I'M SERVING: NUTTY CHEESY "SALLET"
Back to School means we're back to Book Club. For this kickoff, Books and Cooks will take place at Chez mimi, so that means lots of running around and stashing and freaking and spraying and dusting and wiping and vacuuming, which isn't such a bad thing, but harrowing if you try to do it all in oh, say, three hours right before people come over.
But I digress.
Back to the book...Tudor history seems to be on the upswing, what with The Tudors on Showtime (not that watching Jonathan Rhys-Myers is ever punishment) and the release of Elizabeth: The Golden Age on the horizon. It's funny how no one knows much about it except that Henry VIII had a bunch o'wives, and he lopped the heads off two of them. This book takes place during Wife 1 (Catherine of Aragon) and Wife 2 (Anne Boleyn), interspersed with Mistress 1 (Mary Boleyn--that's keeping things in the family) and Mistress 2 (Jane Seymour--not to be confused with the actress of the same name. Mistress 2 eventually becomes Wife 3, but only if you're keeping score at home. *Whew!* I don't know how Henry manages, what with that gimpy leg and all. Guess Mel Brooks was right in History of the World, Part 1: "It's good to be the king."
The interesting thing about Gregory's book is not so much the King as it is the court intrigue surrounding the throne. Power-hungry families (Howards, Seymours). Advisors. Backbiting, betrayal, and bitches, especially that Anne Boleyn. Wow, is she ever an advertisement for only children. Mary, the book's central and most sympathetic character, basically becomes a pawn for her family's ambition. Sleep with the King, they tell her, he thinks you're hot. But I'm married. Not a problem. He married into an ambitious family, he'll figure it out. Besides, he'll get you back when the King picks a new target. Some new target. By the time Mary realizes she's fallen in love with King Henry (this is pre-gimp, pre-rotundity), she's being pushed aside for her sister Anne. And her patient husband dies, so she's stuck on the Howard Family power-struggle chessboard for as long as they seem to think they need her.
It's a big book, a juicy book. It'll make a big, juicy costume drama, too, being released this holiday season. Eric Bana (watching him is never punishment) as King Henry, so that'll be good. Assorted great actors as Catherine of Aragon, Cardinal Wolsey, etc., etc. But the real fun will be watching Natalie Portman as Anne mop the acting floor with poor, overmatched Scarlett Johansson as Mary. That'll be a sisterly rivalry to savor.
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