Reading & writing update

Reading:

1. First of all, I had to set aside David Starkey’s Six Wives, because I had maxed out my library renewals. I’ll pick it up again later. I was confusing myself by skimming ahead to the Anne Boleyn chapters anyway.

2. I am nearing the end of Rodney Bolt’s History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe. It gets more charming by the page. Thank goodness, Kit has just escaped an assassination attempt in Deptford and gone underground in Antwerp. It’s a shame that all the plays he’ll write from now on will be attributed to that “upstart crow,” William Shakespeare. But at least the dashing Kit is still alive and more importantly, still producing great literature.

3. I started Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol as a read-aloud with Number-One Daughter a couple of nights ago. Ah, Dickens. Can’t beat him for sheer exuberance of language. Last night, my son joined in listening, though when we stopped, he informed me that the illustrated paperback version he had just read to himself was “better.” Patience, Mom. He’s only nine.

Writing:

1. I still like the idea of using poetry in my current WIP. I have allowed myself to add letters and journal entries for two of the characters. Wimping out? No. But plopping butt in chair and writing a bad love sonnet at 5 a.m. is not as easy as some might think.

Reading update: hodgepodge

I have been living in three different centuries: The 21st, even though I frequently don’t feel like it; the early 16th, while reading David Starkey’s Six Wives and watching the Showtime series The Tudors on DVD; the late 16th, while reading David Riggs’s The World of Christopher Marlowe and Rodney Bolt’s History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe. OK, technically that’s only two centuries, but close enough.

What I am really enjoying, aside from time-travel through the power of literature, is how the texts play against each other, and against the visual drama. For example, I have more insight into what the actors and producers of The Tudors are trying to accomplish, having read the sections of Six Wives that relate to Catherine of Aragon and to Henry VIII’s early years as King of England. One observation is that the drama takes great liberties with the timeframes of history, while yet preserving the essential themes: the lure and practice of power and the lengths to which people will go to gain and preserve it; the human pettiness, neediness, integrity, and strength that can be found in varying degrees in all people, whether kings or commoners. In this regard, what was true for the 16th century remains true for the 21st. For me, this is what makes the show so appealing. (Can’t beat the gorgeous costumes, either!)

[A writerly aside: Is this not what we try to do with fantasy, or any kind of fiction—take liberties with “reality” while preserving the essentials of the human condition?]

I have a similar situation with the Marlowe books. The Riggs book is a straight-up, in-depth history of the Elizabethan age, including the known facts of Marlowe’s life. Bolt, on the other hand, has created a sort of anti-history—melding the scant extant facts of the lives of Marlowe and Shakespeare to present intriguing insights into what we 21st-century folks have left: the plays. So far I have read in both books about Marlowe’s childhood and education. The Riggs book at once reinforces the history of the Bolt book, while providing a firm base for the flight of Bolt’s imagination.

[A parental aside: It appears that the educational system of Elizabethan times was as un-ideal as today’s.]

…you must cast the scholar off,
And learn to court it like a gentleman.
………..
You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute,
And now and then stab, as occasion serves.

Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, Act II, scene i, lines 30–31, 41–42

Reading update

I realize that I have been acting something like a tease. I wrote about how I ordered and almost finished Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Crossing to Paradise and how I checked out Jean Ferris’s Twice Upon a Marigold, but I didn’t write about how I finished both books or how I felt about them once I was done.

So, here’s the report. I enjoyed both books very much, and finished them in pretty good time considering the sad lack of time I have for reading these days. (Maybe I’m spending too much time blogging???) Crossing to Paradise was not as stirring as the earlier, related Arthur series (oh, how I missed Arthur—one of the most endearing characters I’ve ever read); but it makes a nice stand-alone, historical novel. I was tickled at how it referred back to the Arthur series, and how the ending satisfyingly tied up some loose ends in the Arthur series. I breezed through Twice Upon a Marigold, and found Ferris’s humor just as good as in the previous book, Once Upon a Marigold. At first I kept thinking to myself, “What a nice job she does getting a Message across through her charming story and humor,” but by the end of the book I began to feel that maybe the candy-coating on the message was wearing a bit thin. Overall, still an enjoyable read.

I have now entered a more “serious” phase of reading, having begun David Starkey’s Six Wives, about the queens of England’s Henry VIII. I keep hearing Starkey’s voice in my head as I read, having recently watched most of the PBS series Monarchy (ack, I have one last episode to go—thank goodness for Netflix and no due dates). I admit I am a history buff; but I have to say that for interest and readability, novels have nothing on the best popular history books of the last several years. Today I also picked up my inter-library loan copies of two books about Christopher Marlowe. I began reading the first in the dentist’s office just this afternoon. I promise to write reports on these books when I finish, though it may be a while, as Six Wives alone has more than 700 pages. To paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara: I won’t go hungry for quite some time.

What to read?

I’m on the brink of finishing Crossing to Paradise by Kevin Crossley-Holland, so naturally on my weekly trip to the public library today, I had to stock up on future reading materials. Just like most people would never want to run out of food staples like milk or bread, so I get nervous when I’m approaching the last sliver of pages in a good book. I want to know where my next meal is coming from.

Truth be told, I have shelves full or at least stacks of books in every room in my house (OK, not the bathrooms). I am not going to starve. There are dozens of these books I have never even read. Many more that I would gladly read again and again. But going to the library is like walking into the grocery store when you’re hungry. And then you see the bakery case.

So what goodies did I bring home? After watching those crafty, power-hungry, and masterful monarchs in the David Starkey DVD series, Monarchy, I decided to continue feeding my Anglophilia. I checked out Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl and David Starkey’s Six Wives, about the queens of Henry VIII. Then, for good measure, I hopped onto the computer and requested History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe, by Rodney Bolt, and The World of Christopher Marlowe, by David Riggs, through interlibrary loan.

Let the feast begin!