Ah! Definitely not doing well on catching up. So far behind… Once again, let’s try to keep this short and sweet…
Margaret George is an excellent writer. Her books are meticulously researched and extremely detailed. Sometimes a little too much. I still haven’t managed to get through The Memoirs of Cleopatra. I’m fascinated by Egypt and Rome (hence my degree choice: anthropology/archaeology). However, I felt The Memoirs of Cleopatra dragged on a little too much, and I stopped when Marc Antony came into the picture. Curiously, this is the point that also stopped me reading Karen Essex’s Pharoh. Odd… Anyway, in the fall I gave Margaret George another chance, this time with a character close to my heart: yeah, you guessed it, Henry VIII. Surprise, surprise. And the book was amazing. So then I figured I’d try another book by Margaret George and chose Helen of Troy.
Unlike the rest of the historical figures that Margaret George chooses to write about (Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene), there is no evidence that suggests that Helen was a real person and not a myth. However, George handles the subject matter in the same way as her other historic novels. And thankfully–or else I would have cringed and this post would be a very long rant–she sticks to actual findings in the archaeological record. Helen of Troy brings the Trojan epic cycle to life in a new way and I was really glad for it. She gave new depth to old characters. For once I didn’t see Paris as (pardon my language) a pussy. In the author’s note at the end, George discussed a major dilemma she faced when writing: to include the gods as characters or to leave them out. I’m pleased with her choice and believe the book would have pretty much been crap without the gods. Yes, it’s written as historic fiction, but you can’t have a story about Helen without including the mythology. So, another successful book by Margaret George. I’m not ready to go back to The Memoirs of Cleopatra yet, but I do have a copy of Mary Called Magdalene, that I’ll be reading very soon.
So yeah. Kind of short… but not really. Next up: The Wicked series.
