Illuminated

Should one write about a book that made one cry right away? Or should one wait a bit. I am going to try for right away....

"The Illuminator" by Brenda Rickman Vantrease is, I gather, a first novel - which surprises me. The plotting is so perfect with rarely a wasted scene that one would suspect it to be the work of a seasoned author. Many figures of late 14th century England are either participants or in the shadows. John of Gaunt's palace sacked, Boy King Richard meeting with the rebels - these events are background colors in this intricate painting of a book that has at its core a painted altarpiece done by an artist in captivity.

The anchoress Julian of Norwich is a prominent person, with her vision of the Mother Love of Christ shining through the events of the story. This permeation makes me want to explore the stories of female mystics of the time. And Wycliffe's influence is shot through the text both in the efforts at the translation of the Bible into English and a result of mob rule without respect for the established Church. It is altogether a rippling time of convulsive change, a fine era to explore by reading an architecturally fine novel.

Initial Thoughts on Richard II

I was made better acquainted with Richard II by reading Jean Plaidy's "Passage to Pontefract", her handling of the story of John of Gaunt and Richard of Bordeaux, who became the second of that name on the death of his grandfather, Edward III.

This book was a retelling of the history serially, with little extraneous material. Actually, it was like reading a history book with the characters strengthened into fiction. What characters they were! - senile Edward III and his rapacious paramour Alice Perrers, Good Plump Queen Philippa, the wanton turned troubled Fair Maid of Kent, the ambitious (how many times were we reminded) John of Gaunt, a wonderful and treasured Catherine Swynford, down to the quite complex figure of Richard II. History of course is written by the winners, and the Lancastrians may have exaggerated the depth of this monarch's ineptitude.

Katherine

And then I read "Katherine".  Since then, I am on a kick to see how the whole Lancaster thing started, reading John Gardner's 1977 work on Chaucer, and taking shots at what before now was an inaccessible Shakespeare play - "Richard II".   It is a sort of a rush - before the last few weeks, I have never read Chaucer, previously knew little about the Peasant's Revolt, or even thought about that complex king, Richard II (pictured here addressing the rebels in Froissart).

Anya Seton, through what must have been a sustained period of thoroughly hard, painstaking work, created a masterpiece in "Katherine".  Never have I seen a great man's mistress so nobly and sympathetically described.  One roots for her from page one.  And so much happens in her 53 years, events in a life made to fit into a span replete with thematic and dramatic content, a love affair of four decades with its own epic conclusions.  Historical fiction at its classic best.

Old John of Gaunt, what a lady killer.  Katherine, lithe and pleasing.  I think it was good to read Weir's biography of Katherine before the novel because it gave me background in a period I knew naught of, and underscored that this novel, though of a real historical remarkable lady, had its wellspring in recorded fact.  The encounters described, one thinks, may very well have happened that way, and did so as all literature exists to me from some kernel of truth embossed in beautiful soul moving language.

The Sins of the Father

This fellow is one scary dude (or "dread lord").  Kenneth Branagh's portrayal of Henry V resonated with me - a mixture of a romantic view of war through the soliloquies ("a touch of Harry in the night"), and the bloody gory hopelessly tragic detail of the film sequences at Harfleur and Agincourt.  He bankrupted the treasury for his son, and only postponed the reckoning of the central Lancastrian moral problem- that they stood on the shoulders of a murdered Richard II.

I often think of the parallels to today - how the Bush administration has all but bankrupted our national treasury for a war whose premise is even more flimsy as Henry V's reason for war.  I don't see a way out - and hope it doesn't turn out like the Hundred Years War, with an empire dwindling back to the original size, and seemingly irreparable loss of credibility in the world.

Constance of York

My knowledge of Henry IV's reign (Henry VI's grandfather) is spotty at best - I've never read the plays, or indeed anything in depth. Having just finished Within the Fetterlock by Brian Wainwright, I can't say that anymore. Even though it is historical fiction, and not historical fact, it gives a sense of the far-reaching problem of H4's reign - that it rules upon the deposition and murder of the anointed King Richard II. The novel also stresses the financial problems of the reign, a factor that dogged the Lancastrian house to the end.

The story is built around that of Constance of York, a newcomer to my consciousness. She was pulled in a few directions, both personally and politically. That she was cousin to both Richard and Henry made it hard for her initially, though, as the story goes, she aligned herself against Henry. And paid for it.

The novel was exceptionally well written. In fact, after a slowish start, I was totally pulled in. Unlike many readers, I was not hampered in my enjoyment by knowing what happens next. I look forward to reading more of this author.