"I don't think that being a strong person is about ignoring your emotions and fighting your feelings. Putting on a brave face doesn't mean you're a brave person. That's why everybody in my life knows everything that I'm going through. I can't hide anything from them. People need to realise that being open isn't the same as being weak."

- Taylor Swift

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

Okay, so I read The Other Boleyn Girl ages and ages ago, but just recently I borrowed it again from the library and read it again, and I enjoyed it perhaps even more.

The Other Boleyn Girl is a fictionalized dramatisation of the rise and fall of the Boleyn family, a cadet branch of the extremely ambitious Howard clan. The story starts with the execution of a Boleyn relative, the Duke of Buckinghamshire, and ends with the execution of Anne Boleyn herself.

What I love about The Other Boleyn Girl is that it gives a very real perspective of the women of the king's court of that time - how utterly ignorant the king was to the needs and pains of women, and how they are manipulated by their families for political advantage. Sure, The Other Boleyn Girl does not follow history word for word, but you don't get the same drama from re-enactments unless they are embellished slightly - unless you were then and there personally, and I don't think anyone can boast of that.

The book is notorious for being historically innaccurate, and as much as I am not against historical innaccuracy in fiction (some innaccuracy, such as birth dates and orders and such .Costumes designated to noblewomen when the are only worn by prostitutes, as is the case in a book entitled The Red Queen, is quite a different story), I feel I should list the innaccuracies so you can better get the idea of the book before you read it - it is a lot clearer and a lot easier, perhaps, then my writing another long-winded synopsis:
  • The birth order of the 'Three Boleyns' (Mary, Anne and George) is disputed historically, as there are no parish records of their exact birthdates. However, it is generally accepted that Mary is the eldest and George is the youngest, with Anne in the middle, although some sources say that George is the middle child and Anne is the youngest. In The Other Boleyn Girl George is the eldest by four years, followed by Anne and then Mary with less than a year between them. 
  • The ages of the Three Boleyns are also warped in the book: in 1522, Mary is portrayed as fourteen,two years into her marriage to William Carey, Anne is fifteen, just returned from France and George is nineteen, therefore their birthdates would be 1508, 1507 and 1503 respectively. Although exact dates are unclear, it is agreed by many historians that Mary was born in 1499, Anne either in 1501 (if she was the middle child, this is the more accepted date) or 1507 (if she was the youngest child). George's birthdate is roughly 1504. Anne was sent abroad in 1513 at the age of twelve, and both she and Mary were sent to France to serve at the French court. Mary returned to England in 1519, and was married a year later in 1520 to William Carey at the age of 21, a year later, she embarked on her 5 year affair with the king. In 1522, Anne returned from France, and began her seven-year dalliance with the king in 1526, finally marrying him in 1533.
  • Although it is well known that Mary Boleyn was a mistress of King Henry VIII, it is still debated whether her two eldest children, Catherine Carey (born 1524) and Henry Carey (born 1526) were fathered by the king. Mary's liasion with the king is roughly 1521-1525, and many claim that she was isolated from her husband Sir William Carey during this time so that any children she might have would definately be of the king's body. Catherine and Henry were never recognised as royal bastards, however, court gossip of the time circulated that Henry was a 'spitting image of the king'. In the book, it is clear that both Catherine and Henry Carey were undoubtably the king's children.
  • It is not thought by most historians that Mary and Anne Boleyn were particularly close, or that the king was a sort of prize that they battled each other for. However, when Mary's husband died Anne secured her a small annual pension of 100 pounds, cleared the debts her husband left her and adopted her son Henry so that he could access a superior education. In the book, Anne maliciously steals Henry away from Mary so that she would be the Boleyn sister with the royal son, but she does secure the annual pension. 
  • When Mary entered her second marriage to the relatively poor and unknown Sir William Stafford, she was cut off from her family without a penny and her right to a pension was withdrawn. Historians believe that her marriage to Stafford was a love match, and that she never saw any of her family, including Anne, after her marriage, but was often reduced to begging the king's advisor Thomas Cromwell to speak to Henry and Anne on her behalf. It has been established that Mary did not make any significant attempt to save her family from ruin and her siblings from execution, but lived her days out quietly with her husband in the country with her children, and when her parents died she inherited a substantial amount of land and died a wealty land owner in her forties. In the book, Mary is cut off from her family and Anne refuses to let her see her children, but eventually relents and allows her to see them occasionally on the condition Mary stays at court and helps Anne through her struggles to provide an heir. In the book, differing from the movie adaption, Mary makes no plea on her sibling's behalf as she mistakenly believes that they are to be exiled, not executed. After Anne's execution, Mary and her family flee to the safety of the country. 
  • In the book, George Boleyn is portrayed as being homosexual and in love with Sir Francis Weston, but he frequents whorehouses in his youth and is sexually attracted to his sister, Anne, even consenting to commit incest with her in her desperation to conceive a child, but the child is born dead and horribly disfigured. Although George Boleyn was rumoured to be homosexual, there is no solid proof. 
  • Mary is portrayed as a naive, inexperienced young girl who was as 'sweet as a virgin at confession'. In reality, historical sources claim that Mary had been the mistress of Francis I, King of France, and possibly some other French nobles, causing her parents to recall her from France in disgrace and quickly marry her off. 
So, if you're like me and like your fiction a bit fictionalized, then The Other Boleyn Girl is a brilliant book. If you like perfect, word for word historical accuracy, I suggest David Starkey, who, by the way, hates The Tudors, a TV series even more abridged than The Other Boleyn Girl. The Other Boleyn Girl also has a 2008 movie adaption, starring Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn, Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, Eric Bana as Henry VIII and Jim Sturgess as George Boleyn. Why they cast two Americans and an Australian for thoroughly English roles remains a mystery until this day.

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