Sofa Spotlight - Kenilworth, Sir Walter Scott

At last Kenilworth came to an end. And never before have I felt so cheated by the end of a book. You could argue that I only have myself to blame for my disappointment, given that I am aware of what happened historically with Robert Dudley and his wife, but in my defence, I thought that as Scott had rewritten so much of the history in this book and turned it into fiction, he might have done the same with the ending. Particularly as he puts his reader through agony to get there.

I can’t really write about this book properly without spoiling the ending, so if you are planning on reading this and don’t want to know how it ends you need to skip the next couple of paragraphs.

The real history is that Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester is married to Amy Robsart. But he spends much of his life hoping to marry Queen Elizabeth I. Amy Robsart mysteriously dies and there’s suspicion that she was murdered so that Dudley can marry the Queen.

In Sir Walter Scott’s version Dudley has secretly married Amy Robsart and is trying to keep it secret from the Queen so that he can get more power etc. But he is frustrated that his secret marriage means that he won’t be able to marry the Queen. Dudley’s servant, Varney, is trying to help Dudley rise in favour with the Queen, and tries to smooth the way by getting rid of Amy. And so the book ends the same way as history did, with Amy’s death. But as reader’s we go through so much angst because Dudley can’t make up his mind and the other characters inadvertently make things worse, so that by the end the least Scott could have done would be to let us have a happy ending.

I wasn’t far through the book when I realised that the best way to deal with all the angst was to work out what was the worst possible decision a character could make, and then try to guess how long it would be before it happened. Because it did happen. Most of the time. 

But I also learned some really valuable life lessons along the way:

Get married secretly and run away from your friends and family.

It’s not really described how Dudley convinced Amy to marry him but she ended up leaving her father and the man she was engaged to, Tressilian (who was a bit of a wet lettuce), behind with no idea where she was. Also it made her father really ill, because he was a nice man who happened to love his daughter. Great idea.

2       It’s ok to live hidden away with a creepy guy and his daughter as long as your husband has promised that one day you will live with him as a countess.

Yep. Amy lives with some random guy and his daughter, who behave more like jailors, while Dudley keeps his position at court. Oh and she can’t get in touch with her sick father. Who does that?

3    When you can’t take it any more run off with a complete stranger who only days before had pretended to be a salesman so that he could talk to you.

In fairness she did think she was about to be murdered and she didn’t really have a lot of options. But still. Thankfully as readers we know that this one is alright, even if he does act a bit suspiciously.  

4    If it looks like the Queen is about to find out about your wife just pretend that actually she married your servant. 

Again in fairness if you think you might be executed you’re probably going to say, or as in this case, go along with whatever lie comes along first that might save your skin. But really how did Dudley think it would help matters later on when it comes out that not only as he secretly married but he has also lied to the Queen?

5    Fight and try to kill the person who would help you if you only talked to him.

So yes, you might think you’ve got it all worked out and you need to kill this person, but surely it is always better to speak first and then stab with sword?

As you can probably tell I think that this is a very silly book. But don’t be put off, if you want a laugh and would enjoy some angst and drama, then please go for it. And let me know which character you like the best.

The book about valuable homes for our canine friends

Kenilworth is not going well. It’s not helped by the fact that I keep finding other things to do/read rather than read it. My dad refers to it as my book about valuable homes for our canine friends. All that I can say is that I am making a list of all the important lessons I am learning from this book. How any of the characters have made it this far in their lives is beyond me, and I’m confident that none of them will have the sense to make it to the end. Maybe one will, but definitely not the rest of them.

Pre-Order Joy

Last week was brightened for me by the arrival of a book I had on pre-order. And what really made it sweet was that I had only found out about its existence by accident the week before, and it was on a subject that I’ve been meaning to read up on for a long time. So what was the book I hear you ask – well it was none other than The French Revolution by Stephen Clarke. It might not sound that exciting but Stephen Clarke is the author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French. Sound better now? If you’ve never read it I highly recommend it because Clarke is excellent at making history funny. Which is why I’m hoping that reading The French Revolution will make reading up on that period of history easier to swallow. Oh and I’ve always wanted to find out more about the French Revolution since I read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

And no I haven’t finished Kenilworth yet.

Kenilwhat?

The book that I am desperately trying to get through is Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott. I’ve made it to roughly the half way point and I’m still not sure who I’m supposed to be rooting for. In fact I think I may be inadvertently rooting for the wrong character. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have some idea of what you want to happen by now. Also I’ve only just worked out why it’s called Kenilworth. All I can say is that the second half better make all this hard work worth it. But it’s a beautiful weekend for sitting in the sun with a book!

What makes you cry?

I’m struggling to get through the book I’m reading so I decided to take a break and read something else. Bit of a mistake because I went from a book where I couldn’t really get behind any of the characters to something where I really could, and nearly ended up in tears. Which got me thinking about books that make me cry – and having thought about it for a while I concluded that there aren’t many that have achieved that. Books that have achieved this are The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (his new book Bridge of Clay is out later this year!) and also Selected Letters of Charlotte Bronte by Margaret Smith. The latter because after reading it for so long I felt that I had come to know Charlotte Bronte a little bit through her letters, so I was genuinely distressed when the last letter was from her husband to a friend to say that she had died. So when my housemate asked why I was crying I had to confess that it was because Charlotte Bronte was dead. It was a weird moment but we got through it.

Anyway what books have made you cry and why? Or have any brought you to tears because they are so bad?

Libraries and Gladstone

I may not have finished a book in time for this week but my excuse is a good one. I’ve been just outside Chester exploring Gladstone’s library. It’s the kind of place you dream of reading in – a library full of old books from floor to ceiling. Which is what I did for a little while. And next week I will tell you about what I read. In the meantime you should check out the library’s website in case you need to go exploring too.

Sofa Spotlight - Endless Night, Agatha Christie

Endless Night is the last Christie I’m going to read for a while, but it’s definitely my favourite so far. There’s no Poirot or Marple, or any detective at all, just a narrative of how the murder happened. In my opinion the ending wasn’t as strong as it could have been. I would have liked so see the murderer made more of, but they just seem to crumble, somehow it just didn’t seem to fit.

The story is told through the narration of Michael Rogers, who is a working class guy who meets a rich heiress, Ellie. They get married and Michael’s friend Rudolph Santonix, an architectural genius, builds them a house on Gypsy’s Acre.

There are so many ominous things that happen in this story. Santonix says some very telling things to Michael though out the story. He might be a brilliant architect but he is dying, although I was never overly sure of what it was that he was ill with. When he does eventually die his final words to Michael seemingly mean nothing, but Michael puts a meaning to them later on when he sees a ghost.

If you’re not a fan of ghosts and stuff that’s spooky I would leave this one alone.

Gypsy’s Acre is the crux of the story. The local folklore is that the land belonged to some gypsies, who were forced to move off the land, which didn’t make them very happy, so they put a curse on the land. Esther Lee is the local gypsy, and she keeps popping up warning Ellie of the curse and lots of strange and frightening things happen that all attributed to Esther. It all comes to a head when Ellie dies and then all the threads of the story come together.

The title comes from William Blake’s poem Auguries of Innocence, which I attempted to read but didn’t get very far with. What really interested me was the dedication, which is to Nora Pritchard and says that it was from Nora Pritchard that Agatha Christie first heard the legend of Gypsy’s Acre. Which gets me thinking – what is the original legend of Gypsy’s Acre. I’ve asked google and Wikipedia tells me who Nora Pritchard is but that’s it. So if you know what the legend is, let this curious one know.

Not sure what I’m going to do now that I’ve overdosed on crime fiction for over a year. I do have Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks by John Curran if I start to have withdrawal symptoms.