history lesson

I'm sorry, but I don't understand all the snobbishness about The Tudors and similar shows that take a twist on history. Yes, they get the dates and characters and events mixed up at times, usually for dramatic effect. Sometimes, inexplicably. But carping about that is missing the point. What the series does accomplish is to give the viewer a real glimpse into life at the Tudor court and how the political and sexual machinations of the sixteenth century are not so very different from current maneuvers.

I am still haunted by last week's finale and depiction of Thomas Cromwell's end, which was gruesome, and accurate, maybe not specifically for Cromwell's death, but certainly for public executions of the time. The trajectory of Cromwell's career was fascinating, too. Not the first "common man" loved, elevated and revered by a king only to take a steep nose dive when the winds changed. Wolsey met a similar fate, also with Henry VIII (and Cromwell himself had a hand in that), and of course Thomas Becket and Henry II are legendary friends turned enemies. Funny that what we consider a success story in America, the "American Dream," was almost a recipe for disaster with the Plantagenets.

The attempt to rival Rome, and the combination of Jonathan Rhys Meyer's pretty boy intensity with a fair amount of bodice ripping was the original recipe for success for The Tudors. What has kept it interesting has been some excellent acting this season, most touchingly, from Joss Stone as Anne of Cleves, and the politics of fear and absolute power. Maybe the details are somewhat sketchy at times, but if you want to get all the facts there are plenty of great books on the subject to check out. If you want to get a taste of not-so-merry-Olde-England, a feast awaits.

henry the king

The Tudors are back, and it looks like we're in for some interesting intrigue. Would Henry VIII have been able to inflict as much personal damage if he had a computer? Or would he have been surfing the 'net on dating sites all day trying to find the perfect brood mare?

In the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden there are banners displaying the museum's portrait highlights. One banner features a Holbein portrait of Henry's son, Edward VI, as a child. It's one of the few portraits of children that displays the family's rank and wealth (primary function) while also showcasing a chubby-faced baby boy that looks like a real child and not some strange miniature adult (bonus). Cute kid. Holbein later gained a reputation from Henry himself of being too flattering a portraitist (the "deceptive" Anne of Cleves portrait debacle that cost matchmaker Cromwell his estates, property and life).

It will be interesting to see how the series continues, through his third and fourth wives and whether it is willing to continue to follow this most famous of English monarchs through his old, dissipated aging. Or will it stick to the young, petulant, spoiled beauty of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who has been sowing hints of megalomania through the first two series and now looks ready to let 'er rip. They are dealing with his health issues (leg ulcer). And feeling less than great can definitely spoil one's mood, so when it's a person with the power of life and death...

Let Henry enjoy a brief bit of happiness as his first legitimate son is born. Then look out, everybody...

crazy book lady...

...or bibliophile. That sounds less compulsive, doesn't it?

I needed to get the books out of my daughter's room, to see if that would effect or improve her allergy situation. Another in a long list of lifestyle adjustments for us both, which has included the exile of my beloved cat of fifteen years to the Virginia suburbs (sigh). But that's another story...

...so back to the books, and boy, there are a lot of them! I was able to get her books into a medium size bookcase and two small storage units for easy access. I also decided to move the three piles of "to-reads" from my bedroom out to the foyer as well, which is now our ersatz library. While I was doing all of this moving around I decided to take a little inventory and see if I could shed some - for donation or trade at my favorite used bookstore. Not a lot of luck. There were a few titles that my daughter was willing to pass on to a baby friend of ours, but not much more. And looking at my books, well, they are divided into quite a few categories, none of which I'm wiling to pare down yet either, if ever:

• My dad's books - not a lot, but some poetry (Wallace Stevens), astronomy and history titles that make me think of him
• Vintage children's books - from my mom's and my childhood, some are pretty fragile, some are pretty amazing (Many Moons, D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths)
• Travel and foreign language books - remind me of trips to Italy, Egypt, Greece and France. The travel guides are totally out of date, but...
• Mystery - mostly Agatha Christie from my mom and Lawrence Block from my dad
• Art, Art, Art - catalogs from exhibitions or featuring favorite artists and museums (Botticelli, Musée de Cluny, Bayeux Tapestry, Titian)
• Historical fiction - right now it's medieval England and France that's floating my boat (The Sunne in Splendour, Time and Chance, Mademoiselle Boleyn)
• Cookbooks - mainly Mediterranean Cuisine (The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines, Mario's Holiday Cookbook)

As I was looking at all the books, I started thinking about connections and how one thing leads you to another. Of course my art education has provided a background for my interest in Ancient and European art, culture and history, whether I have pursued this interest through fiction (Christian Jacq's Ramses and Stone of Light series) or non-fiction (Antonia Fraser's Wives of Henry VIII, Death in Ancient Egypt, Love and Hate in Jamestown). But anyway, I find that a movie or a television program like The Tudors led me to read more about the period. Reading about the Tudors made me want to know about the Wars of the Roses, which led me back to the Plantagenets and how it all started. As I read about the English I became more interested in France, as the two separate countries we know today were in those days completely intertwined. This brought back my trip to the Loire Valley, which was part of a tour of northern France. At the time I was not so interested in chateau after chateau, but now I realize that I was walking in the footsteps of Francois Premier, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitatine as I strolled through Chinon and Angers, where I saw the amazing Apocalypse Tapestry. Of course now I want to go back to France and England, armed with my better understanding and reference points. The question is, once there, what will spark my fancy and lead me off on another thread, supplemented of course by books, books, books?

a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse...

You know how sometimes once you get interested in one thing, you become of aware of a whole lot of other related things? They may have been there all the time. Or you might just be dipping into the shared unconscious. Who knows?

I've always been interested in history, through art. Hated art history at school, which was mostly about dates, something my brain refuses to process. But I love reading about the folks in the paintings and their life, their world.

Watching The Tudors got me into well, the Tudors, and that lead to reading about the French court of Francois Premier (who was a huge fan and patron of Leonardo [back to art again]) and then backwards in time about Richard III. Then all of a sudden I found a great book, The Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman, about Richard and his brother, Edward the IV, and the other night Looking for Richard, starring and directed by Al Pacino was on. Finger on the pulse?
Pacino obviously understands evil schemers. And I'll hand it to him, he wasn't Michael Corleone with a hunchback. But for me, he can be really awful or really good. Sometimes, just distracted. So his improv-like take on Shakespeare's poetic vilification of Richard was at times really hard to take. Also his choice of collaborators was odd. Some of the choices were great - Kevin Spacey, of course. Some of them - Winona Ryder - huh? A great scene in the play where Richard seduces Lady Anne, over her dead husband's coffin ran sort of like this:

Pacino : Iambic pentameter without an accent, but giving it a good shot.
Ryder: Duh?

I'm not a Ricardist - one of those folks who think Richard was robbed by history. I also don't believe everything I read, so the truth is probably somewhere between Shakespeare's monster and Penman's hero. But another recent read, Alison Weir's The Princes in the Tower seems just like a load. A historian (but now also novelist) firmly in the Tudor camp, she is completely unable to be objective, spinning her "facts" to suit popular interpretations. The only thing she concedes is Richard may not have had a hunchback. Many other theories abound, and another popular book, and a great read, Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time clears Richard of the murders.

What is so fascinating about history and art is the folks who inspire it and make it. And the endless interpretations that it can take. Which is why someone like Richard III or Anne Boleyn and their hard-to-understand behavior can still seem so interesting today. Because don't we try to understand (mostly unsuccessfully) behavior of folks we know, actions that make no sense at all, every day?