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selenakReview time, it seems.
The Boleyn Heritage, by Philippa Gregory: I had my problems with her previous Tudor novels, but a few nitpicks aside, this one imo has the virtues of her writing and (almost) none of its faults.
The three narrators - Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard and Jane Boleyn, aka Lady Rochford - all have distinct, believable voices. What Gregory does with Jane impressed me the most, because it's an exercise in the unreliable narrator principle, and that's hard to pull off successfully. But even if you haven't read Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl - actually, come to think it, this novel works even better if you haven't read the previous one, because this one, on its own, presents the late Anne far more ambiguous than the earlier one did - and even if you don't know enough about the history of the period to be aware Jane testified against her husband and his sister Anne Boleyn and contributed to get them executed, you still realize early on that Jane is engaged in a process of constant self justication and rewriting of her past, because she can't bear facing the truth. The gradual breakdown of those self justifications is beautifully done, and Gregory pulls off that rare feat, making Jane simultanously repellent (if you think about what she actually did and does) and pitiable.
Her take on Katharine Howard as basically a silly teenage girl, greedy but not malicious and literally far in over her head, is plausible as well, and you feel for Kitty. The best Anne of Cleves scene is unquestionably her first disastrous encounter with Henry (and Gregory's interpretation why Henry was so keen on ending the marriage completely convinced me); mind you, the scene is so good she repeats it three times, once from Jane's, once from Katherine's and once from Anne's perspective, but hey. Obviously Anne, the survivor, is the only one to get a happy ending in this story, so it's a tad unfortunate that what few nitpicks I have are tied to her sections of the novel. For one thing, Gregory hasn't abandoned her unfortunate habit, last spotted in The Constant Princess, of giving her sympathetic intelligent women views which they historically just can't have. In The Constant Princess, this was Katherine of Aragorn, daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand and grown up in a Spain that was busy getting rid of its Jews and Muslims, admiring the "people of the book" and preaching tolerance. In The Boleyn Heritance, this is Anne of Cleves, a Lutheran, being absolutely appalled by Henry's way of treating his beautiful Catholic monasteries and the way his subjects have to adjust their faith to his whims. (Note: of course none of the German princes made himself head of the church, but the cuius regio, eius religio principle? The idea that once a prince went Lutheran - or for that matter returned to the Catholic faith -, so were his subjects supposed to, and those who didn't better left the principality? That was already in place, and one of the things which much later led to the 30 Years War.)
The true villains of the novel are Henry VIII. himself and the Duke of Norfolk, with Henry being kept off screen (err, page) as much as possible under the circumstances and the Duke as the main bastard. Mind you, after having read the C.J. Sansom mysteries recently, I have to say that they (also presenting the two as horrors) give a better sense of them as characters, because if you read Gregory you could be forgiven for assuming Henry never had another thought in his head beyond whichever woman he was currently lusting after, but the presentation works for the strictly limited points of view we get.
***
On to BSG, CrossroadsII:
Well now. I loved the way they finished the trial subplot, and the way they came up with justifying letting Lee make the big defense speech (which is essentially what he did) without killing Romo Lampkin off. Which I was a bit afraid they'd do, because for storytelling reasons, Lee needed to be the one to make the speech, not Romo, but Romo was the main lawyer. But the idea of putting Lee on the stand was inspired, both on the part of the writers and on Romo's. Even if we never see him again: his three episodes have made him into one of the most memorable in the BSG'verse. As for the speech itself? Brilliant. Also excellent on a meta level, because it addressed such a lot of open issues - the suicide bombings, the military coup etc - and unified Lee Adama's characterisation this season by making both the weight period and the quadrangle of doom period into expressions of self loathing for the initial abandoment of New Caprica. As for not guilty being not the same thing as innocent? Sums Baltar up, in a way. Even if they had charged him with his initial sin of giving Six access to the defense frame, as it was committed without intent or awareness of Cylon collaboration. He's not innocent of genocide, but he's not guilty of it, either, if guilt is defined by intention and awareness. However, that wasn't what he was charged with, and the show was very clear on it, hence the conversation of the prosecuting attorney with Tory early in Crossroads I: what he was charged with was New Caprica. Where he was, again, not innocent, but lack of courage to die for humanity - or risking dying for humanity by secretly joining the Resistance - makes for moral, not legal guilt, and of course Lee's "what would any of us have done?" gets right to the point. Some would have let themselves be shot, absolutely. But most? I don't think so.
Gaeta as the last witness made me think of Friedrich Dürrematt's novella Der Richter und sein Henker, in which you have two men, one of which keeps committing crimes the other can't prove, until he's finally brought down by a crime he didn't commit, which he's actually innocent of, and which the original just man, the judge of the title, organized and framed him for because he knew that this action was the one thing his enemy wouldn't have been prepared for. Gaeta could have testified to Gaius going alone with a great deal of Cylon orders. But no, he had to perjure himself and testify to the one thing he not only wasn't a witness to but actually got completely wrong, because that was the one time Baltar really tried his best to resist. Baltar's "Et, tu, Felix?" moment was a perfect tragicomedy. Incidentally, it was also fitting with the theme of the show, of everyone falling from moral grace at some point. Gaeta so far tried very hard to do the right thing; he was the one to expose Roslin stealing the election, he risked his life on New Caprica, he couldn't bring himself to kill Baltar the first time and then belatedly tried it the second time because he couldn't live with that, either. And now he goes for a third attempt, which, if successful, would have been murder by justice system. With my thing for shades of grey, I immediately hoped we'll see more of Gaeta next season.
Back to the tragicomedy of Gaius Baltar: going from "there will be a verdict" (and you know, despite Baltar's survival instinct I think he genuinenly wouldn't have cared that much if it had been a guilty verdict, he just wanted it to be over with; the outburst about being unable to stand the waiting in his cell any longer rang completely true, and reminded me of the articles about death row inmates to the book tour suggestion (only Gaius Baltar...) to the realisation that he might be free now, but still surrounded by people who hate his guts (and now sans security guards) to his reaction when the cultists showed up... I can't help myself, he is one of the most original characters around because he just keeps falling between categories and easy, predictable storylines.
The Roslin/Sharon/Six dream: I hadn't counted on Caprica Six being a fellow dreamer, I thought it would be Head!Six. Now I'm wondering whether in addition to Caprica we're not seeing in a way an essence of all the Sixes here; visions are symbolic, after all. Especially since to tie this even more to Baltar's vision on Kobol he now shows up as well. Roslin from one side, Athena from the other, the child runs towards Six and is embraced and taken by her and Baltar: so they're still guardians of the shape of things to come. I like it, a lot. (As for why Laura shares dreamtime - aside from the chamalla, she also has Hera's blood in her, and so, of course, does Athena as her mother.)
And now for the other part of the episode. You know, seriously, I have no idea about how I feel regarding Tigh, Tory, Anders and Tyrol as four of the Final Five. (I'd speculate they actually weren't and were conditioned to respond to the music at the various times they were imprisoned by the Cylons, but we've got confirmation in interviews that they are indeed four of the five, so that's that, I suppose.) I do hope the explanation will include something of how Tigh, who fought in the first Cylon War before the Cylons were able to produce humanoid models, can be one; right now, I'm stuck with "copy of original human", but it's going to be something else, I guess. Whereas I don't need an explanation about why baby Nicky isn't special the way Hera is: the show has been explicit that the seven Cylon models do not know who the Final Five are, after all.
And, err. The song. Apparantly broadcast from Earth itself, and my current guess is the 13th Tribe left radio amplifiers on their way there. Someone should ask Bob Dylan about his connection to the Cylon God and/or the Lords of Kobol; in the meantime, I'm just Twin Peaks fan enough to go with the surrealism of it all.
Lastly: Kara - could be herself or Head!Kara for Lee; I guess that depends on contract negotations. But it wasn't that much of a surprise. I'm not sure how I feel about Lee piloting - I mean, obviously, within the context of the episode it's the sensible thing to do, he's a pilot, they think the fleet is going to be attacked, so of course he'd be out there defending - but in the larger context of the show, as I said in the episode, I really really hoped they wouldn't let Lee return to the service and would keep him as a civilian. Well, I guess that might still be an option, depending on what happens next, but right now it looks suspiciously like we'll be in for a tearful reunion in the s4 opener complete with Papadama taking Lee back in the service.
The Boleyn Heritage, by Philippa Gregory: I had my problems with her previous Tudor novels, but a few nitpicks aside, this one imo has the virtues of her writing and (almost) none of its faults.
The three narrators - Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard and Jane Boleyn, aka Lady Rochford - all have distinct, believable voices. What Gregory does with Jane impressed me the most, because it's an exercise in the unreliable narrator principle, and that's hard to pull off successfully. But even if you haven't read Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl - actually, come to think it, this novel works even better if you haven't read the previous one, because this one, on its own, presents the late Anne far more ambiguous than the earlier one did - and even if you don't know enough about the history of the period to be aware Jane testified against her husband and his sister Anne Boleyn and contributed to get them executed, you still realize early on that Jane is engaged in a process of constant self justication and rewriting of her past, because she can't bear facing the truth. The gradual breakdown of those self justifications is beautifully done, and Gregory pulls off that rare feat, making Jane simultanously repellent (if you think about what she actually did and does) and pitiable.
Her take on Katharine Howard as basically a silly teenage girl, greedy but not malicious and literally far in over her head, is plausible as well, and you feel for Kitty. The best Anne of Cleves scene is unquestionably her first disastrous encounter with Henry (and Gregory's interpretation why Henry was so keen on ending the marriage completely convinced me); mind you, the scene is so good she repeats it three times, once from Jane's, once from Katherine's and once from Anne's perspective, but hey. Obviously Anne, the survivor, is the only one to get a happy ending in this story, so it's a tad unfortunate that what few nitpicks I have are tied to her sections of the novel. For one thing, Gregory hasn't abandoned her unfortunate habit, last spotted in The Constant Princess, of giving her sympathetic intelligent women views which they historically just can't have. In The Constant Princess, this was Katherine of Aragorn, daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand and grown up in a Spain that was busy getting rid of its Jews and Muslims, admiring the "people of the book" and preaching tolerance. In The Boleyn Heritance, this is Anne of Cleves, a Lutheran, being absolutely appalled by Henry's way of treating his beautiful Catholic monasteries and the way his subjects have to adjust their faith to his whims. (Note: of course none of the German princes made himself head of the church, but the cuius regio, eius religio principle? The idea that once a prince went Lutheran - or for that matter returned to the Catholic faith -, so were his subjects supposed to, and those who didn't better left the principality? That was already in place, and one of the things which much later led to the 30 Years War.)
The true villains of the novel are Henry VIII. himself and the Duke of Norfolk, with Henry being kept off screen (err, page) as much as possible under the circumstances and the Duke as the main bastard. Mind you, after having read the C.J. Sansom mysteries recently, I have to say that they (also presenting the two as horrors) give a better sense of them as characters, because if you read Gregory you could be forgiven for assuming Henry never had another thought in his head beyond whichever woman he was currently lusting after, but the presentation works for the strictly limited points of view we get.
***
On to BSG, CrossroadsII:
Well now. I loved the way they finished the trial subplot, and the way they came up with justifying letting Lee make the big defense speech (which is essentially what he did) without killing Romo Lampkin off. Which I was a bit afraid they'd do, because for storytelling reasons, Lee needed to be the one to make the speech, not Romo, but Romo was the main lawyer. But the idea of putting Lee on the stand was inspired, both on the part of the writers and on Romo's. Even if we never see him again: his three episodes have made him into one of the most memorable in the BSG'verse. As for the speech itself? Brilliant. Also excellent on a meta level, because it addressed such a lot of open issues - the suicide bombings, the military coup etc - and unified Lee Adama's characterisation this season by making both the weight period and the quadrangle of doom period into expressions of self loathing for the initial abandoment of New Caprica. As for not guilty being not the same thing as innocent? Sums Baltar up, in a way. Even if they had charged him with his initial sin of giving Six access to the defense frame, as it was committed without intent or awareness of Cylon collaboration. He's not innocent of genocide, but he's not guilty of it, either, if guilt is defined by intention and awareness. However, that wasn't what he was charged with, and the show was very clear on it, hence the conversation of the prosecuting attorney with Tory early in Crossroads I: what he was charged with was New Caprica. Where he was, again, not innocent, but lack of courage to die for humanity - or risking dying for humanity by secretly joining the Resistance - makes for moral, not legal guilt, and of course Lee's "what would any of us have done?" gets right to the point. Some would have let themselves be shot, absolutely. But most? I don't think so.
Gaeta as the last witness made me think of Friedrich Dürrematt's novella Der Richter und sein Henker, in which you have two men, one of which keeps committing crimes the other can't prove, until he's finally brought down by a crime he didn't commit, which he's actually innocent of, and which the original just man, the judge of the title, organized and framed him for because he knew that this action was the one thing his enemy wouldn't have been prepared for. Gaeta could have testified to Gaius going alone with a great deal of Cylon orders. But no, he had to perjure himself and testify to the one thing he not only wasn't a witness to but actually got completely wrong, because that was the one time Baltar really tried his best to resist. Baltar's "Et, tu, Felix?" moment was a perfect tragicomedy. Incidentally, it was also fitting with the theme of the show, of everyone falling from moral grace at some point. Gaeta so far tried very hard to do the right thing; he was the one to expose Roslin stealing the election, he risked his life on New Caprica, he couldn't bring himself to kill Baltar the first time and then belatedly tried it the second time because he couldn't live with that, either. And now he goes for a third attempt, which, if successful, would have been murder by justice system. With my thing for shades of grey, I immediately hoped we'll see more of Gaeta next season.
Back to the tragicomedy of Gaius Baltar: going from "there will be a verdict" (and you know, despite Baltar's survival instinct I think he genuinenly wouldn't have cared that much if it had been a guilty verdict, he just wanted it to be over with; the outburst about being unable to stand the waiting in his cell any longer rang completely true, and reminded me of the articles about death row inmates to the book tour suggestion (only Gaius Baltar...) to the realisation that he might be free now, but still surrounded by people who hate his guts (and now sans security guards) to his reaction when the cultists showed up... I can't help myself, he is one of the most original characters around because he just keeps falling between categories and easy, predictable storylines.
The Roslin/Sharon/Six dream: I hadn't counted on Caprica Six being a fellow dreamer, I thought it would be Head!Six. Now I'm wondering whether in addition to Caprica we're not seeing in a way an essence of all the Sixes here; visions are symbolic, after all. Especially since to tie this even more to Baltar's vision on Kobol he now shows up as well. Roslin from one side, Athena from the other, the child runs towards Six and is embraced and taken by her and Baltar: so they're still guardians of the shape of things to come. I like it, a lot. (As for why Laura shares dreamtime - aside from the chamalla, she also has Hera's blood in her, and so, of course, does Athena as her mother.)
And now for the other part of the episode. You know, seriously, I have no idea about how I feel regarding Tigh, Tory, Anders and Tyrol as four of the Final Five. (I'd speculate they actually weren't and were conditioned to respond to the music at the various times they were imprisoned by the Cylons, but we've got confirmation in interviews that they are indeed four of the five, so that's that, I suppose.) I do hope the explanation will include something of how Tigh, who fought in the first Cylon War before the Cylons were able to produce humanoid models, can be one; right now, I'm stuck with "copy of original human", but it's going to be something else, I guess. Whereas I don't need an explanation about why baby Nicky isn't special the way Hera is: the show has been explicit that the seven Cylon models do not know who the Final Five are, after all.
And, err. The song. Apparantly broadcast from Earth itself, and my current guess is the 13th Tribe left radio amplifiers on their way there. Someone should ask Bob Dylan about his connection to the Cylon God and/or the Lords of Kobol; in the meantime, I'm just Twin Peaks fan enough to go with the surrealism of it all.
Lastly: Kara - could be herself or Head!Kara for Lee; I guess that depends on contract negotations. But it wasn't that much of a surprise. I'm not sure how I feel about Lee piloting - I mean, obviously, within the context of the episode it's the sensible thing to do, he's a pilot, they think the fleet is going to be attacked, so of course he'd be out there defending - but in the larger context of the show, as I said in the episode, I really really hoped they wouldn't let Lee return to the service and would keep him as a civilian. Well, I guess that might still be an option, depending on what happens next, but right now it looks suspiciously like we'll be in for a tearful reunion in the s4 opener complete with Papadama taking Lee back in the service.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 11:21 am (UTC)Half way through the season I actually posted I thought the show had Jumped the Shark. The odd geometric shape of doom had bogged down the overall plot so bad I thought they had lost they're way. But the final four episodes seemed to have redeemed the show and I'm glad to say I'll continue watching next season.
They have, very neatly, packaged up all of Lee's inner angsts and presented us with a better character than before. Felt it was nicely done. Not sure if I like the return of Kara considering the way she went out. That part I still feel is broken. So is she the fifth of the final five?
And of course Baltar will land on his feet, as always. The show wouldn't be the same without him...
no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 11:41 am (UTC)That's it, exactly.
Kara: no, I don't think so. I don't know what she is, but not Number Five. With all the Aurora talk in Maelstrom, it was inevitable that she'd be back in some form, so I'm basically in a "wait and see" mood regarding her...
Baltar: that cat image was the definite description, and yes, it wouldn't be!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 12:57 pm (UTC)I speculate that the Thirteenth Tribe are Cylons or invented these final five Cylons back before they left the Twelve Colonies. Obviously there is a leap to make here; perhaps these Five are descendants of the original Thirteenth Tribe. As Leoben continues to tell us, this has all happened before; history repeats - as we know from Babylon 5. Perhaps these Final Five are remnants of a Cylon war from four thousand years ago; humanity is doomed to repeat their mistakes.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 05:11 am (UTC)I loved Lee's speech, and how heartfelt it was. It was a brilliant way to bring in all those things that felt like perhaps they'd just brushed them under the carpet. I was truly surprised when Gaeta perjured himself; he just didn't seem the type, but I guess he feels personally betrayed by Baltar, enough to go against his better nature.
Mary McDonnell said in an interview that she was teasing Tahmoh and Grace that they are now her grandparents, because Hera is in a way her mother...she rebirthed Laura with the gift of her blood.
The 4 Cylon reveals was interesting; I'd been sort of spoiled for them because of all the speculation out there. What made it for me was the way Tigh reacted; no matter what it seemed was happening, he was determined to remain the person he knows himself to be. I think there is going to be some really interesting stuff happening with these four as they try to figure out where they fit now.
I can't wait for next season!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 04:16 am (UTC)I think it really comes down to Gaeta having believed in Baltar and actually liked Baltar (pre-presidency) in a way no one else on Galactica did; that, and that Baltar actually had a point when baiting him in Take a break from your troubles - no one forced Gaeta to either become Baltar's aide once Baltar was president or stay as Baltar's aide once the Cylons arrived. Yes, that way he could be an inside source for the Resistance, but it's a tricky area of decision making, and as Lee said - some of what he hates in Baltar, he probably hates in himself.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:57 pm (UTC)Haven't read Gregory - the extract from The Other Boleyn Girl she chose for a radio interview put me off - but using Jane Rochford as a main character does sound intriguing. Does she make any connection with Anne turning Catholic in later life?
no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 04:07 am (UTC)And yes, putting Jane R. in the spotlight is the novel's most original and intriguing twist...
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 10:01 pm (UTC)