Historical Addiction (The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillipa Gregory)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillipa Gregory
Date:	14/03/08 (262 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The best book I've read in a long time!

Disadvantages: None at all!

I've recently been seeing a quite of lot of advertising of the film adaptation of "The Other Boleyn Girl" and am very keen to see it. I've always enjoyed historical or war genre films and from the trailers I've seen this one looks just up my street, especially as I was always fascinated by this era at school. I soon learnt that it was based on an actual book and decided to read the book before the film was released - little did I know I would have devoured the entire book in under a week!

The Author

Philippa Gregory was born in Kenya and moved to England at an early age. She has quite a selection of novels under her belt, including both adult's and children's books as well as several travel publications. The Other Boleyn Girl was published back in 2002 in the UK and since then she has focused quite heavily on the historical genre when writing.

The Plot

The story in based during the reign of Henry VIII which lasted from 1509 to 1547. It begins in the early 1520s and focuses on the two Boleyn girls and their various intimacies with Henry VIII and relationships within his court. The story begins with Henry's grievances against Queen Catherine and her inability to give him an heir, which lead him to begin an affair with a young Mary Boleyn.

The Howard family, of which the Boleyns are a part, are obsessed with gaining power within the court and being favoured by the King himself, leading them to encourage Mary to do whatever she can to stay in the King's bed. Once she has bore the King two children we begin to see the King's growing infatuation with her older sister Anne Boleyn. Power hungry Anne refuses to do as her sister has done, instead she demands that the King annul his marriage to Queen Catherine and marry her instead.

What follows is Anne's often desperate attempt to become accepted as the Queen and to have the adoration of her King. Instead things turn out quite differently, as many of you who have read a history book on this will know, and the outcome is not what Anne expected in the slightest.

The Characters

The central character to the story is Mary Boleyn who we first meet when she is a young girl. She is the youngest of three children and quite a successful courtier as the court of Henry VIII. When she catches Henry's eye she is forced by her family to bed him in order to gain power on their behalf but we soon learn that she loves the king and does it for this reason. She comes across as quite a likeable character and one that I could empathise with throughout as she is always forced to do her family's bidding, regardless of the cost to herself.

Her sister Anne Boleyn also plays a large part in the novel. She is Mary's older sister and at the beginning of the novel we learn she has returned from the French court where she has been educated. Again she is a most successful courtier although her charms and flirting within the court seem to have a hidden meaning. Anne is very much the power driven sister and seems intent to reach the top at whatever cost. While Mary is away from the court having the King's child Anne sees her opportunity and quickly pounces on him which is hardly an act of sibling support.

George Boleyn is the third of the three Boleyn children and is very supportive of both his sisters. Despite being a charming young man and one of the King's favoured courtiers his major fault is the fact that he is homosexual. At this time homosexuality was considered a sin in God's eyes and therefore he must do all he can to hide this from the court. Overall he seems a likeable character although as the story continues we learn more about George and exactly what he is willing to do for the family name and power.

There are other characters contained in the novel including the King who seems quite an animated man whose favour is sought by all, Queen Catherine who seems a good and quiet lady who invoked much sympathy in me for the way she was treated especially by Anne and Uncle Howard who is head of the Boleyn family and seems to use his nieces as pawns in his quest for power.

My Opinion

I absolutely loved every single page of this book and despite it being over 500 pages long I managed to finish it in about five days - I even took it to work and read it while I ate my lunch I was that desperate to know what happened next! Gregory writes in such a style that is both intoxicating yet plain, she manages to describe large events in just a couple of pages yet has the reader gripped at all moments.

As I've already mentioned the novel is over 500 pages long which I did think was quite long initially, however the tale begins in the early 1520s and continues until the mid 1530s. Each chapter signifies a new season and some chapters are just a couple of pages long. There is a good sense of progression in the novel and a fast pace meaning that on one page you can be reading about an event in 1530 for example and by the next page you've skipped half a year and are in the summer of 1531. I didn't feel for a second that the book was too long nor that the pace being stagnant at any time - if anything I wish it was longer!

Gregory writes so that a single event can be used to describe a whole season of time and in doing so prevents the book from becoming static in any sense. Mary is the story teller as such in the novel and therefore all events are depicted through her eyes however she does remain quite impartial with regards to her feelings. Although I found her style to be quite descriptive it was also concise at the same time in that I feel every bit of information that she included was necessary and I didn't at any point think she could have left something out to make the book a little shorter.

The characters are well developed throughout the novel and as the time period it spans is so large the reader can really gain an insight into their personal growth. When we first meet Mary she is not even a teenager and is very naïve and willing to do whatever her family ask of her. As she grows we gain an insight into her dissatisfaction with the demands of her family and as she grows further into an adult she gains both the courage and determination to actually defy their orders. The same sense of growth is also depicted in Anne whose hunger for power starts off as just a mild resentment of her sister when she has the King's favour, but then grows so it is at the centre of her every move and thought - at times I felt Anne would have stopped at nothing to get ahead, regardless of any cost to her family.

The rivalry between the two sisters is one of the key themes that is touched upon repeatedly throughout the novel. While Mary bedded the King for the good of her family, Anne went after him for her own personal gain. While Mary was recovering from the birth of the King's son her sister Anne tempted him away and effectively stole him from her. While Mary just wanted to care and love her children Anne adopted Mary's son without even telling her and effectively became his guardian and mother. As you can see this is no normal sibling rivalry, there is a clear difference between the two sisters and the value they place on both family and morals. Although we do gain glimpse of Mary's jealousy she never fails to put her sister first and be there for her when she is needed. If the tables turned and Mary needed Anne I find it very hard to believe that Anne would have gone running like Mary did.

With regard to the truth behind this novel there are certainly some possible discrepancies; Philippa Gregory has used a large number of sources to gain as accurate information as possible about the two Boleyn girls and Henry VIII which are all clearly cited at the back of the novel. From my own research through Google before writing this review I found that there were two Boleyn sisters and that at one time or another they both were Henry VIII's lovers. What is not clear is who was the elder sister although Gregory has chosen to portray Anne as the elder to perhaps make her devious and jealous side more believable at being unmarried while her sister was married and also the King's lover. I have also since learnt that although in the book Mary is said to have had both the King's daughter and son, it is not clear if both of these children were actually his. However the main facts are there and if you're willing to overlook a few untruths that were simply added to make the novel more entertaining and more readable, then this is a fine choice.

I would recommend this novel to absolutely anyone who is a fan of the historical genre, in fact I enjoyed it so much I would urge you to try it. There's a fair amount of deception, drama and romance to appeal to those of you who aren't fans of history as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and couldn't put it down; I just hope the film lives up to it now!

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Thanks for reading.

Summary: Phillipa Gregory's novel on the reign of Henry VIII and the Boleyn family.