Classic Heyer! ( )

Georgette Heyer wrote over fifty novels in her lifetime, starting when she was fifteen years old and continuing nonstop until her death at age seventy one. Her Regency romance novels where wildly popular, but her first love was for "armour," the Middle Ages.

I have read several of her Regency novels and can easily see her appeal, they are witty, frothy and full of fun. So it was with interest that I picked up My Lord John, one of her non-romance, non-Regency historical novels. It was, in fact, unfinished at her death and the current book only makes up about a third of the tale that she planned to tell. It would have been a trilogy encompassing the entire life of John, Duke of Bedford, third son of King Henry IV and brother and trusted advisor of King Henry V.

John grew to manhood in a turbulent time. His father, Henry IV ousted Richard II from the throne and took the crown for himself. Through Richard died shortly after (of course), that didn't stop different factions from trying to topple Henry. At the tender age of fourteen, John's steady hand and sensible head were rewarded and his father made him Lord High Constable of England. He couldn't have chosen a better man, though he was really still a boy. For the rest of his life, John would do the serious and difficult work of running a fractious nation, first for his father and later for his brother.

For me, reading My Lord John was a bit of a struggle, though I could see glimpses of what a great book it could have become. It was never edited by the author and it does suffer from that lack. It reads almost like a non-fiction history, so I found myself growing sleepy time and again. There are so many characters and, as is common for this time period, multiple people have the same first names. Thomas, Henry, John, Mary, Katherine...at times it is very hard to tell who is who. Plus, the men are referred to by their given names at times and their titles at others (for example, Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel might be referred to as Richard, Fitzalan or Arundel), instead of picking one and using it throughout. Though there is a very good character list and also a nice family tree, constantly having to refer to it really breaks up the story.

The same can be said for the author's use of authentic middle English words/phrases. There is an extensive and helpful glossary at the back of the book and the use of these forgotten terms does add to the flavor of the story. But constantly having to refer to the glossary, sometimes multiple times while reading one page, slows down the reading process. I did learn quite a bit, which I enjoyed, but looking up words so often does become tedious.

So, unfortunately, I can't recommend this one to the average Georgette Heyer fan. Anyone who needs romance in their books will not be able to get through this one, as you will not find any here. I happen to be a die hard historical fiction lover and romance is not a must for me (I do find a little bit livens up a story, though!), but even I had a hard time with this one. It is truly unfinished - it ends in mid sentence. If you are interested in history and the middle ages and can accept the book as is, I think you will find both interest and enjoyment within its pages.

The preface, written by the author's husband after her death, made me sad for her and I wanted to add part of it for you here:

"Her research was enormous and meticulous. She was a perfectionist. She studied every aspect of the period-history, wars, social conditions, manners and customs, costume, armour, heraldry, falconry, and the chase. She drew genealogies of all the noble families of England (with their own armorial bearings painted on each) for she believed that the clues to events were to be found in their relationships. She had indexed files for every day of the year for the forty years she was covering with all noteworthy events duly entered on their dates. She learnt to read medieval English almost as easily as modern and amassed a large vocabulary. One summer we toured the Scottish-English borderlands, learning the country and visiting seventy-five castles and twenty-three abbeys (or their ruins). Her notes fill volumes.

For the work, as she planned it, she needed a period of about five years of single-minded concentration. But this was not granted to her. The penal burden of British taxation, coupled with the clamour of her readers for a new book, made her break off to write another Regency story. After such a break it was hard to recapture the spirit of her main work and it required a good deal of labour to refresh her knowledge. After this had happened a second time, she laid her manuscripts aside, foreseeing that at least two more such interruptions would inevitably recur before she could complete the work. So a great historical novel was never finished." ( )

I really wanted to like this novel. I went into it expecting to like it. I have really enjoyed the other works that I’ve read by Georgette Heyer and as you all know, I love historical fiction. I just could not love this book, though, much as I tried.

First there is the language. Heyer appears to have really tried to write this novel in the language of the fifteenth century. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the way she intended. Instead, it feels stilted and unfamiliar, even to one who has spent hours trying to figure out what fifteenth century people meant when they used all these words that have fallen out of the language or when they used words which don’t mean what they now mean. I think the fifty to seventy-five years in between my work and this book make a difference because these are unquestionably proper words, but I was unfamiliar with them and they make the book a slow, slow read.

If a reader of this book has no knowledge of the history or people involved, it will constitute even more of a struggle. Even though I have a fairly comprehensive knowledge of Henry IV’s reign, I had to refer to the family tree several times and even wished I’d taken notes so I could keep track of the various names used to refer to one person. This is the first instance that I’ve wished for a character list, which I’ve seen in a few fantasy novels, just so I could remember who people were.

Those two problems combined with the fact that this book has no real plot and is merely a meandering through history, which isn’t even complete, made this book a slow one for me. In the end, I didn’t see the point. I didn’t find it enjoyable and I wasn’t searching for a resolution to a story because I knew there wasn’t one. I think that if someone was extremely interested in the reign of Henry IV’s reign and wanted to read this alongside some comprehensive history over a lengthy period of time, it would work better. It is historically accurate to the best of my knowledge, but I guess this just goes to show that it also takes a well told story for a compelling work of historical fiction. I wish Heyer had applied her considerable talents, so clearly on display in her Regencies, to this novel as well. I would recommend those instead.

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=1214 ( )

Despite my love of Georgette Heyer, I don’t have much experience with either her mysteries or her historical fiction. I was lucky to be able to read this reissue from Sourcebooks because I had no idea what I was missing.

I am not an expert in this historical period. Not by any means. It is not one of my favorites and I’ve not done much research about it. From what I know about this time period, which is admittedly not very much, the historical characters were portrayed very accurately. They really come alive through Heyer’s prose and attention to historical accuracy. I loved all of the character in the book and really got into their stories. Heyer gave all of the the main characters sufficient time in the spotlight which I find to be a really amazing asset to the book especially considering the complexity of the story and the amount of characters in the book . Heyer also perfectly captured the language, customs and feel of the period.

If I thought that Heyer’s attention to historical accuracy was intense in her regency romances, it is nothing compared to the historical complexity and detail that I found in My Lord John. This book was so rich in history that I sometimes completely forgot that I was reading a Heyer novel. Given that this was Heyer’s favorite historical period, this level of detail is to be expected. I did find that sometimes the story became too complex and I became a little lost and disinterested in the story and, perhaps, Heyer sacrificed plot for detail. I did recover but this period of disinterest did take a little away from my interest in the novel. I, however, can’t fault Heyer for her attention to historical fact because as a historian, I love detail and accuracy in my historical fiction .

It is to be noted that Heyer died before My Lord John was finished, so, you will be left without conclusions. It is definitely worth checking out because this might be one of the most richly detailed and interesting historical fictions I have read. ( )

This book can be tough to get through if you don't know anything about the period (roughly 1390-1410 in England). The first time I read it, I didn't know much of anything and found it fairly boring. The second time I read it, I knew more and found it interesting and enjoyable but still had difficulty following the name changes. (Lord So-and-So becomes the Duke of This-and-That, and is never again referred to as Lord So-and-So.) The third time...well, that's in the future. But there will indeed be a third time, after I've read some more about the period. The book is worth the bother.