Musing
I seem to have lost my taste ...
... for reading fictionalized accounts of the life of Richard. There are one or two - notably Penman and Carleton stand out - which I treasure but too many of the ones I have read recently have degenerated into soppy romances and those have never been my fancy.
I recall years ago a friend to my sister insisted that I read some of the romance novels she found to be so engrossing. I took a small selection home with me and, had it not been for my ingrained reverence for books, every last one of them would have been rent asunder and hurled on the closest midden heap. I have rarely encountered such a waste of wood pulp. So, I have tried, really I have.
The Richard romances are not quite as bad as the ones foisted on me by that friend of my sister's, however they do turn a complex and fascinating historical figure into a vacillating, lip-chewing, lachrymose bore. I can accept that he grew to love his wife and cherish their son (for dynastic reasons if no other) but that was not the whole of his life or concerns. No, I think I need to go back to the dry, cold, hard facts of history and leave the romancing to those who find it amusing. I am feeding my fantasy hunger with Martin's Song of Ice and Fire epic. Heh!
... for reading fictionalized accounts of the life of Richard. There are one or two - notably Penman and Carleton stand out - which I treasure but too many of the ones I have read recently have degenerated into soppy romances and those have never been my fancy.
I recall years ago a friend to my sister insisted that I read some of the romance novels she found to be so engrossing. I took a small selection home with me and, had it not been for my ingrained reverence for books, every last one of them would have been rent asunder and hurled on the closest midden heap. I have rarely encountered such a waste of wood pulp. So, I have tried, really I have.
The Richard romances are not quite as bad as the ones foisted on me by that friend of my sister's, however they do turn a complex and fascinating historical figure into a vacillating, lip-chewing, lachrymose bore. I can accept that he grew to love his wife and cherish their son (for dynastic reasons if no other) but that was not the whole of his life or concerns. No, I think I need to go back to the dry, cold, hard facts of history and leave the romancing to those who find it amusing. I am feeding my fantasy hunger with Martin's Song of Ice and Fire epic. Heh!