Trends-Fictional works based on historical characters/places/works of art, etc.

[expatinscotland]

e.g., 'The Other Bolelyn Girl', 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' and 'The Sixth Wife'.

What do you think to this?

Too unimaginative/lazy to dream up an original heroine - even notice how all these tend to be females?

Or working smarter not harder by spinning out the linen thread without having to heckle the flax?

reading these kind of books really got me into history (am now doing a degree in it). Though sometimes now I find them irritating if badly researched.

I think if done well they involve a lot of work as historical events and details have to be thoroughly researched (as they have been in a couple I have read).

MY favourite one (written by psychologist working from Anglo Saxon evidence) is The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon sourcerer by Brian Bates.

Also history is in some ways (and in some forms) a way of telling stories, just those that have happened in the past.

Recently been looking at late medieval historians and history and one of the things pointed out there is at the time there wasn't the distinction that we make now between stories and history.

Very true, Armadillo.

I studied a lot of medieval history, including texts written in Old French, so look to these as good entertainment.

Which is what a lot of those texts I studied are, anyhow!

There's a reason why stories survive as long as they do, and themes.

Am about to read (or attempt to) Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Not sure if I will manage it all though

It is amazing though in old stories and folklores that have been passed down over the years to see what has been edited out. And what things (e.g. personal qualities) have been emphasised or changed. More modern King Arthur versions seem to edit out the incest

We're looking at King Arthur at the moment and soon it will be Robin HOod. Module is on language, literature, culture and in others I do alot on identity so tend to cover some of this stuff.

Was fascinated when younger at how the JAck the Giant killer stories I had been told by story tellers at folk festivals were very different to the Jack and the beanstalk story I was taught at school. They were definately more interesting for a start. BUt what struck me most about the giant killer stories was what a horrible person Jack was compared to the slightly dim but nice version in the beanstalk story.

LOL at the modern King Arthur!

Oh, yes! Classic example.

Guinevere, the chieftan's woman.

Anything but a virginal lady.

How Lancelot cut the top joint off his pinkie finger breaking through the bars of her room so he could boink her, then got found out b/c the king had sprinkled flour all over the floor and Lancelot left a trial of blood.

BUSTED!

Tristan and Ysuelt. How she got him to pose as a leper and carry her across the steam on his back. Then she passed her trial, which was to swear that no man had ever been between her legs save the king and the man who carried her across the stream on the way to her trial .

Sorted!

isn't it funny how a lot of hte stuff being edited out is sex related? Those victorians have a lot to answer for

Anyone read Hawksmoor? I read it years ago but can't remember if it was good or not - this bearing in mind that I used to like Anne Rice

I used to read lots of this genre - I liked Sharon Penman's books, and also 'Katherine' - can't think who by but it was about John of Gaunt's wife and very good.
Haven't read the Bolyn girl novels but the only novel I've read by Phillipa Gregory (if I'm thinking of the right person) sucked. Loved Girl with a Pearl Earring though.
I agree with Armadillo - if they're well written then they pique an interest, and I like to go off and find out more of the facts.

And the Church took out all the good shape-shifting stuff, too.

Oh, also in the Tristan story, his mother.

'The dead man Rivalin of Parmelie is killing me.'

She got pregnant and he didn't really want to marry her, did so only b/c she came to him crying about how her brother would honour kill her, a valid fear, once he found out.

My fav is 'The Wooing of Etain', where he comes to abduct her, and right as they're being closed in on, he wraps her in his arms and they both turn into swans and fly away.

THAT is cool!

I know too much about the Bolelyn girls to read that book.

I do think the character of Elizabeth Wydville would make a good basis for such a work. Or her mother, Jacquetta.

Is Elizabeth Woodville the one who married Edward IV? If so , I read a good one about her a few years back. Can't remember the name though . Possibly The Sun in Splendour?

Yep, that's the one. The infamous meeting under a tree, a lot of historical evidence to support that.

She wasn't a commoner, though. Definitely NOT. And her elder son, Thomas Grey - as in, later, Lady Jane Grey (no one talks about her elder sister, who produced two apparently legitimate male heirs to Henry VIII's son) - was already 14 when she married Edward, so she was a few years his senior.

Her mother, Jacquetta, however, had a scandalous second marriage on par with Katherine of Valois' with Owen Tudor, to which she had to pay the king the princely sum of what was equivalent to £1,000 for marrying Wydville w/o his pardon.

I guess pretty soon history will be tapped out of women to base these books on and we'll be looking for the next sequel to chick lit.

MT, I used to like her, too .

I still find the scene in which Lestat turns Louis into a vampire one of the most erotic pieces I've read.

Hawksmoor was apprentice to Christopher Wren who was passed over for promotion when Wren was superseded by..somone..- the novel (if I remember rightly) is a murder mystery that jumps time zones in London

Oh here it is

/link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hawksmoor-Peter-Ackroyd/dp/0140171134\By Peter Ackroyd. I'd recommend it anyway if your into the genre}

"Synopsis
This fictional nightmare combines the genres of thriller, ghost story and metaphysical tract. Ackroyd uses 17th-century language and spelling to evoke the spirit of London after the Great Fire."

try again

my DH has an MA in Arthurian Literature, believe it or not, and froths at the mouth at more modern versions. they showed that Keira Knightley King Arthur film on the TV here tonight - I think that might have finished him off altogether

I want to read some more things like this - thanks for making me think of it - will try some of the ones mentioned here

Was that the one where she was supposed to be Pict or that?

LOL.

I gave that one a miss.

I can see I didn't miss much!