Captive Queen

Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir

I've wanted to read this book for a while as I had really enjoyed The Wars of the Roses. In that book I had been thrilled with her writing style, using a mixture of historical fact, conjecture and creative license.

On starting this book I remember being a little disappointed at first because it seemed quite different from the other, as if it had been written for a purely fictional audience. I felt like I had been thrown onto the set of HBO's The Tudors with all the abundant sex scenes and passion detailing the early relationship between Eleanor and Henry. Every time I turned the page they were at it again, and frankly I'm amazed they didn't both die of exhaustion!

For much of the early part of the book I had flashbacks to things I had read in Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth and by the time I reached the murder of Thomas Becket I was replaying the imaginary movie I had originally made up in my head a year ago. Then towards the end of the book, when Henry and his sons are warring against each other, I kept waiting for Russell Crow to make an appearance. My mind was running through the early scenes of the latest Robin Hood movie recalling the similarities between the two and each of these famously historical figures had Hollywood faces.

Moving through the pages though was a very easy read as layer after layer of depth is added to each of the characters. Each of them becoming quite complex and really having you wanting to go off in search of more information about them. Now I find myself with a long list of people I would like to read more about. You really start to feel for each of these historical figures regardless of whether you consider them a "good guy" or a "bad guy". The descriptive change in Eleanor's demeanor while she is locked in her tower as Henry's prisoner is very subtle. Then later, after they have mellowed a little, the momentary tenderness that Henry and Eleanor show towards each other in their old age is very compelling as you again catch glimpses of why they originally came together but are sadden by the fact that they had grown so far apart.

I ended up thoroughly enjoying this book, even reading the authors notes at the end, which is something I very rarely do. Now I have to tackle my self-created further reading list...

The Alphabet...

"But above all astonishing inventions, what loftiness of mind was that of the man who conceived of finding a way to communicate his most recondite thoughts to whatever other person, although seperated from him by the longest intervals of space and time! To speak with those who are in the Indies, to speak with those as yet unborn, or to be born perhaps a thousand or even ten thousand years hence! And with what ease! All through the various groupings of twenty simple characters on paper" - Galileo

As found in "Biblioclasm" by Marc Drogin

Defining "Eclectic"

So yesterday when my trusty superhero mailman delivered my new book (see yesterday's post) he called me eclectic in my reading tastes.

Dictionary.com defines "eclectic" as follows:

–adjective
1. selecting or choosing from various sources.
2. made up of what is selected from different sources.
3. not following any one system, as of philosophy, medicine, etc., but selecting and using what are considered the best elements of all systems.
4. noting or pertaining to works of architecture, decoration, landscaping, etc., produced by a certain person or during a certain period, that derive from a wide range of historic styles, the style in each instance often being chosen for its fancied appropriateness to local tradition, local geography, the purpose to be served, or the cultural background of the client.

Do I consider myself eclectic, yes to an extent. I mean my tastes in most subjects fall firmly into points one and two above. I will happily mix old and new alongside each other, I would happily hang Picasso alongside Fra Angelico alongside Delacroix. I even mix different types of woods in a single room. My taste in movies is all over the place and my music tastes range from rap to classical and everything in between. Not all encompassing but small examples, if I like something then I like it, if I don't then I don't. It really doesn't matter what classification it's given.

But he got me thinking. If he (or anyone really) were to walk into my library at home, would he really consider my reading tastes eclectic? Is it only "eclectic" if the viewer knows nothing about a subject? Even growing up, my bookshelves have always held the same loosely related subject matters - history, art, architecture, and travel. In my mind they are all incestuously interrelated but if someone doesn't know how the subject matter fits into a worldly view does that make my choice of reading material eclectic? Granted, he only see's snippets of my collection when he delivers a book to me, would he likely change his mind if he saw the collection as a whole?

Scribes at London Guildhall

Scribes at London Guildhall were responsible for promoting Medieval English Literature: "Two University of York researchers have found evidence that the London Guildhall served as the cradle of English Literature in the late Middle Ages. It was the home to scribes who copied the first manuscripts of works by fourteenth-century authors Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, as well as early copies of other Middle English authors including William Langland and John Trevisa.

Professor Linne Mooney and Dr Estelle Stubbs, of the Centre for Medieval Studies at York, discovered evidence of the identities of several scribes of Middle English literature who were members of the civic secretariat at the London Guildhall.

Click here to read the article from Medievalists.net

New Book to Read

So yesterday I went to the bookstore to buy a birthday present for someone else, I got sidetracked like I always do and came out with new reading material for myself.

First on the list, The Great Mortality by John Kelly, an intimate history of the Black death, the most devastating plague of all time. The back cover reads as follows:

La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history - a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.

I read the introduction last night and was already starting to get quite engaged so we'll see how the book as a whole progresses. Apparently it's author was intrigued by "...original source material, the literature of the Great Mortality - the chronicles, letters, and reminiscences written by contemporaries..." It seems to have gotten some pretty decent reviews and I guess I can blame my Mother for being interested in reading "histories". Definitely not a bad thing considering my new favourite past-times!