Sunday Reads - 14 September

I know I used to do Wednesday Reads, but this is a bit of a change-up to accommodate the change in direction of the blog, and a bit of a pun, as well.  And with this I'm thinking of Sunday Reed, owner of "Heide", a house (and now gallery) in the Melbourne suburbs with a grand historical art connection.

So: non historicals that I've been reading include:

• The Jewel, by Amy Ewing.  Part of my current attraction to craptacular dystopias seemingly based on contemporary reality TV.  Like Kiera Cass' "The Selection" series, this is part of the "based on The Bachelor" subgenere of dystopia - although this one has definite links to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale as well.  Which just makes me think I need to write posts about my first reading of Handmaid's Tale as well as her historical Alias Grace as well.

• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.  This year's Hugo winner for best novel.  The Galactic Suburbia girls were so pleased that this book was nominated, and so was John Scalzi, that I put it on hold the day the Hugo win was announced.  I will definitely be reviewing this on Goodreads once I finish it, and linking it to a Sunday Reads post.

Reading the Morlands: "The Dark Rose", completed

So - I haven't been entirely put off this series yet.  I finished The Dark Rose this morning, and am still intending to dig into The Princeling later today (point of interest: The Princeling is about Elizabeth I, not about Edward VI.  On the one hand, I get it, especially as I'm expecting a lot of Oh, Noes, Womenfolk cannot rule, look at Queen Matilda!  But I expect it confused a few people on publication, too.)

But back to the book I've just finished reading.

Nanette = awesome.  Especially for inserting an entirely fictitious character relatively well into real events.  Kudos to Harrod-Eagles for not overplaying her hand, and for keeping Nanette's close involvement with the court to only two Queens.  Nanette's taste in men = far better at the end of the book than in the middle.  I still say that the majority of Morland heirs are utter gits.  Young Paul seems to be a little better, though.  (No idea if he'll still be alive when I open the next book.)

Religious conservatism of the Morlands: not as well explained/justified as I would have liked.  I could have done with the conversation between Nanette and James Chapham on such things going on for another page to actually talk about it instead of just stating the position.  H-E's (it's too long to type, I'm lazy today) position seems to be "they're Northern, therefore".  Don't know whether this doesn't satisfy me because I'm Protestant, or because I'm not English, or what.  But I'd certainly like further explanation - I may get it later on, of course.

H-E does have her favourites, doesn't she?  But then so do I, it's just that they're not hers.  And on the continuum of Jean Plaidy through to the HBO? Showtime? series The Tudors, H-E isn't all that bad.  She doesn't delete an entire line of the family, leaving the kingdom without an eventual heir, for example (I just recently watched all the way through The Tudors.  I'm not sure I can manage a blogged rewatch - not for a few years, anyway, but I do want to post something about it here at some point.)

So yes - not giving up on it just yet.  :-)

Reading the Morland Chronicles: "The Founding", completed

My thoughts, having finished:

I really do find the overly romanticised versions of Richard III tedious. 

As I read, I really did try to keep in mind the characters as people of the time, without instantaneous communication, the knowledge of history books, and etc.  These were Yorkists, through and through, and their support for Richard makes sense - but I still think we got the plaster-saint version of Richard, and that just irks me.

Eleanor was a fabulous character.  The connections to the Courtneys are going to make things interesting as the series goes along, and her strength and determination were well calculated to catch my attention.  It was a good thing - from my perspective - that Harrod-Eagles decided to focus on a female character for the first book.  If I had instead been confronted by the male characters as the focus, I might have given up already.  (I've already commented, in my first post about book two, how little respect I have for Ned and Paul Morland, son and grandson of Eleanor, and this is because of their lack of respect for women.)

I told a colleague I wasn't sure I'd stick with the series.  Perhaps I was having a generally negative day that day, or feeling hurt on behalf of Henry Tudor (and more to the point, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville - both women I have a great deal of time for, but who were rather hard done by in the latter parts of this book.)  As I write this I'm more than halfway through the second book: The Dark Rose, and have the third, The Princeling, on loan to start reading straight away.

So I may not be *loving* this series, but I'm finding enough in it to enjoy critiqueing and exercising my mind that I'll keep going for the moment.

Reading the Morland Chronicles: The Dark Rose, part 1

(I've finished The Founding, but haven't managed to write up my thoughts yet.  Or rather, I'd written them up, but they didn't save (damn the iPad app).  But I went straight on to the second book in the Chronicles.)

My opening thought - as shared with Twitter - about this book is that Paul, like his father Ned, is a jerk.

I'm at page 385 now, and that opinion hasn't really changed much.  I still really dislike Paul and (vague spoiler) I have massive issues with Nanette's taste.

I did love the beginning, and the connections being made with the Parr and Boleyn families, and can see Nanette's childhood connection with Katherine Parr making her time as Queen quite interesting for Nanette.  It's an interesting portrayal of Anne Boleyn, too, although I am bristling at the implications being made towards poor Mary Boleyn.

I also have problems with Harrod-Eagles' preface, which says that Henry only ever had two mistresses.  1) That's only counting the ones he didn't eventually marry, and 2) isn't counting Madge Shelton, for at least another one. And it's just being disingenuous.

I don't really want to end up hate-reading this series, but it just galls me.  She seems to have taken all my pet peeves and used them in the books so far.

I still like Plaidy better.

Reading the Moreland Chronicles: "The Founding", pt 2

Where I am up to: p 428.  I had hoped to finish reading The Founding this weekend, but I had a busier weekend than I'd expected... and then there was this:

#readingtheMorlands they're Richardians! I should have known, but what a disappointment.
— Heidi Stabb (@heidi_reads) August 31, 2014

When I say "I should have known" - they're in York.  Quite apart from the fact that Eleanor is in love with the 3rd Duke,, *and* that I know it's decidedly unfashionable to not be a Richardian in historical novel circles (in case I need to say it again, I consider myself a Richard-cynic, and although I have read Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time I found it utterly infuriating.  I'm not an anti-Richardian, but I'm definitely not a Richardian.)

And so having the Moreland's so completely pro-Richardian has put a bit of a spanner in the works of my reading.  (Picking up The Princeling and discovering they're Catholics in the reign of Elizabeth I hasn't helped either.  Every time I read such things I tend to rediscover just how Protestant I am - which is a reminder that I really should re-post my review of Gregory's The Queen's Fool.)

Anyway.  I was really quite saddened by the death of Isabella, and am quietly pondering what her death says about Harrod-Eagles' approach to things:  I will be keeping it in mind as I read further.  Her presentation of Jocosa is similarly thought-provoking, bound up as it is in her presentation of Edward IV's army vs Richard's, and where she's going with that.  Dickon is fascinating, but I don't think that H-E will spend nearly as much time on his motivations as I would like her to.

I found myself skimming last night rather than actually reading: the Richardian proselytising just got a little much.  But I am trying to actually read it properly - truly I am.  I've got the second book The Dark Rose out of the library in anticipation of finishing this one, so I certainly hope that by next Monday I've moved on to that one from this.

Reading the Moreland Chronicles: "The Founding", pt 1

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' "Moreland Chronicles" is an unfinished multi-volume family saga intertwined with British history from the 1430s to the 20th Century.

I plan to post as I read through the Moreland Chronicles with observations and comments.  I can't guarantee to read the books continuously, and I will need to get some of the in from other libraries, but each week while I'm reading a Moreland book, I will post. (Or at least attempt to do so.)

Book 1 - The Founding

The Moreland Chronicles begin in the reign of Henry VI.  Eleanor Courtney is the ward of Edmund Beaufort, uncle to the King, from the Swynford line.  She is married to a farmer, Robert Moreland, son of Edward Morland, whose house stands just beyond the gates of York.  But Eleanor, married late by the standards of her day, has already given her heart to Richard, the 3rd Duke of York (father of the future Edward IV of England.)

Where I am now: page 168 - Eleanor has been married to Robert Moreland for enough years that her eldest daughter is fifteen and herself married into Eleanor's Courteney relations.  Robert has risen, in great part through the ideas and influence of Eleanor, to be a great merchant of the north of England.  The family's  marital allegiance to Edmund Beaufort and Eleanor's emotional attachment to the Duke of York are beginning to cause tensions for the Morelands as the rifts that will eventually become the Wars of the Roses grow deeper.

Comments: I love, love, love the agency of Eleanor within a time period when we tend to view women as very passive.  Yet, Eleanor is far removed from court, and the episode when she goes out with the men to defend her husband's flocks reads as entirely possible, although not the sort of thing likely to make it into the formal histories.  I adore her tomboy daughter Isabella, and look so much forward to seeing what happens to Isabella through the years, moreso than Helen (although that's totally authorial bias.  You're drawn away from Helen at this point.)

I'm really enjoying this life of people removed from the royals of the time - as much as I love Plaidy and Gregory, this is a gorgeous telling of the story from that one level removed.

Goodreads tells me I'm 31% through the book so far.  I'm looking forward to the upcoming 69%.

Wednesday reads, sort of - 20 August 2014

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth, although I don't blame you for thinking I had.

I'm just snowed under by an adverse roster at work, and various other brain-and-time related issues.

I haven't really been reading much, either.

Poor old Hild is getting sent back to her home library without having been read, and Hugo-winner Mary Robinette Kowal's Glass and Glamor is having the same treatment.  I hope to get them back and actually READ them this time before the end of the year.

I'm working on Plady's Star of Lancaster on my Kobo app on iPad, and Captains of the Soul in tree-book, and I've also picked up (but haven't actually started reading yet) the first book in Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' ridiculously long and yet unfinished Morland Dynasty, The Founding.