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Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel Of Anne Boleyn (1971)

by Margaret Campbell Barnes(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1402211759 (ISBN13: 9781402211751)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Sourcebooks Landmark

review 1: To be honest I almost put the book down after having read no more than a few pages.First Anne has a sixth finger and a step mother named Jocunda, not to mention the mole on her neck and so on. I realized only afterwards how this book had been written prior to the new historical findings and theories showing how Anne could not have been deformed as her enemies had alleged.Though I managed to get through all of it and and the reading did not drag on for so long as it sometimes does when a book really bores me, I did not like it as much as other historical novels I have read. Maybe because, though I appreciate the fact that it is a novel and so fiction based on historical facts, I wish those facts had been more accurate. I can't deal with the Thomas Boleyn selling his daughte... morers out for his ambition, nor with Anne being in it merely for power. Also what about Mary being the French King's mistress? But then I guess those are things that must be attributed to the age of the book itself.I think the pace of the book is also way too quick at times, especially during Henry's courtship where you feel that no more than a year must have passed between Anne's acceptance of his affections and their marriage. And the first miscarrage is litterally dealt with in one line…Henry Percy and Anne's first encounter was also ludicrous to me, the way they fall in love being way too quick. At least the way that "romance" ends is a little bit more realistic.What was also missing in this novel was Anne's real faith. Not that I wanted to be preached about protestantism in the book, but as the back cover of my version says Anne is one of the most intriguing woman of English history. She's mysterious, enigmatic. But the reason why we're interested in her is because of her impact on England's history and especially on the reformation. We wouldn't care for her being enigmatic had she married Henry Percy for instance. My last negative point would be that, before reading this book I read a few reviews saying how for once Anne wasn't described as completely shrewd and overly ambitious. Well the other novels I've read about the Tudors didn't show her more ambitious and superficial than this. On the contrary. I think the portrait drawn of Anne here is not consistent with what we know of her. I don't want to see an angel, I don't want to see a whore, I wanted to see something realistic and consistent with what we know and I haven't found that in this book. But hey, at least the incest allegations were not presented as true.The one thing that I must grant this book is the language. I really enjoyed the prose and the fact that the dialogues were a lot more realistic than in other similar works. I also enjoyed the portrayal of other characters such as Thomas Wyatt or George Boleyn. I guess it is a good read as a fictional work, but for me on a historical point of view it was too full of inaccuracies.
review 2: I can't say that I hate this, but there's far too much inaccuracy and sloppiness for me to have really enjoyed it. Yes, history marches on, and we do know more about Tudor times than we did in 1948, but even taking that into account the author plays far too lightly with the facts.To give a few examples:* This Anne is said to have been born in 1503. We now know that's two or three years too late, but fair enough: it's a good guess for the time. But how could she then be 18 years old in 1515, when she accompanies Mary Tudor to France? Internal inconsistency.* We knew even then - we've always been rock-solid certain of this - that Katherine of Aragon died on January 7, 1536 and Anne on May 19 of that year. How then did this Anne manage to sneak in a seven months' pregnancy *and* a ten-month recovery period between the two? Temporal magic.* How did this Jane Parker, daughter of Lord Morley, bring George the title of Lord Rochford, when we have always known that the title of Viscount Rochford was originally bestowed on George and Anne's father by King Henry, and George held it as a courtesy title? Factual manipulation.This merely scratches the surface, too: there are many other deliberate factual inaccuracies, meant (I suspect) to lend narrative coherence to real life. I guess it was easier to manipulate the facts to fit a preconceived notion of how life is supposed to happen than to remodel that preconceived notion to the historical record as it was then known.What's good about the book? Anne's internal monologue, for one, and the relationship between her and Henry. Far too many novelists discount the seven-year wait Henry and Anne endured and how that must have affected their relationship. I especially liked how Anne changes over the years, and how all the sharp little edges develop that flay away her own and Henry's empathy and compassion, dooming her in the end. less

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