"The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory

Introduction to the Book can be found here, courtesy of the good people responsible for Wikipedia.

This is an entirely engrossing piece of historical fiction; I started on it during the last few days of my trip in London, and was devouring it, at the expense sometimes of not wanting to venturing out of the house, to finish the book. It also gained more meaning to me since I visited one of the homes of Henry VIII, being Hampton Court Palace, and saw a temporary exhibition about Henry VIII and his women, the king who is featured in this novel.

A bit about this novel without which, I guess my later ramblings may not make much sense. The novel is set in the time of Tudor England, where Henry VIII is king. He is married to Katherine, the Spanish princess, but Queen Katherine's inability to bear him a son to succeed his dynasty increasingly drives a rift between the couple. Into this scene enters the Boleyn siblings, Mary, Anne and George, of the Howard family, jostling for political favours from the King.

The story is told from Mary's voice one in which she starts off being the King's mistress, before she is supplanted by her more devious older sister, who eventually becomes Queen through her scheming (Henry VIII divorced Katherine by setting himself against the Church, claiming that the marriage was a sham).

"The Other Boleyn Girl" is a reference to the intense sibling rivalry between Mary and Anne. Although the Boleyn siblings (George included) banded together when it came to external foes and their political ambition, there was always competition between Mary and Anne. In the waxing of one's fortune, the other's star inevitably waned. Hence when Mary was the King's mistress, whilst Anne hated her sister's rising star with a virulence, she nevertheless assisted her and was there for Mary in her time of need; in that period, Anne was the other Boleyn girl, the sister who was nothing and only a hanger on to her sister's rising fortunes as the King's bedmate. Anne's discontentment with being the unfavoured one eventually leads her to grab at the opportunity to supplant her sister when the King starts to lose interest. So it was that Mary became the other Boleyn girl, the girl that history all but forgotten in favour of her more scandalous sister who was executed for adultery.

I liked the play of sibling relations in this book which is set against the wider court intrigue that takes place in the King's circle. I found the depiction of the complex emotions, of familial loyalty interlaced with personal happiness, sisterly love interwoven with intense sibling rivalry, and many others a thoroughly interesting read. The plight of well-born females in Tudor England who are treated little better as political pawns to be traded for the King's favour is also well-documented, and rings as a bitter peal throughout the book. The fates of the aristocratic females in this book are all bad; in Mary, who eventually chose to become a simple farmer's wife and mother, the book perhaps hints at the best fate for women of that epoch.

The friend who lent me the book recommended the film to follow-up, though she cautioned that the film is definitely not as richly-textured as the read. Still, I'm rather game to give it a try: back when the film came to the big screens, I missed it because I couldn't find time to go. Now that I've read the book, getting my hands on the show suddenly seemed imperative.

Geek rating: 5 out of 5