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Saturday July 31, 2010
Books in July
- Dissolution C J Sansom
This is another book gift which it took me a while to get round to reading - it seems it's Sansom's first book of a series (up to about 5 now I think) featuring Matthew Shardlake a hunchback lawyer in the Tudor times.
I am not a really a fan of historical "detectives" as such, with whodunnits being an invention of the Victorian era as I see it; some contrivances completely lack credibility - and are then poorly written. But a good story (well executed) is always a good story and I thought this one was excellent. One aspect I particularly enjoyed for myself is that it imparts a lot of information on this period of Tudor history about which I knew relatively little. I do like to learn new things in such a digestible form.
Many other reviewers have used the description "gripping" and I leave you with some words from James Naughtie, writing in the Sunday Times: "As good a new thriller as I have come across for years. The London of the 1530s smells real, the politics and the religious machinations are delicious and Sansom's voice rings true. His troubled hero Shardlake, doing Thomas Cromwell's dread work in the burning monasteries, is a kind of Tudor Morse and a character to treasure. Great stuff."
[There was some rumour of the BBC commissioning a series starring Kenneth Branagh but that seems to have evaporated. Someone suggested Tony Robinson for Shardlake - an excellent choice but sad to say a bit too old for the role now, as the character is pretty young - I would suggest maybe Burn Gorman.] - Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks [Read by Jamie Glover]
I will begin by saying the book is excellent and well worth reading. Again, I learnt a lot about (rather more recent) history. Although I am familiar with the facts of the chronological progress of WWII, I never before had pointed out to me - or bothered to look into - what the occupation of France really meant, with the wilful collaboration of the Vichy government after 1940, and the so-called "free zone" of France.
I was very interested in seeing the film starring Cate Blanchett when I saw the trailers in 2001; most of the reviews suggest it lacks passion, but despite that I am keen to catch it some time on DVD.
I understand that Faulks did a lot of research using contemporary accounts as the source for his fiction - this makes compelling and heart-breaking reading. I did find - though this is not necessarily a criticism - that the story was in two parts - the traumatic sub-plots sourced on real events, and the love story involving Charlotte. For all the detail about Charlotte's passion for her airman, I did not really feel for her; she is a restrained and someone cold little soul and I can see why they had trouble bringing her to the screen.
I do notice that the film has a different ending from the book. I think Faulks wanted to make a broader point about keeping faith, but I thought Charlotte's relationship with the Frenchman was more real than what I was perceiving as a fantasy about the airman. I was a little surprised by the reconciliation that ended the book - and also that it had a "happy" ending, (at least to Charlotte's romance - though you can't help feeling that it was rather small beer in comparison with the other events described).
Posted by Christina at 8:49 AM. Category: Books of the Month
