I persisted with this book for as long as I did because it is so overwhelming rated highly and described as a “classic” of historical fiction. But I’m very much afraid I have to pull a DNF on this one. I just can’t stand to read any more of this novel. I’ll try and explain the good and the bad below, and why this book just didn’t work for me.The Good:Anya Seton has really done her research trying to get the historical setting as detailed and accurate as she can. The ins and outs of daily life in the late 14th century, the objects, attire, and the importance of religion and piety in peoples’ lives are all meticulously detailed and expanded upon. I appreciate the intention here, even if it didn’t quite come off – I’ll explain in a moment. I think it’s great that Seton wanted to create and authentic environment for her story, and it is obvious she put time and effort into that.I’m genuinely wracking my brains for something else to put in this section. Um… it wasn’t as bad as the likes of Philippa Gregory, Jean Auel, Michelle Moran, et. al.? The characters aren’t butchered and Seton’s writing style is basically competent. I got nothing…The Bad:Seton takes her research too far. She describes the setting in too much detail, spending too much time describing minute details that are irrelevant to the story, and it gets to the point where it becomes too much. Cut this stuff out and the novel would be a lot more succinct and to the point. As it is it rather meanders.Seton describes the window-dressing in too much detail but doesn’t describe the historical context in enough detail. Relevant events in the lives of the main characters, political upheaval, they’re just glossed over and not properly explained. Katherine, we’re told, takes no interest in political matters. She exists in a bubble of love and domestic bliss with John of Gaunt and doesn’t question what goes on outside that bubble. When John’s father is ailing and the heir to the throne is still a child, John takes an ever greater role in government, and faces opposition which keeps him occupied and stressed. Katherine sees this merely in terms of “he doesn’t love me any more because we don’t spend as much time together!”, whilst, when we do get inside John’s head, his hardline tactics with the populace are explained as “there was this boy once who told me I was a changeling and I must prove myself to everyone!” Really?! Serious matters of the time – with, undoubtedly, potential for epic drama in a novel – reduced to a grown man nursing a boo-boo and a woman whose life revolves around his love and attention? Urgh. I guess this is where the book is more of a romance novel than a historical fiction, but really I was expecting better.Pseudo-medieval dialogue. The text is peppered with the likes of “Nay, sweeting” and “Ay, lovedy” and “What ho, my lord”. This doesn’t feel medieval, it feels like the 1950s trying way too hard to masquerade as medieval. It’s painful.Flat characters. Minor characters often just walk on-stage and walk right off again without making an impact or serving merely as a deus ex machina to move things along. They’re stock characters – the prudent sister, the stubborn-yet-cheerful peasant serving woman, the protective puppy-dog squire, the grasping king’s mistress. John and Katherine are worse cases though. They just don’t feel like real people. I couldn’t see why these two characters fell in love at all. They think each other is good looking, and that seems to be pretty much it. That could work as a Katherine Swynford/John of Gaunt story, I think – two people falling into bed with each other, and slowly over time something more growing of it. But Seton seems to imply that this is an Epic Romance, and that just because they lust for each others’ bodies there’s some kind of Deep Connection going on, when there’s actually nothing to warrant it. Like any cheesy romance, John of Gaunt’s childhood boo-boo puts him into Punish Everyone mode, which creates a Big Misunderstanding and leads Katherine to think he doesn’t love her anymore. And, like any cheesy romance heroine, Katherine decides she’s going to Leave Unexpectedly Without Talking To Him. Did I mention how much I hate it when romance novels create false tension between their romantic leads by creating Big Misunderstandings that could be easily resolved if said characters would only talk to each other for ten minutes? It’s so dull being inside Katherine’s head too. Her thoughts consist of inconsequential observational narrative, and the Epic Love that she shares with John. She doesn’t seem to have a life outside of him. She has children and yet she hardly thinks about them, even when said children clearly express unhappiness with the current situation to her. We’re told she has no interest whatsoever in politics, and nothing else is shown as a topic or pastime she’s passionate about. Katherine also suffers from Purity Sue syndrome. She nurses John’s virtuous first wife in her final hours because she’s Just That Good. She’s beautiful, naïve, men fight over her, and she remains a passive inspiration to others, lacking in agency and interests outside of the romance. John’s groping her whilst still in mourning for his dead wife, and we’re often told that Dead Wife Would Have Wanted It This Way. Meanwhile, wife number two is Foaming At The Mouth Obsessed With Conquering Her Birthright and uninterested in John, other than in his capacity to achieve said Conquering and sire an heir for her. This is probably the biggest problem with the entire book. These people just don’t feel like complex human beings, they feel like awkward unsympathetic caricatures.Too much preamble. The main plot of this novel is supposed to be the relationship between John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, right? So why does it take over 250 pages to get there?! I understand a certain amount of setting up – Seton wants to tell a little bit about Katherine’s origins, and how she was married and had children before she became John’s mistress and had children with him – but 50 or 100 pages surely ought to be the limit. It dragged far too much and the more so for knowing that as readers we’re waiting for the inevitable to happen.I know my opinion is in the minority here, but I’ve had enough.3 out of 10
Oh Sweet Lord. Two lovers “bathed in light.” A woman “so pure” that the “beauty of her arms and breasts gleam[ed] like alabaster between strands of long auburn hair.” Her lover? The most powerful man in England. Swoon. This is the tale of long-term love based loosely on the facts we know about John of Gaunt and his “paramour” (later wife) Katherine Swynford. Medieval romantics need not fear; this novel is fat with surcotes, prie-dieux, jeweled coifs, emblazoned hanaps, and fearful gorge-swallowing friars (I love how they’re always sweating and tightening their lips). Seton must have spent a century in the library to put this together. Part of me ate it up. This is a world I would have wanted to see – unfortunately, my people, Irish peasant forebears all, wouldn’t have had a squinty-eyed chance in toasty hell of seeing anything remotely kingly. Not even a cup o' Malmsey. Bitterness at my blood lineage aside, this book has a couple of things going for it. It brings to life – as all decent historical fiction does – the world and inner thoughts of those who have left us nothing but marble effigies and flattened lifeless portraits. There is no chance I’ll forget the children of Edward III now. If only Mr. Beeman had made us read this book instead of memorizing genealogical diagrams of the English royals! I would have studied the Peasant’s Revolt with rabid interest, I’m sure. The part of this novel that’s hard to overcome is the style, which has the scent of the Harlequin Romance upon it. I shall not always be gentle, Katrine,” he said looking up into her face. “But by the soul of my mother, I shall love you until I die.”She bent over and opening her arms drew his head against her breasts. A gull mewed again outside the fortress, the fresh tang of the sea crept through the windows to mingle with the warmth of jasmine.”He raised his head from her breast and they looked without fear or striving but quietly; deep into each other’s eyes.”Still, it’s a grand operatic interpretation of the relationship between the Duke of Lancaster and the mere daughter of a lately knighted “commoner.” Katherine is given quite a complex character; she’s torn between religious correctness and the true love she feels for John. In Seton’s book, she is no “whore” but a passionate woman in love, trying to live within the constraints of courtly life, which castigates adultery and lewdness while engaging in it. In contrast to her character, the Duke is a handsome noble yawn. Where is le noble chevallier of my imagination? Enwebbed by women. Three wives and the psychological dysfunction caused by a childhood nanny. Oh, brother. I just don’t want to envision Lancaster this way. I ended up siding with the peasants. Those boorish, gross, lip-smacking, taxed-to-death, bored, obstreperous, pains in the ass.
What do You think about Katherine (2004)?
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!
—Steven Peterson
This is the book that made me fall in love with historical fiction. It's based on the true story of the 14th-century love affair between Katherine de Roet and John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster.As a young woman, Katherine was a reputed beauty but had few prospects, so she married the brutal Sir Hugh Swynford and had two children. By chance, her marriage put her in the path of the Duke, who was struck by her beauty. After Hugh died, Katherine and the Duke stole away and had their long anticipated love affair.While the plot sounds simple, the time and setting were not. There was a plague going on. There were peasant riots. War. Political battles. Katherine suffered many trials in her life -- this is not a romantic comedy. Indeed, I was so captivated by the story and the details in Seton's writing were so vivid that I felt as if I had been transported to medieval England.Published in 1954, the book has been beloved by innumerable readers over the years. I remember when a fellow librarian first mentioned Katherine to me. "Read it," she implored. "You'll LOVE it." And she was right.
—Diane Librarian
3.5 stars. Katherine by Anya Seton follows the infamous love story of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, in 14th century England. It is considered a classic in the historical fiction genre, mostly because it was one of the first novel which combined romance and historical plot. However, be aware that this book is far from the modern historical romances.I loved the historical details. It is clear that Anya Seton did a lot of research before writing this book. The setting is so detailed that sometimes the book feels more like a non-fiction book than a novel, without being boring at all: the writing style is always elegant but accessible.The plot is quite engaging and well constructed, but it also has some very slow parts; overall, I think the book could have been shorter. For example, the parts when Katherine is all alone right after her wedding, or her wanderings after she (view spoiler)[leaves John (hide spoiler)]
—Elena
