Catherine Meyrick's Blog, page 30
July 17, 2020
This too shall pass
This is a post I wrote for the online magazine Women Writer, Women’s Books about why we read historical fiction and the lessons, if any, we can gain from it.
We read historical fiction for a range of reasons beyond the pleasure of being immersed in another time and place. It gives us the chance to see beyond the names and dates, acts of Parliament and movements of armies to the people who lived through the great moments of history … continue reading
These are the books mentioned in the pos...
July 10, 2020
In My Garden – The Common Marigold
We are in the middle of winter here and the garden is looking pretty sad. The lawn is soggy under foot, there is lots of greenery but many yellowing leaves. The white daisies are out and a clump of snowflakes (Leucojum) but they don’t exactly raise the spirits when the sun is hiding.
Today, I decided to subject the leafless apricot tree to a pruning that my mother would have been proud of (the whole garden trembled when Mum picked up a saw) and was amazed to find a bright orange marigold...
July 3, 2020
My Reading – June 2020
Antonius: Son of Rome by Brook Allen
Father was dead.
The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson
It must have been late in the afternoon one day at the end of August when
Moomintroll and his mother arrived at the deepest part of the great forest.
The Long Take by Robin Robertson
And there it was: the swell
and glitter of it like a standing wave –
the fabled, smoking ruin, the new towers rising
through the blue,
the ranked array of ivory and gold, the glint
the glamour of buried ligh...
June 26, 2020
In my beginning is my end? – Opening and closing lines
A little while ago I saw a quote from the American novelist Gloria Naylor – ‘One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.’ Other than in consciously literary works, I wondered how often this happened so I took a few favourite books from my bookcase. I found that this is not always the case and I am not so sure that it matters. The beginning of a novel should entice the reader to continue on and I think the first sentence of all these n...
June 12, 2020
More Meanderings in Cyberspace – June 2020
The world has changed since I last wrote of my meanderings through cyberspace. While our physical lives have been circumscribed, the wonderful world of the internet has opening up new vistas. So here are a few of the interesting places I’ve been over the last three months.
Perhaps the machines will take over one day. This article takes the opening lines of a number of classics and lets the machines do the rest. I don’t know that the results are any worse than what would happen with huma...
June 5, 2020
My Reading – May 2020
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away.
Fair Play by Tove Jansson
Jonna had a happy habit of waking each morning as if to a new life.
May 22, 2020
Dramatis Personae – The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
I have been savouring The Mirror and the Light for about a month now and, like most people, when I think of Thomas Cromwell I think of Mark Rylance although I know he looks nothing like Cromwell. Apart from the major players, I have no idea what many of the other characters looked like. So I have draw together portraits of some of the recurring characters, particularly those of Cromwell’s household. I suspect others have done this already but my Google skills have failed me and I could not find ...
May 15, 2020
‘To have and to hold from this day forward’ – The Celebration of Marriage in Early Modern England
The final step on the road to marriage in the 16th century was, as it is now, the marriage service itself. At its most basic, all that was needed to create a marriage was a mutual promise to marry followed by consummation.(1) Unfortunately for many women, this was often not enough to ensure that the marriage was recognized. Many cases found their way to the church courts where one party claimed marriage and the other denied it, witnesses could not be found or, anticipating the marriage...
May 9, 2020
The Bridled Tongue – Some Background
Usually there are years of research over a wide range of topics involved with any historical novel. Although much of it is, thankfully, not described explicitly in the novel, it all helps to plausibly reconstruct the world as it was. I have drawn together here a number of the blog posts I have written on some of the background to The Bridled Tongue.
Interviews
Following the release of The Bridled Tongue, I took part in a couple of written interviews touching on the inspiration for the novel,...
May 1, 2020
My Reading – April 2020
The Gatekeeper by Charles Todd
Ian Rutledge drove through the night, his mind only partly on the road unwinding before him.
A Divided Loyalty by Charles Todd
Ian Rutledge was walking down the stairs at Scotland Yard when he met Chief Inspector Leslie coming up them two at a time.
Loxley: The Chronicles of Robin Hood by John Bainbridge
It was the noise of an arrow.
