This is one of the most difficult reviews I’ve ever decided to write. Difficult is … to find the right words when something touches you so deeply. THE SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR is honestly one of the most compelling and gripping novels I’ve ever read and a book to add to my “ the unforgettable”shelf . Actually it is still on my bedside table and it’ll stay there for long. Difficult is also to part from what and whom you love. And I have loved Ms Penman’s Dickon and his heartwarming story so much that it’ll be impossible to substitute him with other heroes for a while. Dickon was the family nick name for the last born son of the Duke of York. He would become the last Plantagenet king of England. He is perhaps the most controversial monarch ever to rule that island nation. Certainly the most vilified. He was Richard III.Richard III - Shakespeare's VictimFor one who only knew Richard III as the cruel, ambitious villain protagonist of Shakespeare’s tragedy, reading this book and entering the world of the numerous faithful Ricardians is a great lesson on history. I’ve read so many interesting articles and documents online , both during and after my reading of THE SUNNE , that now I feel ashamed of my past ignorance. Among the several enlightening texts I’ve found, an interesting document is “What History has to say about Richard III” William Shakespeare’s play Richard III, written sometime between 1591 and 1593, can indisputably be called his masterpiece. In it, he has created a character of evil incarnate in the form of Richard III. Richard’s line, ‘I am determined to prove a villain’ foreshadows Shakespeare’s intent for the whole play.1 If asked of an average person to describe King Richard III, most would probably come up with a picture straight out of Shakespeare. Paul Murray Kendall wrote, "While the Tudor chroniclers made up the minds of subsequent historians about Richard III, Shakespeare has made up the imagination of everybody else".The list of ‘crimes’ attributed to Richard III by William Shakespeare is long. In the play, he satisfies his all-consuming ambition by: 1.Murdering King Henry VI and murdering Edward of Lancaster2.Contriving the death of his brother Clarence3.Killing William, Lord Hastings4.And, most famously, the disposing of his two child nephews in the Tower of London.5.Not content with all this, Shakespeare also has Richard poisoning his wife in order to marry his niece.6.Physically, we are presented with a Richard, ‘Deform’d, unfinish’d…’, a twisted hunchback with a shriveled arm, reflecting a profoundly evil characterPenman’s detailed historical research permitted her not only to rescue King Richard III’s reputation from what Tudors’ historians first then Shakespeare did of it, but also to tranform the vilified king into a modern romantic hero. The deformed killer with no moral scruples becomes a man with a conscience and capable of deep love and loyalty, both reasons of his success and his undoing. A complex modern literary creature, not merely a chivalric hero. Female charactersI loved the interaction between Richard and his charismatic brother, King Edward IV; Richard and Warwick, from whom he learnt both how to become a man after his father death and the painful lesson of a friend’s betrayal; Richard and his friend Francis Lovell, whose loyalty to him remained intact from childhood to death. But I find his interactions with the female figures the most touching and memorable. My romantic side always prevail, you know. Anyhow, I think it is impossible to deny that the love story between Richard and Anne Neville is one of the best parts in the novel. Anne loved Richard since their childhood spent together a Middleham Castle, the house of the Earl of Warwick , her father, and Richard returned her love. They went on loving each other from a distance even when Warwick betrayed the House of York and was killed in a battle against Richard and his brother, King Edward. Their love survived the impossibility to get married, the marriage of her to a Lancastrian heir, the trauma she experienced in that marriage, all the intrigues and betrayals, the lies and hatred which surrounded them . Their marriage was unusual for the time, it was based on love, loyalty and faithfulness. Their love was so deep that Richard could not have endured and survived the tragic loss of his beloved for long. I also liked Bess much, Richard’s niece, Edward’s eldest daughter . She is a very modern female character. She is brave, loyal, independent- minded, honest and even blunt when necessary. She faced her own mother’s ambition and hypocrisy, loved Dickon dearly and loyally against all odds. She will be Queen in the end. She will marry Henry Tudor, Dickon’s victorious rival, who will defeat him at Redmore Plain (Bosworth) , will have Richard’s corpse mutilated and vilified, and will took the crown as Henry VII. Bess and Henry Tudor’s marriage will not be for love but it will sign the end of the long and bloody War of the Roses. Bess will be the mother of Henry VIII.I will go on talking about this novel and its characters for hours but I heartily recommend you to read it , if you haven’t done that already. And , before I end this review, I must thank one person for letting me know about the existence of this unique novel: Richard Armitage. I owe to Ms Penman’s and to him the pleasure of hours of unforgettable emotions.( see the complete review on my blog, http://flyhigh-by-learnonline.blogspo... )
Hillary Mantel fans Will Enjoy This Rehabilitation of Richard III . History enthusiasts and those who enjoy Hillary Mantel’s best selling historical fiction novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies will almost certainly enjoy Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour. Whereas, Mantel presents a more plausible rehabilitation of the often vilified Thomas Cromwell in her two novels of the early Tudor court, Penman attempts to go much farther with Richard III. This novel is interesting and extremely well written. With about 930 pages, this novel will entrance history enthusiasts with a “can’t put it down” lure. According to Penman’s mostly plausible assessment, Richard was an honorable, brave warrior and sensitive, loving husband, brother and father. What she also reveals on almost every page is the savagely cruel and unforgiving atmosphere in which Richard grew into manhood and in which he came to become a more than effective participant in the game of power politics. Where Penman stretches her assessment far beyond the point of plausibility is her elaborate and unconvincing moral/legal justification for Richard’s seizure of power and his acquittal for the deaths of the “Princes in the Tower” (his nephews, King Edward V and the Duke of York).Upon the sudden and somewhat unexpected death of 40 year old King Edward IV in April 1483, the King’s only surviving brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became Protector for 12 year old King Edward V. The mutual antagonism between the dowager Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and Richard created a situation where Richard had good reason to suspect that the new King and his Woodville relations would dispose of him and his family (wife and son) as soon as they achieved effective power. Richard seized power in June 1483 by declaring the Queen’s marriage to the King to have been unlawful and all of their offspring to be bastards and also by the bloody elimination of all Woodville allies and relations. Richard declared himself to be King and had the two young sons of his elder brother committed to the Tower where they were murdered (probably with the tacit approval of Richard) before the end of 1483. Penman’s depiction of Richard as a thoroughly honorable fellow who was surprised by the marriage irregularity and took the only honorable course open to him of seizing power – and who was completely baffled by the murder of his nephews – stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. Edward IV had been married to Elizabeth Woodville for nearly 20 years and it is ridiculous to imagine that word of such an irregularity would have remained a deep, dark secret until 1483 when Margaret of Anjou, the Earl of Warwick and/or King Louis XI would have dug tirelessly for such dirt (and used it) many years before in their battles against Edward IV. Richard had been pledged to protect young King Edward V, but realized that deposing him and the Woodville regime would be the only alternative to death for himself and his own family. Some pretext for the illegitimacy of Edward IV’s offspring was a necessary for Richard to claim the safety and security of the throne for himself and his family. The death of the princes was also a necessary security measure. However, with the death by disease of his son and heir and his queen in 1484-85, Richard was seeking marriage with Edward IV’s eldest daughter (Elizabeth) as was Henry Tudor in his claim to the throne despite her alleged bastard status. After Richard was killed in battle at Bosworth on August 22, 1485, Elizabeth married Henry VII and was mother of Henry VIII. So much for the “pretext” of illegitimacy for Edward IV’s children that afforded Richard’s right to seize power. Penman’s whitewash of Richard III is both entertaining and plausible up to a point, and it certainly refutes the total vilification presented by Shakespeare and other Tudor sympathizers. But the bottom line is that this is an extremely entertaining and readable book. You will have to do your own research and make up your own mind as to its plausibility. That is also a major attraction of this book.
What do You think about The Sunne In Splendour (1990)?
This is the first book by Sharon Kay Penman that I've read and I have to say that I'm very impressed. Penman does an amazing job of laying before the reader the tangled web of deceit that surrounded the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III in way that makes it easy to understand. This is the story of The War of the Roses and the life of Richard III. We follow Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, 'Dickon', as his family calls him, through the deaths of his father and brother, the rise of his brother Edward to the throne, Edward's death, Richard's crowning as king and his eventual death at the hands of Henry VII. Penman shows the reader the potential motives behind the endless betrayals as well as the scandalous rumors that were rampant during the time. The story brings to mind the old saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Yes, there's a lot of history and a lot of people with multiple names to keep track of but I don't know that I've read another book where the author was so generous in keeping them all straight for the reader. I confess that I always read with paper and pen in hand so I can keep track of 'whose who', and I did with this book as well, but Penman offers so many opportunities to clear up any confusion that I found I referred to my notes on 'whose who' very little. The book is broken up into four different parts and while I found the first part a bit dry and heavy on the battle scenes the rest of the book is much more expansive. I was moved by this story, fascinated by the history and very impressed with the writing.
—Barb
It’s no secret that Sharon Kay Penman is one of my favorite authors of historical fiction. She is well-researched and Penman makes history come alive in a way that the textbooks could never do. I have read this book before and like my earlier reading, I loved it.This is the story of England’s King Richard III. The battle that begins the book sets the stage for this family’s (the Yorkists) takeover of the crown from the House of Lancaster. Ultimately, Richard’s father and brother, Edmund are killed. Richard and his older brother, Ned escape to Belgium. Eventually, they gain the support they need to wage another war and succeed in placing Ned upon the throne as King Edward IV.In this book, Richard is portrayed as a good guy, contrary to most history about him, which was written by his conqueror’s historians, that conqueror being Henry Tudor (King Henry VII).Treason abounds in this true story and it’s the one thing that still has me questioning. (view spoiler)[First, Ned’s brother George betrays him. In Penman’s book, Ned marries into the Woodville family and both George and Richard can’t stand them, nor their influence on the King. Richard becomes Ned’s favorite and George feels slighted as he (George) is the older brother. However, few in Ned’s court are as well-treated and rewarded as George. I can’t figure out why he would trade his position as the King’s brother for being the brother-in-law to the wife of a new king. Sounds like a step-down to me. (hide spoiler)]
—Suzanne
This was an overwhelmingly intense book--it's so full of beauty, sadness, humanity and almost unrelenting violence and turmoil. I know that sounds pretty hyperbolic but it really is, I haven't been affected by a book like this in a while. Penman's writing is powerful and feels of the time (minus a few anachronisms) but in an accessible way, without pomp or pretense. The story concerns a wide cast of characters centering around Richard III, all dealing with their own goals and problems during a very, very bloody part of English history; the Wars of the Roses. It's a really complex part of history but it can basically be boiled down to two dynasties engaged in a death struggle over who was to sit the throne of England; York and Lancaster. That's all I really wanna get into in terms of the setting and history as this book is much more powerful when you're not fully informed on the Wars--there's so many twists and turns and double and triple crosses and stuff like that that it just stays tense and gripping the whole way through.A critically important piece of any good historical fiction is the characters--too often we see people in history as just words on a page or maybe an old portrait. The people living in these pages are anything but, they live and breathe and have hopes and dreams and fears and hatreds and neuroses and loves like you and I do. That's why I hesitate to say that this is a book solely about Richard; there were plenty of characters that fascinated me and I grew attached to throughout the book: Edward, Anne, Francis, Johnny, Cecily, even the dogs Gareth and Loki. Even the characters working against our protagonists were often not just drawn as two-dimensional villains but people who often had good reasons for doing what they did and never inspired the kind of knee-jerk repulsion that run-of-the-mill villains tend to. I spent the whole novel in this tense state worrying about these people, as life was utterly tenuous a lot of the time for the nobility at this point. Even the completely tertiary characters were fascinating--I loved the stuff with Louis XI, the "Universal Spider" and Charles the Bold. I never knew how constantly and joyfully the Western European powers were fucking with each other, and their little subplots were awesome.Another crucial part of historical fiction is treading that thin line between fiction and fact; too much of either is a bad thing for obvious reasons. In this novel I think the author struck the perfect balance; her inventions were almost nonexistent and when they were there they were utterly minor. Inventing stuff in within the context of this history is almost unnecessary, though, as it's so rife with conflict and drama. One thing that I did have to note, however, was in the afterword she calls Richard's deformity a "myth"--unfortunately, as Richard was recently dug out of a "car park" (is that British for "parking lot?") we know now that he did have scoliosis. That said, it doesn't confirm Shakespeare's portrait of this murderous hunchback as it could have simply manifested in one of Richard's shoulders being higher than the other, which I think Penman actually addresses in the afterword as someone from Richard's time claimed this to be so. But I digress...This is the kind of book where I have to just take a break and let my brain reset after reading it. It's a long book but hardly feels like it's 900-something pages as Penman maintained my interest in every single chapter--even in the sections where it's just people hanging out in their solars discussing stuff the writing is just so good and the characters so vivid that it keeps the pages turning and turning. The battle scenes have a perfect blend of the dirt and gore and the tactical stuff going on as well as a vivid humanity to them--the fear, the anger and the shock. I definitely felt that lovely tension and warming of the blood at Tewkesbury and Barnet Heath. There was a noticeable incident at Tewkesbury that totally stunned me--I quickly took to the internet and saw it was reported to have actually happened. I love stuff like that in this kind of fiction, and there was a lot of it in this story.The Sunne in Splendour is a very powerful novel and will almost assuredly have the reader either believing or fervently wanting to believe in the author's Richard as well as depressed as FUCK for a significant period after reading it. "Is that a good thing?" asked my girlfriend when I told her this. For people who are interested in feeling connected to people, places, and events from over five hundred years ago, it's a good thing. For everyone else...why are you even reading this review? I really enjoyed When Christ and His Saints Slept but this made me a total Penman convert. Just not sure now if I should continue on with the Plantagenet stuff or the Welsh books.
—Nate
