Publisher : Lightyear Pr
Publication Date : 1993 12 01
>> Satisfying
Katherine is widely regarded as Anya Seton s finest book and is still a popular classic in its genre over 50 years after it was first published There are several reasons why this book has endured and is still so well loved by so many
First in Katherine Anya Seton completely immerses the reader in 14th century England This is an era that 600 years later we tend to view through a soft focus lens remembering it as a romantic and chivalric period of castles knights courtly manners and beautiful and elaborate clothing However Seton s writing removes the rosy glow and depicts the late 1300s in as realistic a way as possible for a 20th century writer she reminds us that life in a castle was cold damp moldy smelly unwashed bodies and poor sanitation and ridden with sickness lice and fleas And yet this time period is still compelling with its tournaments courtly intrigue and social structure so different from our own It was a world so drastically different from what we know that we are still fascinated by it
Secondly Katherine is a successful book because it is so full and satisfying it is like eating a seven course meal When you are finished you feel that it is complete and nothing has been left out Anya Seton found her niche in the writing world by focusing on real women who had actually lived but who were with the exception of Katherine Swynford minor players never on the center stage of their society and who had been forgotten over time by all but perhaps a few elite scholars She would take such characters what few facts about them she could discover in her research and using her own fertile imagination recreate their lives Because her subjects were heretofore unknown to her readers Seton was able to form their personalities and motives as she pleased and make them her own
She does this in spades with Katherine As she says in her Author s Note at the beginning of the book few documented facts exist about Katherine Swynford s life Therefore the majority of this 500 page book and very small print at that is the result of Seton s own vivid and gifted imagination This is really less a love story about John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford than it is a life story of Katherine herself complete with a large cast of major and minor players The result is a story that is full detailed and multi textured just as Katherine s life probably actually was Seton vividly portrays her characters and develops their personalities and motivations in ways that are completely credible to the reader Having read all of Anya Seton s books I can say that they are never contrived never do you feel that she is forcing the plot to go in the direction she wishes it to Always the direction of the story seems to emerge from the characters themselves and their decisions such is the ability of a gifted writer
The only drawback that I could find in this book and the reason I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is that at times the pace drags There were several places where I found myself thumbing ahead although I would always go back to where I was and keep reading until it got more interesting
If you like modern style romances with their graphic and titillating love scenes then you won t like Katherine or any other older romance book for that matter This is an old style romance which is the best kind in my opinion where the intimacy is only alluded to
But if you want to be transported back to the 14th century and read about a real life woman who was fascinating in her ability to capture and hold the love of the wealthiest and most powerful man in England at the time then this is it I was a little sad to see the book end I wasn t quite ready to return to the 21st century This is one I will doubtless read again someday Enjoy
>> Love Story
I already had an older copy of this book which I had read so many times over the years that the pages were coming loose While I understand that it is fiction I still appreciate the beautiful if illicit love between a powerful noble and a commoner in a time when marriage between two such people was unheard of
>> Historical fiction with heart
The original copyright on this book is dated 1954 Thus this is a relatively old work as things go these days Nonetheless it still reads well and does not have a dated stale sense to it A major challenge facing the author Anya Seton is that rather little is known of Katherine Swynford As she says Page x Of her little is known except when her life touched the Duke and there are few details of that She notes that although this is fiction she has tried to ground it in authentic history of the time Does it work If you understand that there is little known about Katherine this book as well as Alison Weir s Katherine Swynford is remarkable for creating a real live human being out of a few scraps of information
That said what a story in this book as detailed by Seton Released from a nunnery to the Court of the King of England young Katherine de Roet becomes a member of that august circle A knight Hugh Swynford described in this book as a rough character ends up marrying her although she did not want this to be the case In those days though marriage was often a business and she got a pretty good deal Their home the Swynford estate at Kettlethorpe was run down hardly like the Court from which she had come The story outlines her rather brief life with Swynford birth of two of her children and her effort to run the estate And then John of Gaunt third son of the King entered her life After Swynford s death in battle with poison added in a plot device that I did not find convincing Katherine and John became lovers and she bore him four children during John s rather empty marriage to his second wife Constance of Castile She was notorious as John s mistress There follows the tale of rebellion the loss of Katherine s daughter by her husband her flight from John out of a sense of having violated morality
Returning to Kettlethorpe she once more ran the estate her children by John moved in with her
Then an almost unbelievably happy ending and this appears to comport with the historical record
Once I started reading this book I could not put it down Fifty years old with a lot of life left in this volume A truly good read
