Or, perhaps I should say that my current literary obsession is anything written by Philippa Gregory. Either way, I'm about halfway through The Queen's Fool right now, and I'm already worried that I'll dive into a deep depression the day I finish The Other Queen. But first, just so this makes some kind of sense to you, let me explain how this obsession began.
Since I live in Alaska, I have to take really long plane rides to get anywhere. In March, faced with a 10+ hour travel day to get to Orlando, Florida, for my mother-in-law's 80th birthday, I panicked. I knew my iPhone's battery wouldn't last through more than maybe two movies, so I headed to Borders to find a book.
As a kid, I was a freakishly avid reader, but as an adult, years of college and law school had pretty much squelched any desire I had to spend hours in front of a book. But now, faced with a situation where movies and TV shows would be unavailable, and I'd be stuck on an airplane with nothing to look at for hours, a book seemed like a reasonable way to spend some time.
So, while at my local Borders, I went to a section called "Staff Recommendation," where I found a book called The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. I discovered, from the back of the book that it's written from the perspective of Mary Boleyn, who tells the story of her life as a member of King Henry VIII's court. She serves in court with her sister, Anne, and her brother, George. It sounded interesting, so I made my way over to the Philippa Gregory section on the shelves, and tried to figure out which of the books were part of the Tudor series, and in which order I should read them.
Then, a woman sidled up next to me to look at the Philippa Gregory books. Her eyes scanned the shelf, and she told me she was looking for a paperback copy of The Other Queen, which wasn't out yet. She said she'd been coming back once a week to look for it. "Have you read any of these," she asked.
"No," I said, "but they look interesting."
"OH!" she gasped. "You must read them! Philippa Gregory is amazing. Read The Other Boleyn Girl first. That's the first one I read. Then you'll be hooked, and you'll want to read the other ones."
"Really?" I said. "I'm looking for something to read on a plane. Is that a good read-on-a-plane book?"
The woman looked at me like I had just said the stupidest thing ever. Like I had just asked if Shakespeare was a good reading-on-a-plane playwright.
"Just read The Other Boleyn Girl, she said. "You won't be sorry."
Now, if this seems like an odd exchange to have with someone in a bookstore, let me tell you that I have conversations like this all the time in Alaska. That's a whole different blog post, though, and some day, I'll write about how people I don't know are always approaching me in public places and telling me things. For now, back to Philippa Gregory.
Still wondering whether The Other Boleyn Girl was a good book to be stuck with for 10+ hours on a plane, I decided to buy it. I was running out of time, and hadn't found anything else that looked good. Plus, that woman had given me her recommendation, and at this point, I was going with it.
I began reading The Other Boleyn Girl on the flight to Florida, and was hooked within the first five minutes. I read it nearly the entire trip, and never once felt the urge to watch one of the episodes of The Office that I had loaded up on my iPhone.
Yep, it was that good.
And, luckily, it's realy, really long (672 pages), so I had lots to read on the trip home, too.
When I got home, I looked up the other books by Philippa Gregory, to determine which titles were in the Tudor series, and in what order I should read them. I found six books, and two recommended ways to read the series:
1. The order in which they were written:
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Virgin's Lover (2004)
The Constant Princess (2005)
The Boleyn Inheritance
(2006)The Other Queen (2008)
2. Or, chronological order:
The Constant Princess (Katherine of Aragon)
The Other Boleyn Girl
(Jane Boleyn, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard)The Queen's Fool (Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I)
The Virgin's Lover (Elizabeth I) The Other Queen (Mary I, Queen of Scots)I decided that I would read them in chronological order, even though I had started with the second book. I read The Constant Princess after The Other Boleyn Girl, and then I read The Boleyn Inheritance. I am now halfway through The Queen's Fool.
I saw the movie version of The Other Boleyn Girl (starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana) after I was totally finished with the book. The movie was good, definitely worth seeing, but it left out a lot of the story from the book. It also slightly changed a few of the "facts" from the book (without giving anything away, there are parts of the book that are disputed by historians. The book went one way on a few key issues, and the movie went another way). I loved Natalie Portman's portrayal of Anne, and the movie acurately conveyed the sometimes dark, foreshadowy feel of the book (we all know how this ends, right? I mean you took Western Civ. in high school, right?). But there were some key scenes in the book I really wanted to see that were left out of the movie. I recommend that you read the book first, so that you know the background behind the movie plot. If you've already seen the movie, be prepared for a whole bunch of stuff you didn't see to be in the book. And be prepared to love the book way more than you loved the movie.
So, what was it about this book that I loved so much? The drama, of course. The drama that read like a soap opera, but was also educational at the same time. I have always been interested in history (history was an "area of emphasis" for me in college), but I have never read anything that sucked me into a period of time the way The Other Boleyn Girl did. As I read it, I felt like I was right there next to Mary, as she confided to me every plot, every betrayal and every sinister act she witnessed at court. And I worried about her the whole time. I knew what was in store for Anne, but I wasn't sure about Mary's fate. On more than one occasion, I wanted to yell at the book, the way you want to yell at a movie screen, "Get the hell out of there! You're in danger! Don't you see? Don't you hear the foreboding background music?" In other words, I felt the pure literary joy of being completely swept into another time, and another place, by a story.
After reading the Boleyn series, I have a new fascination with the Tudor time period. I'll read my way through the rest of the series, and then, most likely, find some other books on the era. I doubt they'll be as entertaining, but that's okay, because I've already got vivid pictures of these historical figures etched into my brain by Philippa Gregory's captivating writing. The characters are already people who didn't just exist, they lived and breathed, loved and feared (boy, how they loved and feared!). She brought them alive for me.
And, she revived my love of reading. My love of reading for the sheer joy of finding a story that you can't wait to tell your friends about.
