Failure with Henry VIII

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 25

Failure with Henry VIII

The Autobiography of Henry VIII. By Margaret George. Macmillan, 1987. 932 pp. $54.95. (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) It is an approach to the novel fraught with perils to write of a historical figure as if that person is telling his or her own story. Occasionally it can work brilliantly. I remember especially, “I, James McNeil Whistler,” by Lawrence Williams, and more recently “The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus,” by Stephen Marlowe. Both these novelists succeeded convincingly- In getting within the skin of the characters and creating an entirely believable (and in both cases) idiosyncratic voice and style for them. Neither fell into the trap of historical detail for its own sake, or lengthy and unnecessary dissertations on historical background; neither, although both are American writers, confused quality with quantity. Now another American, Margaret George, from Nashville, Tennessee, with some temerity tackles one of the towering figures of English

history, King Henry VIII. She, alas, crashes into all the pitfalls so adroitly avoided by her compatriots on similar ventures.

“The Autobiography of Henry VIII” has no lightness of touch, no consistent and individual narrator's voice. The character and motives of the king remain as incomprehensible by the end of the nine hundred-odd pages as at the beginning. She has not even had the courage to limit herself solely to the one viewpoint, but uses the device of the . king’s manuscript being discovered after his death by his fool, Will Somers, who sends it to Catherine Knollys with his inserted comments. No doubt Ms George’s research was thorough and her intention to show “what Henry was really like” laudable. The blurb tells us it has taken 15 years, 300 books of background reading, three visits to England and France, and five handwritten drafts to achieve this monumental novel. It is time and energy that could have been better spent.