100!

My 100th blog! Its time to celebrate! Champagne pops!

Anyway, here I am sipping champagne (or rather coke zero) and blogging about The Autobiography of Henry the Eighth by Margaret George .

Its an excellently researched historical piece. While it seems to varnish over Henry's cruelties, its important to remember that this is written as an autobiography by a man in the 15th and 16th centuries. I think Margaret George does a very good job of not judging him by our comtemporary standards, instead leaving him to be judged by the stadards of a time when the king's word was law.

One of the places where this disconnect between our times and Henry's stands out absolutely clear is in his belief that Anne Boelyn was a witch. Of course, we modern people know that there is no magic and no witches, but to Henry, in a world of superstition and unreason, it may not have been that obvious. And, if he was eager to get rid of her, how easy for him to see what he wanted to see!

The book brings out also the strange coincidences that guided Henry's life- that he brought up as a priest, never expected to marry, broke with the Catholic Church and married six times.

It does seem that the author romanticezes the king, but remember that this is written as his autobiography. As powerful and certain as he was of his own rightness in all things, it is hardly likely that he would have portrayed himself as a violent and intolerant monarch.

And the book really does bring Henry's court to life, with all of its supporting characters, his six wives, his friends, his children, the impact they each had on Henry's life. The characters all seem very realistic (except strangely, Elizabeth who seems precocious far beyond her age- I realise that she's now more legend than fact, but it would be nice if one person could write her normally, without all this foreshadowing.)

Anyway, the book runs into almost 1000 pages, and took me about 8 weeks to get through! It was gripping though, for all the time that it took.

After Henry the Eighth, I took up "Wyrd Sisters" by Terry Pratchet for some light reading. A spoof on Shakespeare's Tragedy's Hamlet and Macbeth, it was increadibly funny (as all his books are).

I went and picked up "Watership Down " and "Pillars of the Earth" from the library yesterday, so looking forward to a long week reading them