The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George
Released: 1986
It certainly is a whale of a book! Well, this guy had a big life. I loved this book. It starts out with Will Somers writing to Catherine Knollys about her real father, Henry VIII. And she’s like “AW HELL NAW THAT GUY SUCKED BALLS.” And will is all “IS THAT SO, MADAM.” So he’s like here, read his journals. And he’s made notes. So while Henry is going on and on about this and that, we get Will’s more objective input once in awhile, and he fills in the blanks when Henry is too proud or depressed to write about certain things.
I read this in the hopes of getting some tidbits of non-fiction to take with me when I finally sit down and read Six Wives by David Starkey, which is the same length and subject matter but, you know, real. Also I tend to like historical fiction from the point of view of the person I’m most interested in, not the chamber maid who is sometimes in the right place at the right time to overhear something and has her own story going on. Blech.
Margaret George fans don’t much care for this one because apparently her Cleopatra book was fantastic. Well, I don’t care much for Cleopatra.
