Earthly Joys: A Novel
by Philippa Gregory
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philippa GregoryEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-24
ISBN: 0743272528
Number of pages: 516
Publisher: Touchstone
Book Reviews of Earthly Joys: A Novel
Book Review: "Practice, not principle..."
Summary: 4 Stars
Historical fiction is Gregory's métier, especially England in the Tudor/Stuart eras, Earthly Joys covering 1603-1639, post-Elizabethan rule, when James I of takes the throne, bringing his Scottish entourage with him. Changing the face of the once staid and proper Elizabethan court, James closes his eyes to Papist practices and indulges in masks and diversions, wasting the coin of the treasury on vast entertainments, while the common people are burdened with unnecessary taxes, their farmlands enclosed for royal use.
Robert Cecil, long a close advisor to Queen Elizabeth, steps in to advise the new King, his estate a favorite diversion for the royals, with its magnificent gardens and handsome appointments. John Tradescant is chief gardener to the statesman, as well as a close friend. A simple man, John believes deeply in the natural hierarchy of authority, God, King, Lord and servant, although many have begun to question the King's direct link to God. John's gardens reflect his philosophy, an Eden without the taint of disorder: "a delicate marriage of wildness and artifice, an imposition of order upon unruliness, which... looked as if it had been ordered and well-ruled out of simple good nature."
After Cecil's death, John is commissioned to work at other fine estates, creating his intricate gardens from plants he has collected from all over the world. Eventually, John's talent comes to the notice of George Villier, the Duke of Buckingham, a confidant of both King James and his successor and heir, King Charles I. The Duke's behavior is scandalous, his excesses legend and there is gossip that he is lover to both the King and his heir. But when Tradescant meets Villier, he falls under the man's spell, his charm and beauty blinding John to the dangers of such an alliance.
John's wife, Elizabeth, has always been of a strong religious bent, eschewing finery for the more austere garb of the Puritans. As John travels over the years for Cecil and the Duke, gathering cuttings and rarities, his son grows up much like Elizabeth, questioning the King's direct lineage to God and wanting more than to pledge his life to another man as an oath-bound servant. By the end of James's reign, the Duke is second only to the new monarch, Charles I, who, like his father, ignores the troubles of his people, indulging in his own pleasures. But John is helpless to deny the Duke, even to the point of death, desperately in love with the charismatic dandy who is squandering the kingdom at the side of Charles I.
Throughout the novel, nature's diversity is contrasted with the turmoil wrought by selfish kings and their sycophants. Tradescant straddles the middle ground, wed to the beauty he creates, but losing his balance in matters of the heart. He believes the myth, mistaking a god in the dazzling beauty of the Duke, yet constantly disappointed by the reality of his position in life: he is only a gardener, albeit the finest in all of England. Tradescant is as deeply flawed as the era he lives in, a good man caught up in a dark vortex of conflicted emotions, struggling to balance his duties as a husband and father with the yearning to travel the world, to follow the Duke wherever he leads. His faith in God and himself is put to the test and John knows both indescribable joy and the depths of despair.
John serves as a metaphor for the changes sweeping the country, devoted to the old ways, yet tempted by the new, his heart tormented by helpless devotion to the Duke, his marriage flawed but still dear. His life mirrors history, the reign of James I, Charles I, The Gunpowder Plot, the great crash of the tulip market in Holland, the clash of King and Parliament and a growing populist revolution, a well-ordered world thrown into chaos by an irresponsible monarchy blind to the ills of society. Tradescant travels the globe gathering every variety of nature to plant in English soil, a life he could never have imagined, his soul adrift in a rose-filled garden, the sharp thorns of loss hidden beneath the fragrant petals. Luan Gaines/2005.
Summary of Earthly Joys: A Novel
Whether he is nurturing a single rare seedling into a blossoming tree or planning acres of exquisitely conceived royal gardens, John Tradescant's fame and skill as a gardener are unsurpassed in seventeenth-century England. But it is Tradescant's clear-sighted honesty and loyalty that make him an invaluable servant, and in his role as informal confidant during garden strolls with Sir Robert Cecil, adviser to King James I, he witnesses the making of history, from the Gunpowder Plot to the accession of King Charles I and the growing animosity between Parliament and court.Tradescant's talents soon come to the attention of the most powerful man in the country, the irresistible Duke of Buckingham, the lover of King Charles I. Tradescant has always been faithful to his masters, but Buckingham is unlike any he has ever known: flamboyant, outrageously charming, and utterly reckless. Every certainty upon which Tradescant has based his life -- his love of his wife and children, his passion for his work, his loyalty to his country -- is shattered as he follows Buckingham to court, to war, and to the forbidden territories of human love.
From the details of garden design and innovation to the politics of a growing revolution which was to kill a king and turn a world upside down, Philippa Gregory once again makes history come alive through the people whose passions shaped that world.
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