"You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores."
- Mean Girls (2004)
My own opinions on Philippa Gregory and her self-styled position as a legitimate "historian" are obvious. As is my drop in esteem for anyone who tries to defend her novels on the grounds that they're "page-turners." Turn the "t" into a "b" and you've got it about right.
From the obscenely offensive way in which she presented women in The Other Boleyn Girl to the seamy, bodice-ripping nonsense that passed for "story-lines" in The Virgin's Lover or The Constant Princess, Philippa Gregory has apparently declared literary jihad on the Tudor royal family's reputations.
She has claimed that Anne Boleyn was guilty of at least one murder (whose, we might ask, and why have no historians picked up on this fact that the brilliant, sublime Miss Gregory has discovered, nay proved, after five hundred years? Are we talking about the death at Archbishop Warham's dinner party? Surely not. Please, God, tell me you're not trying to pass that off either as "clearly" a murder or, indeed, Anne's work!) She has presented Katherine of Aragon as performing some kind of harem-themed striptease for her first husband, Prince Arthur, and disgustingly likened pubescent Princess Elizabeth to a cat in heat whilst she was being sexually molested by her adult stepfather in The Queen's Fool. And then, to make it worse, she insists that her theories hold equally weight to actual historians. If I see her on one more historical documentary show, I may have to harm myself.
Now, it seems, with the Tudors well and truly annihilated, Miss Gregory has turned her attention to two more of the royal houses of England - the Lancasters and the Yorks - who between each other ruled England and Ireland in the turbulent period between 1399 and 1485. The companion novels The White Queen and The Red Queen tell the story of the Wars of the Roses from the points-of-view of two very different women in opposite branches of the family - the first being the story of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, the beautiful widow and socialite who married Edward IV and became the mother of "the Princes in the Tower," and the second is based on the life of Lady Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of King Edward III, who married Jasper Tudor and became the mother of the future King Henry VII.
Novelist Susan Higginbotham, herself the author of the novels The Stolen Crown, The Traitor's Wife and Hugh and Bess, discusses her own personal issues with Miss Gregory's interpretation of her leading female characters - which, once again, seem to disprove her own claim that she is a "feminist." With friends like these, ladies....
Leaving aside that Elizabeth Woodville is only presented as a practising witch in scenes which remind one of Harry Potter on smack, it is the presentation of Elizabeth's immediate predecessor which has left people unimpressed. The gutsy and ruthless Marguerite of Anjou, who was married to the ailing and sickly Henry VI, is displayed by Miss Gregory being both insatiably promiscuous and ambitious which, as anyone who read The Other Boleyn Girl will remember, is Miss Gregory's de facto of way of letting her readers know they're not to like this nasty woman in the story. (I also seem to remember that we knew Mary Boleyn was nice because she liked the countryside. Anne didn't, which means she's an incestuous, homicidal trollop. She didn't even care about the strawberry harvest at Hever, you know - that's probably why she tried to kill the Archbishop and then had sex with her gay brother.)
Miss Higginbotham, whose forthcoming novel, the brilliantly-titled The Queen of Last Hopes, is based on the life of Marguerite of Anjou, is well-placed to query how far a novelist can go in presenting a jaundiced view of a real-life character.
This blog's review of The Other Boleyn Girl can be read here.
Miss Higginbotham's reflections on The Red Queen and The White Queen and why it matters in what way these Queens are depicted can be read here. I couldn't agree with her more
Thanks, Gareth, for linking! I should clarify that I had a number of novels in mind besides Gregory's when I wrote my blog post, especially a few where Margaret of Anjou plays a bigger role than she does in Gregory's novels, but Gregory's certainly are the ones that will carry the most weight in influencing readers' opinions of these historical women. Those who defamed these queens probably would be delighted to see their slanders alive and well hundreds of years later.
ReplyDeleteGareth, please brace yourself, because I'm afraid things are only going to get worse where PG is concerned- her next novel is going to be about Jacquetta Wydeville.
ReplyDeleteI will join you in the fight to stop Philippa Gregory wherever it may go. She is a disservice to history, popular literature, and women in general. Just because her books are "page-turners" doesn't mean the history gets to be shoddy. I wonder if she forgets she's dealing with real people here.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to learn more about Elizabeth Woodville and the Wars of the Roses, but I will not be going to Philippa Gregory. (Rather, I'll just wait for your piece. Those are real page-turners.)
see, I just like reading Gregory for fictional fun. I like her style of writing. I read plenty of fiction Tudor authors to be fair, I enjoy Gregory.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what irritates me even more is when I move to the Dewey Decimal side of Tudor history and read books by people who I really liked (Alison Weir is coming to mind), and the book distinctly has phraseology that really turned me off to not only the book but possibly towards reading anything else by her =/ (the book was hers on Anne Boleyn, name escapes me at the moment). It was like "hey, here's an awesome book OH NO MWAHAHAH I HAVE DRAWN YOU INTO MY PERSONAL HISTORICAL HATRED OF PEOPLE." I finished the book, but really really wished it wouldn't have had the obvious, personal bias against some people.
So, for historical value? No, I'd never read Gregory. For a fun little fast read? I adore her books.
So, reading through the lines here,I gather you don't credit Gregory's books as being factual? You didn't mention The Boleyn Inheritance. I downloaded it for something to listen to, while walking, because it was recommended on ITunes, when it first came out. The time passed quickly on my walk, but it was frustrating not to know what was true and what not. It was easy to sense that she was taking some creative license. One good thing, though, is that the book is one of the things that sparked an interest in history that's enriched my life more than I'd have imagined when I was listening to it. The Tudors are fascinating, but I switched over to Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution and have become embarrassingly preoccupied with them. I agree with you, though, and almost can't even enjoy a book about history unless it's a memoir or has a strong bibliography. Just wanted to take the time to comment and let you know I enjoy your blog very much.
ReplyDeleteWow, what really angers me as a history grad student right now is that PG calls herself a "historian." REALLY? Unless you've gone through the schooling, honey, you have no effing right to that title. And with her books and all the license she takes, that is just bullsh*t, to be honest. I mean I read The Other Boleyn Girl, but it read like she had written completely fictional characters! And yes, it was a page-turner, but don't call yourself something you're clearly not. That is one of my biggest pet peeves, and it's an insult to real historians, more importantly.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post! :)
I agree with you, Gareth, and if course with Susan, too.
ReplyDeleteGareth, First I have to say that I really enjoy your blog. I look forward to your posts. With that said, I have to agree with you regarding Gregory. I picked up the "Other Boleyn Girl" when it came out (I'm a huge fan of the Tudor era, especially Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I) I read the first 20 pages or so and took it straight to a used bookstore and turned it in. I've never bought another one of her books. I happen to like my historical novels as factual as possible and if there are major scenes that are strictly fiction, it's nice to be made aware of them in an Author's Note; like Sharon Penman does.
ReplyDeleteIt's a real shame, indeed. This kind of lurid and corrupting nonsense, trumpeted as "historical fiction", insults 1) the historical characters being falsely portrayed, 2) genuine historians, and 3)responsible historical novelists.
ReplyDeleteI seem to be a little late joining this discussion, but I couldn't agree with your sentiments more. There seems to be a disturbing trend in the HF genre where authors are either internally or externally pressured to work increasingly salacious and off-the-wall details into their novels for mass appeal. It's a real shame when authors feel they can do these things with impunity as well and then brush it off as 'oh well, it's just fiction'. An even more upsetting idea has come to light in which the story of Anne Frank is now up for a 're-telling' - in other words, some publishing house wants the story to be more sexualized therefore making it appealing to a new generation. This and the same force that is behind these other POS novels is truly shameful and it all trivializes what these men and women lived through and witnessed in their own lifetimes.
ReplyDeleteAs long as we're on the subject, I just finished --- with effort --- Carrolly Erickson's The Tsarina's Daughter, a "page-turner" about the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicholaevna in which she is depicted as having sex at 13 (her aunt, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, pimps her out, and no, I am not kidding), a full-blown lover by sixteen, and a secret career as a supporter of the revolution. She also hates the Dowager Empress (not as much as her sister Olga, who throws shoes at her during dinner parties), and thinks her father is a big wuss.
ReplyDeleteCarrolly calls herself an historian as well.
I think that sounds a thousand times worse than "The Other Boleyn Girl." At least, TOBG simply capitalised on hostile rumours about the Boleyns, and presented them as fact - rather than inventing the most hateful and disgusting ideas out of thin air!
ReplyDeleteIn linked news, Erickson's biography of Anne Boleyn - "Mistress Anne" - is pretty shockingly poor as a work of "history."
Some of Erickson's books (her Diary series) are incredibly entertaining. I think they are of dubious historical value, but they are entertaining. Slightly better than PG's with that, at least.
ReplyDeleteI'm torn reading all these responses; I'm not a published author yet, and the book I'm writing is unlike any I've seen before mainly because my subject matter is so far out there. (and how I got it in the first place) I'm also probably one of the few people who's working on a novel and her Master's Thesis when she doesn't have a BA, but I digress.
But.. I think that Historical FICTION is just that - Fiction. Gregory at least for me was a gateway into reading so much more about the Tudors, back to Joan Swynford, to the French and Marie Antoinette.. what have you. I have been reading since I was 2 (I am 30 now) and it becomes harder and harder to find things I haven't read anymore, at least in my section of the country. (Ironically, I just had to order in Ms. Higginbotham's books from interlibrary loan to be able to read any of them!) Most of what I read previously was related to WW2, Civil War, Revolutionary War, shipwrecks, the Romanovs, what have you. With the Tudor fascination firmly rooted in my subconscious, it gives me SO much more, I'll devour it unless it is obviously a monthly romance book. If they have some things I've never heard of I'll go research it myself!
I love really historical factual books but when you have 9 books checked out from the library and 2 weeks to read them all it's hard to read 9 that are completely historically accurate, 500+ page turners without wanting a little fluff inbetween. And yes, while it would be NICE to see more HF books have more basis in fact in them, I think it behooves us to remember they aren't on the dewey decimal side of things. They're made to sell copies, pure and simple. I consider them fiction novels with a side of accuracy, if I want to know what really happened, I'll read better authors.
With all that said, given a fiction v nonfiction, I'm still taking the nonfiction books more often than not. What I have an issue with was like I said before, the obvious bias shown by the nonfiction author against certain people and showing the story to make those people look worse. If you purport to be an all knowing "transcript of days", then for the love of all things holy, please make it less editorialized. Or advertise that it's slanted somewhere in the flyleaf synopsis. I hate being blindsided by it.
PS: I just woke up, my keyboard is broken, and I haven't had caffeine, so pardon any horrendous grammar inaccuracies, I wanted to write this out while I had been thinking about it as I had been thinking about it and kept forgetting.
I have no problem at all with historical fiction but what annoys me about Gregory is that she tries to present it as fact, accusing Anne of incest and murder in the notes at the back of TOBG. I know from emails I've received that people are reading her books to back up their history studies because they are easy reading, I'm forever getting questions and comments starting with "Philippa Gregory says... but your site say...". It makes me so angry!
ReplyDeleteI have to say I agree with you Gareth, but I did find the Boleyn Inheritance a really enjoyable book, in Gregory's defence. She really conjured up the spirit of Katherine Howard and presented her in a sense of what I thought she really was like as a girl married to an aging King. Fifteen, young, giddy, silly and flirtatious, I think it was the most fictionally correct version of Katherine I have ever encountered. Her interpretations of the infamous Lady Rochford and her intelligently depicted Anne of Cleves, which was brilliantly done, was excellent. I really enjoyed this book, and yes, perhaps the language was too modern and the events too fictionalised, but overall, it was enjoyable. I can't really say the same for TOBG - although the film was considerably worse - or the other books. I particularly detested her take on Elizabeth Woodville, which was frankly ridiculous, melodramatic and, to an extent, downright nasty. She portrayed her as a total bitch and I was so relieved to finish that novel, it was seriously not fun to read.
ReplyDeleteOut of interest, you're at Cambridge, I believe? Do you know what GCSE/A Level grades one would need to apply? My Tudor History teacher has recommended me applying to Oxbridge to study history - very complimentary! - but I know so many apply and many don't get in, yet I feel I have a chance. Thanks
Wow am I ever late to this discussion! I'm so glad I stumbled across your article, and all these comments, and I feel tremendously boosted by the like-minded sentiments expressed here. I'm a post-graduate historian/archaeologist and Philippa Gregory really gets on my wick. Her PhD was in Eighteenth Century Literature for goodness' sakes, not History/Archaeology/similar - PHILIPPA GREGORY IS NOT AN HISTORIAN! I can't begin to go into what's wrong with her novels, BOTH in terms of historical accuracy and sub-par writing quality, but what really hacks me off is to see her claim that she is an historian or a Tudor expert, to see a few history docu's drag her up as an actual expert, and to have to read those ridiculous author's notes in which she claims that what she writes is either totally accurate or at the very least the most probably version of events. WTF?! Sharon Penman and other authors have the right idea - stick to accuracy where possible but where you can't, ADMIT to it in your notes! That way Joe Public won't walk away with a completed warped view of history! I'm starting to get seriously concerned that Gregory's character assassinations of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I and so on are going to sink into the general public consciousness so deeply that they won't be accepted as real and complex human beings for the next fifty years!
ReplyDeleteIt's a relief to see that others feel the way I do, as until I stumbled across this blog post the only people I knew who agreed with me on this (as opposed to the majority of people I encountered who seemed to jump down my throat simply for pointing out that the saintly Gregory's facts were completely wrong) were my colleagues at uni in the same departments (history & archaeology) as myself.