The Queen's Fool: A Novel (Boleyn)
by Philippa Gregory
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Book Reviews of The Queen's Fool: A Novel (Boleyn)
Book Review: Vexing. Very Vexing.
Summary: 4 Stars
Moments after I completed this book, I finally figured out what had been bugging me about it the entire time I read it, and preventing me from enjoying it more: it's really two books, tumbled together as one. There are two stories here, and they never quite work together as a single book. One story revolves around a Jewish girl named Hannah who has to constantly fear being killed for her religious beliefs, must hide with her father in plain sight, posing as a Christian (and perhaps slowly becoming one) and constantly trying to resist the servitude of marriage, the restrictions of womanhood, and the permanence of growing up. It's a fascinating coming of age story with a solid love story at its core, set in an exciting historical context that moves quickly (if repetitively) and left me wanting more.
The other story is . . . less successful. In that story, the same girl also happens to have the gift of Sight, allowing her to occasionally have visions and make prophesies. This gift allows her to become the Holy Fool for King Edward, Queen "Bloody" Mary and the future Queen Elizabeth I. Though Hannah is a young girl and a Jew, Gregory would have us believe that her gift allowed her to get close enough to two queens for them to talk to her as if she were a loyal friend and a confessor -- to ask her advice, to use her as a spy, and to beg for her predictions. This part of the story simply never worked for me. It wasn't well-written enough for me to ever suspend my disbelief, even for one second. I never believed that either Elizabeth or Mary would be so open and honest about their feelings with anyone, let alone a character like Hannah, who is both a child and a Fool. Gregory simply over reaches herself, especially when she tries to elicit the reader's sympathy by painting Mary as a heartbroken woman who burned hundreds of innocent people in order to better "mother" her country. Bloody Mary is simply too notorious a villain for Gregory's writing skills to overcome, and no matter how much I read about her sorrow over losing two children and the affection of her husband, I never stopped thinking of her as anything more than a butcher who was getting what she deserved. Elizabeth herself says it best in the book, on page 463 of the paperback edition: " . . . her sadness at the loss of a child who never was is nothing compared with the grief of a woman who sees her son go to the stake."
It was an interesting choice for Gregory to approach this volume of her Tudor chronicles through a fictional, outside character. I don't know why she chose to do this, rather than simply tell the story of Queen Mary through the Queen herself, using Mary's voice to narrate. Perhaps then she might have been able to really delve into her heart and understand her actions. Mary's story is a tragic one indeed -- it has an almost Cinderella quality, and it would have been astonishing if Gregory had managed to turn her into a truly sympathetic character, and let us see how the neglected daughter of a betrayed monarch became one of history's most notorious figures.
Had she done so, Gregory would have been able to save her other, better story, and give it the separate book it so richly deserved. Hannah's tale would have made an excellent bit of historical fiction in its own right. Not only would we be given a glimpse into the ancient ways of book-making and printing, but we would have learned a lot more about how Jewish people managed to keep their faith and survive even after being tested over and over again by intolerance and bigotry. I was frustrated when the story veered away from this and back into the politics of courtly life, back into the ridiculous scenes of Hannah calling a queen by her first name and being treated as a senior advisor. I was also frustrated with the end of story, which doesn't wrap things up well. I was curious about the fate of several characters who disappeared without a trace.
The only other thing to add is that as usual, Gregory's book is very repetitive. (Following in the footsteps of The Boleyn Inheritance and The Constant Princess.) Hannah reminds us every fifty pages or so that she is a Fool, a Christian pretending to be a Jew, a girl who is pretending to be a boy, a spy for the Dudleys pretending to be a spy for the Queen who is really a spy for Elizabeth and so on, ad nauseam. In spite of its flaws, I liked it a lot better than either of those books -- however, nothing compares to the excellence of The Other Boleyn Girl, the first and best book I ever read by Gregory, which no work of hers since has managed to hold a candle to. But I'll keep the flame in my heart burning as I move on to the final book in the series, The Virgin's Lover, and hope for better things.
Book Review: A misfire from one of my favorite authors
Summary: 3 Stars
I will discuss major plot points for The Queen's Fool and give very minor spoilers for a few other Gregory works in this review. If this bothers you, please do not read further.Like many readers, I first found Gregory through her absolutely stellar The Other Boleyn Girl. I am not a Tudor scholar, but the world of paranoia and political machinations felt absolutely correct. Gregory is a very skilled writer, and, not incidentally, writes romance and intimate scenes with impressive economy and impact. I hunted down and read many Gregory books, many of which are out of print (though the superbly demented Wideacre and its two inferior sequels have been reprinted). I learned several things about the author Gregory. She has a good handle on history, and has the very rare talent of writing about historic people and events without essentially regurgitating the half-digested mental contents of a three-month library trip onto the page, as so many historical novelists who write about feisty gals are wont to do. As I mentioned earlier, she writes about sex and love in an involving and, yes, titillating manner. She does not impose artificial "happy" endings and she is happy to write about flawed, even despicable women (and men, though most of her main characters are women, with the delightful exception of John Tradescant in Earthly Joys) as opposed to the Rhodes Scholars of historic fiction. (Their only flaw? They're stubborn! Arggh! See: Pope Joan, Year of Wonders, to name two.) And she has an odd fondness for writing about people who are not at the center of things, but just off-center. The Other Boleyn Girl, of course, is a shining and beautifully executed example of this.
So I was obviously transported with delight when I saw The Queen's Fool in paperback; even its cover was reminiscent of The Other Boleyn Girl. The Queen's Fool certainly opens with a bang, no pun intended, and I was waiting for the book to be great. Well - it wasn't. The tension and lust and mild historic elaboration in the first chapter? That was the high point.
The main character in this book is a young Jewish girl named Hannah Green (or Hannah Verde.) In an intriguing touch of the fantastic, Hannah is psychic. She, together with her father, is fleeing the Inquisition in Spain, which has claimed her mother. Hannah is also extremely well educated, which is understandable, since her father is a bookseller and Jews tended to be more literate in that time period on average. However, as I continued to read, Hannah's tale failed to grab me. Hannah is engaged to a nice Jewish boy, but she's in lust with the very hot Robert Dudley. And she wears boy's clothing, which she apparently continues to wear through most of the book.
(Please, girlfriend!)
Gregory plays around with Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, making the first sympathetic (at least at first) and the second kind of a bitch, but a charming one. She's at her best when writing about the queens. But Hannah - I was surprised to see it - she's dull. And her story line is shockingly treacly, especially for Gregory. The nice Jewish boy? She kind of falls for him and they have a nice sensible relationship based on respect. Think she has any real conflicts with her dad because she's a secret Jew at court? Well, he frets a lot, but that's about it. He doesn't even really mention her boy's clothing. Oh, and then he conveniently dies. Is Hannah witness to all the upheaval of court? Some of it. Then she goes to Calais and kind of hangs out for the last third of the novel. As the novel progressed, I kind of got the idea that Hannah, quite honestly, wasn't that important except for the fact that some important people liked her. There is no real dramatic payoff to her personal relationships. Heck, she even has fewer psychic flashes as the novel continues.
So is it at least romantic and/or sexy? Does she get into a hot steamy affair with the forbidden Robert Dudley, whom she mopes about for much of the book? Well, sorry to break it to you, but no. In fact, even though Daniel and Hannah are supposedly hot for each other, do we get a payoff when they finally get together? No. And why the kid? WHY THE KID? Geez, I thought I was reading the 16th century X-Files for a moment! It's not like I need every Gregory main character to be a sociopath, but who is this treacly, perfect, boring girl, and why is Gregory writing about her?
However, Gregory's other strengths are on display - good historic knowledge, seamless writing, and general page-turning inducement. It's not a terrible book, and it's certainly better than 90 percent of historic fiction. Still, I know from my reading of Gregory's oeuvre that she's an intriguing but uneven writer. This is one of the (relative) duds. Come on, Philippa, buck up - I know you've got it in you!
Book Review: Not Gregory's Best
Summary: 2 Stars
I picked this book up with high hopes. I was, however, disappointed.
Hannah Verde's mother is a victim of the Inquisition, and she and her father have run away from Castile to England, disguised as a bookseller and his apprentice.Hannah is also gifted with the Sight, the ability to see the future, and when John Dee of all people comes at her father's door, she is begged for a fool.
The general summary makes you want to grab the book and start reading it immediately. I guess my main issue with The Queen's Fool was how nothing really seemed to fit together. And by "nothing" I mean the characters and the plot. The entire story was filled with contradictions that flawed the otherwise good narrative.Once Hannah is begged for a fool, she feels an attraction to Lord Robert that is something akin to a crush. Or maybe something more than a crush--but this crush makes her willing to leave her father and betrothed, and serve Lord Robert as his fool and maybe, just maybe, something more. Hannah's love for her master is never fully described; Robert Dudley's charm and good looks are clear throughout the entirety of the story, but besides that there isn't much of a reason for Hannah to leave her family for a man whose worth the reader can't exactly understand, especially since that same man threatened her (with she being a Jew in a Protestant country).
Right before Robert Dudley is put in the Tower of London, he sends Hannah to spy on Princess Mary, later to be queen. Hannah respects and admires her mistress, and has open disdain for Protestantism, which is rather strange considering that she is a converso Jew. It wasn't the virtuous, pitiable picture of Queen Mary that I disliked, for I am neither on Team Anne or Team Katherine, but Hannah's view of the woman made no sense. And even though she loves her queen and mistress, she is still very attached to Lord Robert, who sits in the Tower, waiting for his execution. And I still don't understand why she loves Lord Robert so much, either.
Then, all of a sudden, Queen Mary sends Hannah to her sister, Princess Elizabeth.I Elizabeth was portrayed correctly; she wasn't a saint, but she wasn't totally evil either. It seemed, at least to me, that Gregory didn't really side with Elizabeth or Mary--they seemed to be portrayed equally. But then again, all of a sudden Hannah, who just can't seem to make up her mind, is ditching her dad and fiance to join Elizabeth in the Tower, in her "time of need." This really puzzled me, because honestly--what has Elizabeth, Mary, OR Robert ever done for this poor Jewish girl, who deserves to have a life NOT based on their means?
But it was the main character, the narrator, Hannah that annoyed me most. All her desires lay in the Tudor court, causing her to hurt her father, her fiance and his family. Her fiance also baffled me. He was very inconsistent, ordering her around in a very misogynistic manner, and then being passionately in love with her the next. The former made sense, but the latter did not. It seemed as if the only love between the two was one that of a pair of teenagers giving into their hormones. There didn't seem to be any genuine liking.
I was expecting a lot about Hannah being a Jew and how it affected the plot as well as her persona. But the only memories of Spain she has is that of her mother, who died for her religion--and yet, here's Hannah, caught up in the intrigues of the Tudor court, which is all terribly self-contradictory. I think the only reason she was so involved in the Tudor court was for, well, the Tudors: that is, for the readers to learn about the Tudors through the eyes of a Jew who isn't really a Jew. It was a great idea, but it was just very messy. The whole idea had extreme potential, but Hannah was just a very incomprehensible character. It was hard to tell what she was and what she wasn't. The beginning hundred pages are enjoyable, but the goodness of the novel disintegrates after that.
Book Review: The Queen's Fool
Summary: 5 Stars
It is time for you to leave. The Inquisition is has started and they are looking for you. If you don't escape they will arrest and execute you for heresy. That is what life was like when Hannah Green's mother was killed for being a Jew in Spain. Once while she was working at her father's printing shop in England, some noblemen learned that Hannah had the Sight, which meant that she could see angels and see into the future. Hannah worked for the Mary from the time she became queen until right before she died. She had to go to Calais, where she married her betrothed, Daniel Carpenter. Soon after they separated because Hannah found out that while she was working for the queen he had a child with another woman. When the city was under siege by the French the mother of Daniel's son, Danny was killed. Hannah took the baby and brought him with her back to London. A few months later, Hannah, Daniel, and Danny reunited and became a happy family. I was very much intrigued while reading this exciting novel.
I liked how the author wrote with great details. Lord Robert Dudley, one of the people Hannah served, was handsomely dress and had a thin, silver sword at his side. His eyes were dark and radiant. However, he looked old, tired, and full of melancholy while he was in the Tower for treason. Lord Robert's teacher, John Dee, had beep set eyes and pale skin. He was also courageous and extremely smart. Uriel the angel was dressed in shimmering white and silver. He shined so greatly that you could not see his face. Daniel Carpenter, Hannah's husband, had soft skin and a dark moustache and eyebrows. Queen Mary had dark brown and red hair. She had a square face and dark, Spanish eyes. She had a warm smile and had a sense of honesty and mercy around her.
I also liked how there were many ups and downs throughout the novel. Daniel and Hannah had many arguments, but they would always make up. At one point they decided to release each other from their betrothal. They asked each other for forgiveness and makeup. Mary struggled to win back the throne when a man of nobility forced his son to marry Mary's cousin, Jane, who he forced to be queen. After she won and was crowned queen, there was a rebellion to try to put Elizabeth, Mary's half-sister on the throne.
I thought it was very interesting that Hannah had so many secrets and was loyal to so many people even when some of the despised the other. Hannah promised her father that every once in a while she would come home from court and help him in the shop. She promised she would be Lord Robert's servant and carryout messages and run errands for him. Hannah became one of Queen Mary's favorites. The queen had asked Hannah to go to Elizabeth and keep her company as well as to spy on her. Hannah kept Elizabeth company during her stay in the Tower. She also made a promise to meet her father and Daniel in Calais.
The thing that I liked most about the book was the tension and that many unexpected things occurred. Marry promised that she would never marry or have a man rule over her. However, she ended up marrying Philip of Spain. Hannah had a vision that Mary would have a son, but both of her pregnancies failed. Some of the people who played an important role of placing Mary on the throne turned around and led the unsuccessful uprising against her. Daniel and Hannah seemed so happy together until Hannah found out that Daniel lied to her and they refused to speak to each other. When Hannah was taken in for questioning she thought that someone found out she was a reformed Jew and would be burned for heresy. The French invaded Calais and Hannah took herself and Danny back to England, and never knew if Daniel was still alive. This novel is a fantastic example of historical fiction. I would especially recommend it to readers who are interested in Tudor family.
-Kaitlyn L.
Book Review: Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary....
Summary: 2 Stars
I have just reread this book. Perhaps it was my youth, or relative ignorance of history at that time, but I cannot figure out why I was not as befuddled when I first read it as I am now. This book is completely illogical. An author may be forgiven for skewed character portrayals of historical figures (see The Other Boleyn Girl for more, though that was actually a good novel despite all that horrible caricature of Anne Boleyn.) But when these portrayals stretch credulity, when they all but fly in the face of history and common sense, and when the main fictional character's actions cease to make sense because of this, then something has gone horribly wrong and the book needs to be rewritten.
Our main character here is a fictional girl named Hannah Green, who has escaped Spain after the burning of her mother by the Spanish Inquisition. The Greens--their real name is Verde--are Jews, recently converted to Christianity, yet who still manage to secretly practice some Jewish tradition from time to time. She has a God-given Sight, and can predict the future. Soon she is discovered by Robert Dudley and begged as a holy fool to King Edward and then Queen Mary, whom history remembers as Bloody Mary for her burnings of heretics.
Not only does Hannah stay in Mary's service, but she absolutely ADORES the very queen who brings the Spanish Inquisition to England! This queen who would probably send Hannah to the stake in a heartbeat if she found she was a Jew is portrayed as a overall nice woman, who only has to sacrifice heretics to the fire once in a while to feed her fragile conscience. I found this appalling. You may portray Mary as a pitiable figure, and I do consent that her life was a hard one, but to say that Mary is a good person with a loving heart who has simply been wronged is completely ridiculous. No one else can take blame for those burnings but Mary and Hannah's love for her is totally unbelievable and unrealistic. Any self-respecting Jew (or indeed, any self-respecting person) would, if not hate her, have no respect for her. As another review said, she inherited the worst traits from both her parents. She has all Katherine of Aragon's weakness coupled with Henry's ruthlessness. I couldn't understand Hannah's feelings towards her. They made no sense.
This following passage is from page 322 of The Queen's Fool. It is characteristic of the portrayals in this novel. Will Somers is speaking of the queen's plan to burn the Bishops Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, and is concerned that the queen's place in history will be ruled by this:
"History will remember nothing but that she was the queen who burned bishops...she will be despised and forgotten and they will remember--God knows who! Elizabeth! Mary Stuart!--some wanton girl instead of this true-hearted queen."
I say, if you're planning on burning bishops in the first place, you're not so true-hearted. And all the Elizabeth-bashing! It was just a little too much for Gregory to portray Elizabeth as a silly, selfish wanton, when she was a much better queen than Mary in all respects. However, my problem is not that I disagree with Gregory's opinions on Mary and Elizabeth, because that shouldn't be a factor, but that it makes no sense for Hannah to love Mary and sometimes scorn Elizabeth. This makes not only an unlikable, idiotic character out of Hannah, but a generally unrealistic book with flat characterization. With Gregory, it's largely hit and miss, and this was a miss. I would recommend anything else by her (with the exception of The Constant Princess) to anyone who likes fun, historical fiction, but this one's joining TCP and The Wise Woman in the "bad Gregory" bin.