Yes, I know--the way I persevere on things you'd think I have OCD. We all have these tendencies. I admit I have a bunch of them--I prefer to think of it as a long attention span.

(And in case you're wondering, I'm not through with the Grateful Dead yet, either!)

Anyway, I had some problems with the book. Obviously. But since I am not a historian, and not especially attached to the period, my problems were not the ones I have with, say, horsey books in which stupid stuff that would never happen in real life happens. I don't know a lot about this stuff and have gradually learned to stay calm over things that don't really concern me.

So I'm not all that concerned by the business of making Mary the youngest of the siblings, even though the one historical source I've read has her the eldest. I'm not super-concerned with the fact the novel lops about eight years off her age, and I'm therefore willing to go along with the resulting impression of blushing virginal innocence surrounding Mary in the early pages of the novel. (The one thing we seem to know for sure about Mary's early life is that she left the French court with a very naughty reputation--hardly the chaste innocent of the novel.)

I'm even pretty much okay with the way the novel expands the affair with Henry to extend over years and years, and to assume a much greater importance to Henry than seems plausible. I mean, I can sort of picture him having a continued soft spot for a discarded mistress who didn't cause him any trouble, but I jib at the notion she was important to him.

I'll even go along with the picture of the psychotically ambitious Anne, and the way the novel seems to accept every scurrilous rumour thrown around during her disgrace as true (incest with her brother, witchcraft, repeated adultery.)

So, having accepted all this for purposes of the story (it's an alternate-universe story), the stuff that bothered me about the novel was strictly novel-world stuff.

It was mostly Mary, sometimes a milquetoast and sometimes an anachronistic feminist warrior. And on second thoughts, I am unsure how much of my "oh for fuck's sake" reaction is exactly what the novelist wanted. I initially read the book as if the writer wanted us to take Mary as given, but maybe that's my failing as the reader. Maybe I'm not supposed to like Mary very much.

I'm not concerned with the business of Mary's affair with Henry, because it's not like she had a lot of choice (even absent the prodding of her ambitious family.) But she keeps whining that she can't betray Queen Catherine... and then she does so at every turn, not only tattling in matters where her family would have known she'd have something to tell, but also dutifully turning in her information even when there was no way for any of her handlers to have known she had any. When the queen stands up for herself, Mary is presented as rooting for her, but it rings more than hollow.

There is, however, a scene between Mary and Queen Catherine in which Mary protests that if it hadn't been for the family, she'd have been loyal, and the queen contemptuously retorts that "had you not been tempted, you would not have fallen, and if you'd stood to gain nothing you would have been loyal" or words to that effect. Which makes me think, well, yes, that's exactly what I was thinking about Mary myself: easy to say she sympathizes with the queen, but she never shows it. I'm thinking of the incident with the oranges, where Mary stumbles over a tiny piece of information that nobody would ever have known she had, and she trots it along to her hated family at once. That incident goes beyond her understandable ambivalence about the whole social climbing atmosphere--she's participating actively there.

I just don't know if what I'm getting out of that scene was put there on purpose.

I mean, I know this character is ambivalent. It's just there are moments when I think we are led to expect one thing of the character, and she does something else that seems out of character for the person we're shown.

The whole business of being at court and wanting to flee is another thing. Obviously, that makes sense. And the story goes on and on and on about Mary's delight in living simply in the country and spending all this time with her children, right? (Those scenes are the most Mary Sueish, frankly. At least to me.) (Although the big romance with the second husband... that was tiresome as well.) I can see this character dragging herself back to court when Anne calls her--the sisterly rivalry that seems so over the top doesn't quite negate that instinct to go to a sibling who needs you. What I object to is the part when she's safely in the country, and her discarded husband arrives to claim her and the kids, and take them off to his quiet estate far from court. Okay, Mary is nervous of him (although she later sets to work to charm him, so why didn't she think of that right away?) but I didn't buy that her immediate reaction was to send Anne a panicky letter asking to be called back to the court she so fervently wished to get away from. She wanted to live peacefully in the country with her children. Her husband showed up and wanted to take her to live peacefully in the country with her children. I don't get why Mary didn't see the obvious potential benefits right away.

It's a truism that people are inconsistent. However, they are generally inconsistent in fairly consistent ways, if you see what I mean. To some extent, that's Mary in this novel. But in other ways, her behaviour is more suited to the convenience of the plot than consistent for the character I'm reading. So I'm left thinking that the romance-novel-Mary is the one the writer planned for and intended us to experience, and the scenes that bothered me were ones that just didn't read as intended.

I could be wrong, of course, but what I'll be taking from this experience is yet another warning about tweaking a character to serve the plot: the tweaking is best done well in advance, or readers may be left saying, "I don't understand why she did that."

Which is not exactly revolutionary, but I learn slowly.