***Biography Group Read, 3rd quarter: Four Queens by Nancy Gladstone, General discussion

Hi everyone!

Here is the general discussion thread to meet each other and discuss in general how our reading is going. I will start a different thread for in depth discussion that allows for spoilers.

Our book this quarter (July-Sept) is Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters who Ruled Europe by Nancy Gladstone.

This is the thread for general discussion.

This is the thread for more detailed discussion, allowing for spoilers and concentrated in September, though posts before then are certainly allowed and encouraged.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/176965

Enjoy!

I am just starting the book now. I know next to nothing about these women or this time period, but this is the type of biography that I generally enjoy.

Anyone else planning to join in this quarter?

I'll be joining in - I'm waiting on a copy from the library.

I've got a few other books to read first, but I have it in the stack that I will be reading soon.

I've put a link in the quarterly biography read thread and the general group read thread to help people find this. I have also put an 'about' in.

What we still need is the link on the Wiki. Anyone computer savvy willing to do that? I see there that 7 of us signed up for this.

I plan to join in, but I probably won't get to the book until August. Conveniently, it fits the August GeoCAT (Western Europe). :)

I've got this from the library and have done the link to this thread in the Wiki.

>6 Helenliz: thanks for doing the wiki link! That is not my area of expertise!

I have about 50 pages left in Wild Swans and then I will be joining all of you in this group read.

I'd like to join in, but I'm not sure that I can get a copy.

I have my copy from the library and hope to start reading it soon.

I've started the book and realized that I actually do have some background in this area because I've read a historical fiction series set in the time period. Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh trilogy covers this era and features Simon de Montfort prominently. I don't remember much about the "four sisters", though, so I'm interested to know how they fit in to the story.

I'm finding the book very enjoyable and easy to read so far.

I had read three of Sharon Kay Penman's books on Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and so when I started this book I found I had more background in it than I thought I did. Plus a few years ago I read Labrynth by Kate Mosse and got interested in the Cathars and found myself reading about them. For that reason I knew about Count Raymond of Toulouse and his problems with the French King and the Pope. However, the reading I did was much more sympathetic to Count Raymond than is Nancy Goldstone. She makes him out to be a murderer and lecher and my other reading said that he was very sympathetic to the Cathars and offered them succor for which he found himself at the lance end of a crusade. I guess history is always open to interpretation. I did find it interesting to note that his lands bordered the lands of the Count of Provence and so I would suspect that as I read more in this book I will find that Count Raymond Berenger will be walking a fine line between the devil (the French King) and the Pope.

Interesting name Berenger. Did anybody else notice that Richard II (Lionheart) of England married a woman named Berengaria?

Just wanted to update that I finished the book in a few days. I found it interesting and readable. Hope everyone else enjoys it too!

I am now about 125 pages into this book and while I am enjoying reading it I have a few questions about it.

1. It isn't very scholarly. By that I mean there is an index but where are the end notes or footnotes? This isn't a memoir so I would expect to see a more scholarly format and documentation.

2. Some of the statements in the book are mere speculation and either need to be documented that there is a reason for these statements or it should be clearly stated that it is the authors opinion. For instance I ran across this passage this morning on page 129 of my copy. ( I am reading the 2008 paperback edition)

"..., the French were no match for the descendants of Genghis Kahn, for whom piety was merely a ploy to obtain assistance in the short term. Given the history of Mongol behavior, of which there was substantial precedent, the alliance would have been broken as soon as the Muslim forces were subdued. Louis, Charles, and Robert would have been beheaded with ruthless efficiency, Marguerite and Beatrice would have been sold into slavery, and the course of European history would have changed forever." Where is the precedent? How can the author say with certainty that they WOULD have been beheaded? Is any of this documented?

The quoted passage is immediately followed by this sentence: "As it was, the French envoys had so far to travel, and were detained so long upon their arrival at the Mongol court, that is took more than two years for Louis's negotiators to return to Cyprus." Cyprus is farther west than is Jerusalem so it is my bet that the Mongol court learned that Louis had gone ahead with his plans and did not include them. If that is so, and they were so duplicitous and untrustworthy they would never have allowed the negotiators to return in the first place. For me the author has contradicted herself in the same paragraph and without documentation it makes it difficult to figure out where she got her information.

>14 benitastrnad: I partly agree with your reservations and included them in my review, saying that this reads more as historical fiction than detailed scholarship. Goldstone's bibliographic note makes it clear that she relied primarily on contemporary chroniclers of the events. She does include many quotes from these chronicles interspersed throughout the book. There also is an extensive bibliography. I agree, though, that the lack of footnotes is disturbing. I chose to overlook it and enjoy the ride. Many nonfiction writers these days are writing in a "narrative nonfiction" style and I assumed that was what Goldstone was going for. I assume she did the research and then crafted the book to read as a story, something that I found entertaining. To me, it doesn't detract from the book as long as I know what I'm getting into and don't expect it to be high scholarship. I think there's a place for both.

In any event, I enjoyed the book and added to my knowledge of the era. I don't expect any one book, historical fiction or nonfiction, to give me a complete, unbiased view of history. I look at every book as one piece of the puzzle to a topic.

I do understand though, that if you were expecting a more scholarly tone this will be a disappointing book to you and might not be worth your time.

#15
I agree with all that you wrote. This book is immensely readable and it is an incredible story. Definitely the stuff of legends and song. I find myself looking forward to my reading time with it.

I have noticed, in the last few years, that many of the works of non-fiction, particularly regarding people and events in the Middle Ages, (of course, it may be that I am reading more about the Middle Ages right now) reads more like fiction than non-fiction. While I agree that narrative non-fiction is a literary form, I am not sure that it is good for non-fiction in general. My reason for saying that is, that while it makes non-fiction more accessible to general readers, it also makes it harder to separate the people and events from the author. This makes author bias more and more of a problem.

I did take note of the bibliography in this book. That, and the index, and maps, and genealogical charts were very helpful. I appreciate the inclusion of these kinds of assistance. I know that publishers don't like to include maps and illustrations because they require a little more investment in time, but as a reader I find them of immense help.

I certainly don't expect one book to give me a complete unbiased view of people or events, but I do expect a work of historical non-fiction to give me sources. I suspect that publishers really like books like this one, because of its length. It is short. That means that more people will read it. It also means less editing work for them. Less fact checking, less citation checking, etc. What that does translate to is sloppiness. Academics are up in arms about this kind of thing - and I believe rightly so. Lack of footnotes is what almost did in Doris Kearns Goodwin. A situation she remedied with the next book she published Team of Rivals and thus restored her tarnished reputation - and still managed to have a popular best seller that many people thought very readable.

A rather short academic work that I read recently, and greatly admired was The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt. The book was only about 250 pages in length and it had extensive endnotes and an index. Along with a bibliography. It was so good it won the National Book Award and a Pulitzer prize, but best of all it was readable.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think this author could have been more scholarly and used more documentation and not lost the readability of the book.

I agree. I've read two nonfiction books lately that I think would qualify as narrative nonfiction (at least to me they are very readable) but that also have extensive footnotes (Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin). I didn't find the footnotes interrupted the flow for me at all. I don't look at all of them, but it's nice to have them there for topics that I am interested in or if I read something that I feel I need more info about to really understand that paragraph.

I bet that nonfiction is both hard to write and hard to market when trying to balance scholarship with readability.

I continue to amazed by the story of these four women. Right now I am on the Crusade with Marguerite and Beatrice and their respective husbands - and what a story it is. If the author were writing a work of fiction it would be hard to make this stuff up. The king captured and willing to die in payment for his folly. The heroic queen taking charge while in the last stages of pregnancy. The slave who took charge as well and then married the new Sultan. What a dust-up this was! Can you imagine what would happen today if all that many world leaders were all engaged in one place and all this happened. This is an amazing story.

The author certainly has plenty of material with which to write a good story. No lack of heroes and villains.

>18 benitastrnad: It is fun, isn't it?

Would you mind continuing this type of discussion on our other "spoilers allowed" thread? I think the discussion of the footnotes works well for this thread, but this last one might work better on the other one.

Here's a link to the other thread. I realized I was a "bad moderator" and didn't provide a link to this is the first post! Sorry!!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/176965

>19 japaul22: Would you please edit both first posts to add links to the other thread. That would make it easier for people to find both.

Both threads are now listed in the biography reads thread.

Also on the big group reads thread.

>20 MarthaJeanne: Done. THanks for the suggestion!

I haven't gotten much reading on this title done this last week. I have been cooking up tomatoes for tomato sauce instead and then knitting on a birthday gift that I need to give away next month. However, I will get back to it ASAP as it is too interesting to let it languish.

I have just bought a copy on my kindle so I will be joining in soon.

I'm hoping to start it next week. I know very little about this time period but am looking forward to it.

Starting was a little delayed because I had gotten the book out so as to have it ready to read. Oooops, but now I have found it again.

I've read the first couple of chapters.

I've finished this, I'll work out what I thought of it.

I'm certainly enjoying it. ETF sometime tomorrow.

>28 MarthaJeanne: Yes, finished.

I just finished reading this one. It was an excellent example of narrative non-fiction. As I said earlier it might not be the most academic book I have read about queens in the Middle Ages but it is one of the most readable. Even with my quibbles regarding the documentation I thought this was a good read and a title that entices you to further reading.