Excellent, thought provoking, read it!
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Philippa Gregory manages to take the story that we all know and add her 'what if' scenario. PG explores the possibility that Katherine of Aragon was not a virgin at the time of marrying Henry and that her faith (which according to history made her a devout Catholic) was in fact not as strong and her real loyalty lay with her first love and husband - Arthur.
Very thought provoking and an extremely good read.
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Another success
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I love two things about Philippa Gregory. One: she's confident enough to let the story tell itself, from the beginning. Most other writers would've felt pressured to jump right in with the Katherine v Anne battle, but she virtually ignores that, and this entire novel takes place more or less before the 'King's Great Matter.'
Two: I love the way she turns our preconceptions on their heads. Without giving the game away, she does it in The Other Boleyn Girl, when the she portrays the most outrageous lie told against Anne as being true (and who knows, maybe it was...) and she does it again here, right from the off. History has tended to come down on the side of approving Katherine's vow that her marriage to Arthur was not consummated. Once again, PG challenges this with a 'what if...' That said, this novel is decidedly Pro-Katherine. And rightly so. Hers is a story that should be told more often.
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Slow-paced and sweet, for those on "Team Aragon"!
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Having read The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance, I thought I'd go back to the beginning of the story and read more about Katherine of Aragon; she was characterised as such a class act in The Other Boleyn Girl novel (unlike in the film - but that's another story!). So The Constant Princess is the story of what made little Catalina, daughter of a warrior queen, into the steely-strong queen of the later days.
My favourite part of the novel was when Catalina and Arthur fall in love. Their awkward, unhappy adolescent relationship and its transformation into a tender and complete love, with all the passion and idealism of youth, was told very well. Philippa Gregory has a great talent for breathing fresh life into figures from history, and this relationship really came alive for me. After Arthur's death, I slightly lost interest in the novel; perhaps not all Philippa Gregory's fault, as she probably did what she could with seven lost, boring years of Catalina's isolation. The only thing sustaining the plot was Catalina's determination to keep her promise to her boy-husband and rule England for him as they had planned to do together. She has to use all her wits to steer around the obstacles to her planned marriage to the much younger "Harry", of whom she grows fond, despite knowing well his faults. Once she's got the ring on her finger, it does get a little bitty; battling the Scots one minute, and Anne Boleyn the next as it draws to a close.
The main draw of this book is a view from Katherine's mind, because in The Other Boleyn Girl she was only seen through the eyes of other characters. However, I do agree that it could have been more tightly edited towards the end, where her flashbacks and inner monologues become a bit repetitive. I enjoyed them more when she looked back on her childhood (her stories to Arthur about Spanish life and the Moors were interesting); less when they seemed to become a concentrated twice-daily dose of grit and determination. Also quite irritating was the overuse of "flatly" and "shortly" - just about everything that comes out of anyone's mouth is said "flatly" or "shortly", to the point where you could build a drinking game around it. Rather than lie in bed downing shots of vodka at every paragraph, I actually began listing synonyms to myself just to prove that there were other words in the English language that could be used instead.
Overall, I'd recommend it to those who loved The Other Boleyn Girl but fancy something a bit simpler and slower-paced.
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Give it a miss
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This was my first foray into Phillipa Gregory's work and I was beyond disappointed.
I found this novel just mind numbing and dull. Not a patch on Jean Plaidy.
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go on, read it, you've read all the others, it's quite good, really...
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I only read this because I had become interested in the Katherine after watching 'The Tudors' on TV, where she was portrayed as a strong, intelligent woman. This book underlines that impression, Katherine comes across as supremely royal, born to the job, and quite committed to her role as the Queen of England. I got a bit annoyed at the words in italics, which seemed to drag on a bit at times, and wanted more action and dialogue, however, the book kept me gripped for three or four days, and desipite knowing exactly what happens to Katherine in advance, don't let this put you off, it is still interesting to learn about her life from a different angle.
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