Strange, complex, funny at times but quite weird as well would just about sum up the 1999 Whitbread winner by Rose Tremain. Set in Denmark one instinctively thinks of Hamlet but this is set in the 16th century during the reign of Christian IV. Weirdly compelling, the drama surrounds a Lute player who arrives from England to play at the Royal Court but finds a web of sex, betrayal and deceit. The lives and families of courtiers are told too; ladies in waiting to the Kings second wife are thrown into the highly charged sexually deceitful atmosphere in the Royal Court. Meandering all over Denmark and beyond the story twists and turns intricately in short chapters; the main characters seem to spawn many small sub plots and lesser characters so toward the end of the book there is such an ensemble of plots and sexual shenanigans that one is quite at a loss to see where the story is going at all! That said the entertainment value of the short chapters, the plotting and adultery is quite high; you never know just where the story is going who is going to end up with whom and when the story goes into the almost bankrupt state of Denmark's coffers the story reaches almost sublime levels with a sliver mining expedition and a weird mother in law with a giant cache of gold thrown in for good measure.
Weird but compelling couldn't really sum up the huge tapestry that makes up this wide and varied story. One could say it was a love story, perhaps a four way love story, but in reality it's so much more than that. A story of one Kings voyage to find his inner peace? A musician's struggle to find an answer to his hearts desire? A Kings consort who struggles to fulfil her selfish and increasingly bizarre emotional and sexual desires? Its all these things and more, much more indeed. Beautifully written with exquisite detail that really makes this superb historical drama come alive, the small chapters really make this easy to read in small doses. In fact this is a very good thing as when it gets funny and weird one needs time to digest what is happening so as to prepare for the next strange happening. Well worth a read indeed just for the fact that a historical novel can be as strange and weird as a novel set in contemporary times, well it can if it has a set of strange and unusual characters! A must read for those wanting a change out of the ordinary.
Weird but compelling couldn't really sum up the huge tapestry that makes up this wide and varied story. One could say it was a love story, perhaps a four way love story, but in reality it's so much more than that. A story of one Kings voyage to find his inner peace? A musician's struggle to find an answer to his hearts desire? A Kings consort who struggles to fulfil her selfish and increasingly bizarre emotional and sexual desires? Its all these things and more, much more indeed. Beautifully written with exquisite detail that really makes this superb historical drama come alive, the small chapters really make this easy to read in small doses. In fact this is a very good thing as when it gets funny and weird one needs time to digest what is happening so as to prepare for the next strange happening. Well worth a read indeed just for the fact that a historical novel can be as strange and weird as a novel set in contemporary times, well it can if it has a set of strange and unusual characters! A must read for those wanting a change out of the ordinary.