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selenakName your five favorite works of historical fiction, and why you love them.
A challenge after my own heart. Tricky to limit them just to 5, though. Here we go.
1) Child of the Morning, by Pauline Gedge. A fantastic novel about Hatshepsut. Pauline Gedge wrote a couple of novels more set in ancient Egypt. There are more novels about Hatshepsut by other authors, of course, she being one of the most memorable of Egyptian rulers. But this, to me, remains both the definite novel about Hatshepsut and my favourite by Pauline Gedge. Her main character, Hatshepsut, is a three dimensional being, whose flaws the author doesn't hide. The supporting cast comes to vivid life as well. And, miracle of miracles, the antagonist, Hatshepsut's stepson, the future Thutmosis III., isn't demonized, either. (Usually in novels sympathetic to him she's vilified, and vice versa.) The Egyptian world, its beliefs, its every day life, everything is rendered incredibly vivid. I love it to bits.
2) The Josephus Trilogy by Lion Feuchtwanger. (Consists of the volumes: Josephus, The Jew of Rome and The Day Will Come.) Feuchtwanger is one of my favourite authors of the genre, and picking just one novel is tough, but I'm going with this one (slightly cheating as it consists of three volumes, but hey, Lord of the Rings counts as one novel, too). The story deals with Flavius Josephus, aka Josef Ben Matthias, a Jewish writer who changed sides during the Jewish war after his capture, went on to make a career in Rome while at the same time trying to give this a purpose beyond survival by chronicling the history of his people. Josef/Josephus is a typical Feuchtwanger character, morally ambiguous and struggling to find his way between worlds; at the same time as it describes Palestine and Rome of the past, the trilogy also reflects Feuchtwanger trying to make sense of his own present. (The first volume got published in 1933, the last in 1940, after Feuchtwanger, whose books were burned by the Nazis immediately after they came to power, barely made it out of France alive.) Again, there is a great and memorable supporting cast, and precisely because he didn't try to write him as Hitler, Feuchtwanger's version of Domitian, the last Flavian emperor, makes for an incredibly plausible and chilling psychopathic dictator.
3) I, Claudius (novel by Robert Graves, tv version directed by Herbert Wise) . Much as I enjoy the novel, I love the tv series even more, which is why you get linked to it. It boasts of stellar performances, from the best British actors the late 70s had to offer, and of a razor sharp script, taking on the story of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Other tv series dealt with historical subjects. None like this one. None.
4.) Legacy by Susan Kay. Awesome, awesome novel about Elizabeth I., another woman much written about, but this take remains my favourite, capturing Elizabeth herself, Cecil, Robin Dudley and the whole period in its cruel and bawdy glory. It remains frustrating to me that Susan Kay only ever wrote two novels, let me tell you that.
5). The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman. Picking just one of Sharon Penman novel's was hard, and for a while I wavered between The Reckoning and When Christ and his Saints Slept, but ultimately went with this one, her first. It deals with the Yorkist kings, Edward IV and Richard III, and that final period of the Wars of the Roses. The relationship between the brothers is one of the most captivating things about it, so when Edward the pragmatic and morally ambiguous dies two thirds in, one feels the loss. Of course, any novel featuring Richard III. has to come down on one side of the "what happened to the princes?" question. Ms. Penman is an unabashed Ricardian, but her argument as to who killed them and why strikes me as one of the most logical solutions around even if you as a reader are not. As in all her novels, she manages to make a big ensemble memorable, no matter whether it's Warwick's brother John Neville (who usually in Wars of the Roses stories only gets cameo appearances, if that) or Elizabeth Woodville (hooray for morally ambigous female characters as well!). Still my favourite take on the last Plantagenets.
A challenge after my own heart. Tricky to limit them just to 5, though. Here we go.
1) Child of the Morning, by Pauline Gedge. A fantastic novel about Hatshepsut. Pauline Gedge wrote a couple of novels more set in ancient Egypt. There are more novels about Hatshepsut by other authors, of course, she being one of the most memorable of Egyptian rulers. But this, to me, remains both the definite novel about Hatshepsut and my favourite by Pauline Gedge. Her main character, Hatshepsut, is a three dimensional being, whose flaws the author doesn't hide. The supporting cast comes to vivid life as well. And, miracle of miracles, the antagonist, Hatshepsut's stepson, the future Thutmosis III., isn't demonized, either. (Usually in novels sympathetic to him she's vilified, and vice versa.) The Egyptian world, its beliefs, its every day life, everything is rendered incredibly vivid. I love it to bits.
2) The Josephus Trilogy by Lion Feuchtwanger. (Consists of the volumes: Josephus, The Jew of Rome and The Day Will Come.) Feuchtwanger is one of my favourite authors of the genre, and picking just one novel is tough, but I'm going with this one (slightly cheating as it consists of three volumes, but hey, Lord of the Rings counts as one novel, too). The story deals with Flavius Josephus, aka Josef Ben Matthias, a Jewish writer who changed sides during the Jewish war after his capture, went on to make a career in Rome while at the same time trying to give this a purpose beyond survival by chronicling the history of his people. Josef/Josephus is a typical Feuchtwanger character, morally ambiguous and struggling to find his way between worlds; at the same time as it describes Palestine and Rome of the past, the trilogy also reflects Feuchtwanger trying to make sense of his own present. (The first volume got published in 1933, the last in 1940, after Feuchtwanger, whose books were burned by the Nazis immediately after they came to power, barely made it out of France alive.) Again, there is a great and memorable supporting cast, and precisely because he didn't try to write him as Hitler, Feuchtwanger's version of Domitian, the last Flavian emperor, makes for an incredibly plausible and chilling psychopathic dictator.
3) I, Claudius (novel by Robert Graves, tv version directed by Herbert Wise) . Much as I enjoy the novel, I love the tv series even more, which is why you get linked to it. It boasts of stellar performances, from the best British actors the late 70s had to offer, and of a razor sharp script, taking on the story of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Other tv series dealt with historical subjects. None like this one. None.
4.) Legacy by Susan Kay. Awesome, awesome novel about Elizabeth I., another woman much written about, but this take remains my favourite, capturing Elizabeth herself, Cecil, Robin Dudley and the whole period in its cruel and bawdy glory. It remains frustrating to me that Susan Kay only ever wrote two novels, let me tell you that.
5). The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman. Picking just one of Sharon Penman novel's was hard, and for a while I wavered between The Reckoning and When Christ and his Saints Slept, but ultimately went with this one, her first. It deals with the Yorkist kings, Edward IV and Richard III, and that final period of the Wars of the Roses. The relationship between the brothers is one of the most captivating things about it, so when Edward the pragmatic and morally ambiguous dies two thirds in, one feels the loss. Of course, any novel featuring Richard III. has to come down on one side of the "what happened to the princes?" question. Ms. Penman is an unabashed Ricardian, but her argument as to who killed them and why strikes me as one of the most logical solutions around even if you as a reader are not. As in all her novels, she manages to make a big ensemble memorable, no matter whether it's Warwick's brother John Neville (who usually in Wars of the Roses stories only gets cameo appearances, if that) or Elizabeth Woodville (hooray for morally ambigous female characters as well!). Still my favourite take on the last Plantagenets.
