Post #5: The Other Boleyn Girl
I have really got to get into a better reading groove. My total number of books read for this year is truly appalling. :))
Book number five for this year is Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl, which has been on my reading list for the past two years. I was originally aiming to have this read by February, in order to see the film in theatres, but that didn't happen, and in fact I didn't even see the film. I have put it into my Blockbuster Online queue, though, so that will be rectified soon.
What follows contains spoilers. I don't know how thorough or anything I'll be, as I have a headache and am very tired, but I do want to get my initial thoughts down "on paper", if you will, before I forget anything.
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I want to preface this by saying I have always been a fan of historical fiction, because I am a huge history nerd. This does not mean that I know a lot of inane facts or anything like that, but rather that I LOVE history as a subject, and especially like it when it's done in a way that's engaging and interesting to read. I know that The Other Boleyn Girl is not completely historically accurate - in fact, the book prompted me to do some research online about the Boleyns, and there actually isn't a whole lot known about Mary, who is the narrator of the story, or George, who I really adored (wah!), or even about Anne, who has remained the most famous of them historically because she was the Queen of England for a time. Because this was a story based on Mary's feelings and reactions, a lot of that had to be fabricated, because there's no way for anyone living now to know how she was actually feeling during all of this.
I think we know abstractly how life in the English Court worked way back in the day, for lack of a better phrase. We knew they married young, that they were strictly ruled by religion, and we also knew that Henry VIII was a huge womaniser. But knowing it abstractly and actually reading about a thirteen-year-old girl being married off to a much-older husband still had me raising a few eyebrows. I cannot even IMAGINE this. I'm quite a lot older than thirteen right now and would rail against anyone trying to marry me off to the best person available. Ack. And then you have everything else that Mary was forced to do - leave her husband to bed the King, just to try to move her family up the social ladders, then just willingly step aside for her sister to take her place even though she was the one who'd given him two children, to eventually having to watch the utter ruin of her family and those she loved. It makes you very sympathetic for her, and I am very VERY glad that she was able to attain her happy ending.
I utterly loathed Anne for a great deal of this book. But, because we were seeing her through Mary's eyes, I think that was what Gregory was going for. Mary says more than once in the book that she was always looking for a way to best her sister, after all, and while they loved each other, I think their main purpose in life was to make each other miserable. I liked watching Anne's struggle while she was trying to hold Henry at arm's length prior to his "divorcing" Katherine, the neverending show she had to put on for him and for everyone else watching her. I wanted to feel sorry for her, but her treatment of Mary (and even George, though to a slightly lesser extent) made that really *really* difficult. She had that sparkle, that dry wit and quick tongue. She was beautiful (according to Mary - I've read elsewhere that she really wasn't all that pretty, it was more the way she carried herself that made her attractive), and seemed to go to any length to achieve her ultimate desire - to be Queen. But she destroyed so much of herself and her family to get there that you can't help but think what happened to her in the end was fate. That being said, I think, in the end, I do feel sorry for her. She really didn't have a great life when it was all said and done.
On the other hand, I adored George, even though he was sometimes just as guilty of throwing Mary to the wolves as everyone else in her family. However, he had a sparkle about him - he was intelligent, funny, and, probably the most attractive part of him: suffering. He so desperately wanted what he knew he couldn't have. He was clearly in love with Sir Francis, but there was also a definite attraction between him and his sisters as well (again, possibly completely fictionalized, although he *was* arrested in the end on those charges, so who really knows?). He married an absolutely poisonous woman, again because his family told him to, and clearly wanted to be anywhere else but with her. I do wonder what exactly he and Anne got up to when Mary was away all those times - was he the father of the horribly disfigured baby that Anne miscarried? Or was her "journey to hell and back" something crafted by a witch? (I should note that the bit about the disfigured baby is possibly also made up - I didn't see anything about that in any of the information I was reading online.) The saddest part about George's story is that he was literally killed by his own ambition. He did anything and everything he was told to do by a family that cared not one whit about his happiness. His first job was to get Mary into Henry's bed. He did this, then had to basically supplant one sister with the other, even though he clearly loved them both. Then he had to help Anne keep Henry's interest, and then had to get her on the throne. Then he had to *keep* her on the throne, which was the hardest part of all, and when it became apparent that the only way to make sure she remained Queen was to get pregnant, he quite possibly helped her achieve that as well. At the very least he helped cover up her previous miscarriages, as did Mary. And neither of them saw any reward for any of it.
Make no mistake - I blame a lot of it on George himself, as well as Anne and the rest of their family, because he could have done what Mary did and just given up on the whole Court way of life. He teases Mary about being Mrs. Nobody but there was an underlying yearning for the same thing for himself - and it was just never going to happen because of how deeply he was entwined with Anne. At least he got some happiness with Sir Francis, even if it was terribly short-lived. I think George deserved love and happiness as much as Mary did, and it's sad that only one Boleyn was able to have that.
The one character I loved from the first instant they were introduced was William Stafford. He was fabulously written, even if most of what he said and did was fictionalized. He had great one-line comebacks and really made Mary choose what she wanted, which was novel for her because prior to William she had always just done what she was told and hadn't really had to make decisions for herself. I was glad that they were married (and WOW Anne's reaction to that news and the news that Mary was pregnant O_O what a bitch!) and that, after everything they were able to find a bit of peace in the countryside together with their family. <3
I also can't help but laugh a little at the irony of it: Henry never did get his legitimate son. Sure looks like he WAS the one to blame, after all. Henry was so convinced of his unlimitless power that he did anything and everything he wanted. Anne should have realized the monster she was creating; maybe then she would have been better prepared to help keep it at bay. Instead she was killed, and her family was destroyed - all except the sister she loved to better. Looks like Mary finally got the last laugh.
