918)

In Chancery (1920)

Awakening (1920)

To Let (1921)

Almost everyone I've known had seen this before reading it, including my great-grandparents. Two silent film adaptations, 1921 and 1922, captivated some Galsworthy devotees but attracted erstwhile print-shy masses who became converts, running out in droves to buy the cumbersome books. 

Similarly, a high calibre 2002-3 miniseries starring Gina McKee and Damian Lewis, with an endearingly wrinkly Wendy Craig, proved a satisfying recreation for some author fans but a watchable inspiration for the new millennium's page-reluctant youth, hoards becoming seduced into reading it, fuelling a modern-day sales resurgence.

My own adolescent introduction to this extensive fictional family was via the classic 1967 TV adaptation with a cherubic young Michael York; the then stellar Nyree Dawn Porter; pretty ingénue Susan Hampshire; the all-accomplishing Margaret Tyzack; and featuring, as Smither, the wondrous late Maggie Jones who would later win British hearts as Coronation Street's acerbic-tongued, gallows-humoresque Blanche Hunt.

The saga concerns the trials and tribulations of a twin-pronged nouveau riche British family, whose not so distant forbears were farmers. The author's own 'new money' upper-class family was not unlike this fictional one he so meticulously chronicles. The materially acquisitive protagonist, solicitor Soames Forsyte, is incurably unfulfilled despite his ever-expanding assets and status, his heart remaining shattered over first wife Irene.

Soames' rival cousin, painter Young Jolyon, who is actually older than Soames, was originally the family's favourite until deserting his wife for their daughter's governess, forever since thumbing his nose at society. The latter, however, subsequently remarries Soames' ex-wife, Irene, concreting their cousinly enmity.

Themes threading these volumes together include those common to the historic family saga genre: blood feuding, changing generations, mortality, ambition and duty versus desire.

There was something about the older Forsytes I found more endearing, their often-comical arch snobbery, their handwringing at not having quite yet reached that 'old money' mark, their whacky foibles, quirky prejudices and neurotic manifestations of status anxiety. 

The younger generations, as the saga progresses, have less edge, having mostly seen the errors of their forebears' ways and adapted for the 'better' (making them blander all round). They also represent the later period, as we compare them to their elders and their new epoch to times past. This characteristic is necessitated by the very concept of family saga. It demonstrates the loosening of restraint; the attitudinal progress time brings.

That necessity of genre notwithstanding, it is the very eccentricities, queerness and glaring shortcomings of the older, earlier Forsytes that makes them such colourful reading subjects (as was the case with those earlier penned, unforgettable characters of Dickens and other great nineteenth century masters from which Galswworthy's style seemingly draws considerable inspiration). 

Unlike some great sagas, this one never departs from English society's upper strata to glimpse the characters' lower-class counterparts, reminding us, perhaps, of the author's somewhat stifled cloistered upbringing. As if offsetting that limitation, there is sufficient of the 'downstairs' (the timeless, classless, primal) in some of these multidimensional, magnificently drawn 'upstairs' characters, whose humaneness at times transcends the abstract of class. Though they are all, superficially, defined by their staunch social status, we are frequently reminded of that humble, if ambitious, farmers' blood still coursing through their not yet fully gentrified veins. This paradoxical edge to the Forsytes is charming, sometimes laughable, sometimes sad but makes them always accessible to us, the reader.

It took me many months, with breaks between volumes but, having selected it as midwinter bedtime reading, I remained blissfully unhurried about the mammoth task. Was often unable to put it down and switch off the bedside lamp, getting in 'just another quick chapter before I nod off' then noticing the dawn glimmering in through the blinds. I was left feeling nauseatingly smug as I closed the final page of the final book.

By no means a quick, easy or lazy read, this detailed body of work demands intense focus or continuity evaporates. The mental investment, however, is worth the rewards, as we end up on intimate terms with a remarkable family. If you love historical sagas, The Forsyte Saga is considered by aficionados to be the original, the ultimate one of its kind. This is something you will have seriously missed out on if the effort is not made. A magnificent work from a master storyteller.

My review of Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, by Alison Weir

Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley

by Alison Weir

My rating: 5out of 5 stars

Alison Weir surpassed herself penning this tome, the first in my opinion to rival Antonia Fraser's 1969 Mary Queen of Scots. Via Mary Stuart runs the continuous line of succession, from Plantagenets & Tudors, down to England's current royals.

Mary has always polarised debate, first when alive and then, through the centuries, from the grave. Regardless which account we accept, she cannot be seen as entirely blameless for her unfortunate life. It's also beyond question that too much blinkered blame has gone her way, backwards in time.

Her murdered second husband Henry, Lord Darnley, was a hideous character who arguably deserved his comeuppance. If Mary was privy to his murder plot, we can hardly blame her. It's an equally short-sighted assumption that anyone put in Mary's position would not have conspired towards her liberty when so unjustly imprisoned for so long by Queen Elizabeth I. She was viciously provoked, set up and entrapped into her 'treason' against Elizabeth.

Mary Stuart, great-niece of England's King Henry VIII, was 6 days old when her father, King James V of Scotland, died and she acceded to his throne. Uniting France and Scotland against conflict with Henry VIII's England, France's King Henry II negotiated little Mary's marriage to his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. Five-year-old Mary was shipped to France and spent thirteen years at the French royal court.

Despite that regal upbringing largely moulding her character, Mary's detractors criticise her limited grasp of her native Scottish subjects who were then, largely, backwater bog and highland dwellers. Yet this eventually anointed queen of France had not seen Scotland since being spirited away as an infant.

Widowed at eighteen, Mary was no longer wanted in the French court by her mother-in-law, France's new regent, Catherine de Medici. Though she could have retired there in splendour, remarrying any prince in Christendom, Mary instead returned to her homeland to start anew.

In vain she reached out to her surly Scottish subjects who, after ceremonial formalities, snubbed her as a high-flying foreigner. They eyed her with suspicion from the minute she disembarked in her mourning garb, a grown woman and stranger. They considered this newly arrived Catholic head of state, in their Protestant land, anomalous. This sentiment was fuelled by Protestant reformist preacher John Knox, who vehemently campaigned against Mary.

Worse still, she was female.

Across the border, her less beautiful but wilier cousin, Elizabeth, remained contentiously unwed. Resentful of Mary's youth and fecundity, the childless Elizabeth also felt threatened by Mary's strong claim to England's shaky throne.

After two more short and unpopular marriages, Mary was overthrown and imprisoned in Scotland. Eventually escaping, she shaved her head for disguise, donned peasant's clothing and fled, by fishing boat, to England. Hoping for Elizabeth's support, Mary was instead imprisoned and held captive for eighteen-and-a-half years.

After despairingly plotting towards her liberty (making herself complicit in linked plots for Elizabeth's assassination), Mary was entrapped and executed. This unprecedented regicide officially triggered the Spanish Armada. Catholic Philip of Spain had been waiting for an excuse to take England and curb the spread of Protestantism in Europe. As was her final wish, Mary became a Catholic martyr.

Mary's apologists argue she was a kind, intelligent woman, a romantic icon of her day. She was indeed the subject of sonnet and pros, by Ronsard no less. Her beauty and personal charm are legendary.

Neither her cruellest detractors nor most ardent apologists are fully right or wrong. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. This is where Alison Weir's insightful, brilliantly researched and presented account places it.

The reader is left with a balanced understanding of events while empathising with, and recognising the obvious mistakes of, a desperate woman. I loved this book and reread it to reabsorb the literary quality and exquisite detail.

My review of Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown, by Maureen Waller

Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown

by Maureen Waller 

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Interesting account of the end of the Stuarts in England. Until the last century there remained vehement opponents of the switch to Hanoverian rule.

James II's daughters, Mary and Anne, were Anne Hyde's daughters. They resented their stepmother, Mary of Modena, and were so bitter at her baby son's arrival (cue pushing towards their throne) that a family row ensued, escalating into a coup against their father aided by public fears and anti-Catholic prejudices.

James II, as Charles II's younger brother, had not always been expected to rule. The latter, however, left no legitimate heirs. Only when James came under greater scrutiny as king did his Catholicism come into much question publicly, the matter having been kept discrete like many sensitive royal details.

Malicious rumours erupted concerning the baby prince's legitimacy, the harshest being that he was an imposter smuggled into the palace in a bed-warming pan after Mary's real baby died. The likelihood, or not, of this is examined, as is the issue of post-reformation England's then governmental power mongers (and proletariat) dreading any return to a Catholic monarchy. The last had been Bloody Mary Tudor, under whose watch 283 Protestants had been executed for heresy, most by burning.

James II's baby heir, James Francis Edward Stuart, later to become nicknamed the Old Pretender, was taken to France by his mother who feared for his life, and kept by his cousin Louis XIV of France.

James II then fled England for his safety when it became apparent that his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange would invade at the request of James' detractors. James' baby son was railroaded from the succession by Mary and William. That couple ruled jointly until William died, leaving just Queen Mary II. With no offspring, Mary's demise left Queen Anne to wind up the Stuart rule. Her disastrous run of 17 pregnancies left no living offspring either. So came their Hanoverian cousins, descended from the same Stuart grandparents via the maternal line.

These two 'Ungrateful Daughters' of James II, as the title suggests, are not portrayed sympathetically. This may not be author bias, but more likely the way many have remembered them. Neither went down in history as hugely popular monarchs, although Anne's reign saw nationalistic development, notably the 1707 Acts of Union whereby her realms of England and Scotland became united as Great Britain, creating Europe's largest free trade area.

Ungrateful Daughters is an insightful account of the 1688 Glorious Revolution and two rather troubled and troublesome sisters, neither of which became greatly revered. Anne became more iconic than Mary but without attaining much personal popularity with all those around her. Political and diplomatic achievements of Anne's governments, and the absence of constitutional conflict between herself and parliament, indicate that she chose ministers and exercised her prerogatives wisely. Her reign marked an increase in the influence of ministers and a decrease in the influence of the Crown

The Stuarts have been tagged a jinxed dynasty, with Mary of Scots and her grandson Charles I's executions, the latter's triggering England's republic. Then, after the long awaited and greatly hailed Restoration, Charles II's morally lax court attracted fresh disrepute; his many controversial bastards but no legitimate heirs signalled the beginning of the end for these Stuarts. Two unsuccessful invasions and coups by leftover Stuarts were plotted after the Hanoverian branch was called in: the 1708 Jacobite Rising, led by the Old Pretender, and the 1745 Jacobite Uprising led by his son, the Young Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie).

An important era to study in piecing together how the UK got today's royals, whose convoluted lineage runs from William the Conqueror ... via the tragic forbear of these very Stuarts: Mary Queen of Scots (and her Hanoverian descendants). Maureen Waller makes the characters and their motives accessible, coherent and dramatic without switching from meticulous documentation to melodrama.

Well-crafted high calibre biography.

My review of Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion 

by Anne Somerset

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

An excellent biography of a monarch often written off as 'too dull' by fans of the more popular icons, such as Tudors, etc.

In fact, as we see in this well documented account, Queen Anne had her idiosyncrasies, increasingly apparent throughout her life. Anne Somerset painstakingly draws out for us a studied portrait of a woman of distinct character.

Stolid, at times timid and withdrawn, at others formidably strident, Anne had a good heart and a wise head on her shoulders. Usually kept well cordoned off from her succinct 'constitutional' instinct, she had a closely guarded impetuosity, particularly around close relationships with female favourites. (Crass sensationalism has even seen her tagged a closet case. Whether or not she was, this biography transcends such silliness.)

Important diplomatic and nationalistic milestones were laid under Anne's watch. She left more than her predecessors to her government, adopting the tendency to 'sign off' more than dictate. This was the hallmark of constitutional monarchy, notably reviewed under Anne's Restoration uncle Charles II's succession, after the decade long Interregnum that followed Charles I's execution for being too high and mighty.

Anne's gender eased along this sensitive process, the woman often leaving big business to the men who did her bidding. Even so, she had her limits, would not always be pushed around and inconsistently put her foot down when her convictions demanded.

Her personal spending choices on select favourites drew harsh criticism from jealous insiders and other agenda driven detractors. She nevertheless usually stuck to her guns, displaying a strong personal loyalty which some dismissed as a weakness. This view of her as weak was compounded by her ever-ailing health.

Her less dictatorial, more constitutional ruling style, merged with these other features, sometimes left her seeming indecisive. This was a falsehood: had she been of intrinsically indecisive character she would never have so virulently fuelled the flames of the Glorious Revolution that saw her father removed from the throne.

Rather than being weak and indecisive, Anne was shrewd, wise and cautious, having seen what could happen to high-handed monarchs whose undoing was their rash and outlandish mistakes. In this feature, along with her stubborn side, she perhaps resembled Elizabeth I, but Anne had no such heart of fire, retreating into the shadows of her solitude more than the great Gloriana ever would have. Anne was immeasurably more contained, more modest, as dictated by these times where royalty itself walked a tightrope and republicanism still loomed large.

Stone statues and such iconography of her adorn great British heritage sites, confirming her importance in the long royal line linking today's royals to William the Conqueror. Though not every monarch has enjoyed Anne's acclamation, many were more greatly revered.

Anne Somerset breaths air into this frail and obese woman's lungs, bringing to us live and in person this great-great-granddaughter of romantic tragedienne Mary, Queen of Scots.

Enjoyed this biography very much, about the last ruler of what was not my favourite dynasty to read on.