All quiet on the bookfront

There has been very little for me to write about lately. Other things have been on my mind and the book I currently read is leading nowhere. As usual, I can’t put it away and start a new but I am almost at the end. I am looking forward to a new start, a novel about Queen Kristina of Sweden.
Did anyone celebrate or even recognized the World book day last week?
Josefine

My recommendations: Tulip fever by Deborah Moggach

Female portrait in historical novels

How do you describe a woman who lived during the middle ages, the renaissance or almost any time period before the 20th century? Often there are no descriptions of their life, their way of living, what they looked like and definitely no written words from them, most of them time not even a signature. The exception would be monarchs and noble women, but they do not belong to the majority.

This is what gets interesting when authors of historical novels try to describe these women. Can they make it real enough for us to believe them? Or do they simply just take the easy way out and exclude them from their stories. The Swedish writer Agneta Pleijel has made one approach to the subject. In her book, The queen’s surgeon, she simply says I don’t know, but perhaps it was like this. She does it so well and make it fit into the story so well that you agree with her.

There are other approaches to this problem, some writers simply leave out the women and let them be merely background props. This however, I believe is to cheat the reader of half the story. But then again, it is called fiction for a reason.
Josefine

My recommendations: The Orange Girl by Lena Kallenberg