'Louise Juliane, Electress Palatine, and Her Times' by Fanny Elizabeth Bunnett

Author Sophia Alexander with her copy of Louise Juliane's Biography

I was grateful to discover this 1862 English-language biography of Louise Juliane (1576-1644), great-grandmother of King George I of England. She was the daughter of William the Silent, mother of the ‘Winter King’, and grandmother of Sophia of Hanover.  I was grateful, that is, to find this rather unique source of information, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a source of entertainment. Not only is the information dry, but it should be taken with a few large salt crystals. The author makes many lofty assumptions about the people she’s writing about, assuming they’re all as devout as the author no doubt aspires to be. All that said, I still very much appreciate the overview of Louise Juliane’s life--along with Bunnett's brief historical and political summations of the Protestant powerhouses with which Louise Juliane associated.

Since Sophia of Hanover features prominently in some of my current writing, Louise Juliane has been of some interest to me, having raised three of Sophia of Hanover’s siblings, Karl Ludwig (later Elector Palatine), Princess Elizabeth (a brilliant philosopher, friend to Descartes, and later ruling abbess of a small, independent territory), and soldier Maurice, for a goodly portion of their childhood. Her strict, modest Calvinist values were quite different from her more exuberant, royal daughter-in-law’s: Elizabeth Stuart had more panache as the ‘queen of hearts’, having been raised Anglican as the daughter of King James I of England; she was even queen of Bohemia before the Thirty Years War sent her and her family to The Hague as refugees. 

In contrast to the exuberant Stuart court, Louise Juliane’s own natal family had been strictly religious, perhaps severely so. Her mother, Charlotte de Bourbon et Montpensier, had been raised several years in the abbey of Jouarre. She’d died while Louise Juliane was still young, and so Louise Juliane was raised in the Netherlands by her stepmother, Louise de Coligny, after her father, a prince of Orange who championed the Protestant cause, was assassinated. After Louise Juliane’s marriage to Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, she resided in Heidelberg and thereabouts, but in her older age she lived in Berlin with her married daughter, the electress of Brandenburg, which is where Louise Juliane raised the three Palatine grandchildren mentioned above (until they left to join their mother in The Hague, though Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate did later return to Berlin for a time in her adulthood).

Bunnett provides wonderful quotes from letters, which are my favorite part of the biography. Louise Juliane's mother, Charlotte de Bourbon, tells her own mother-in-law, “My eldest girl, Louise Juliane, says that you will love her the best, because she has the happiness of bearing your name.” Louise Juliane’s personality could be glimpsed, despite Bunnett’s religious filter, when the new widow said: “I feel as though I had given small proof of my sorrow by still living, if I dare to say so, against my will. Nevertheless, I place my hand upon my lips that I may not transgress the limits of moderation and irritate God still further, as He has appeared to be, by a fresh blow upon my eldest son [Frederick V, later the ‘Winter King’], who has been at death’s door from small-pox, the severity of the sickness taking away almost all hope from those who were near him. In this has God shewn me what He could still do to me.”

Perhaps it simply reflects the Calvinist theory of predestination, but more than once she is found saying things along these lines, including this that she sent to King James I/VI: “Having heard from my son of the great affliction which it has pleased God to send your majesty and your people by the unexpected death of the late prince of Wales…”  She seems to hold God accountable for every affliction that befalls her or anyone else, even while hedging that we don’t know his reasons, that we aren’t so wise as him, and it must be for the best.

Her sense of guilt about surviving her husband reflects, perhaps, on her own young mother dying—they claim of grief—when Louise Juliane was barely six. Charlotte de Bourbon died only days after William the Silent was shot in the head by an assassin, an injury from which he actually recovered. I speculate that his counselors may have suspected her of colluding with the Catholics, given her Catholic background, and you can take it from there… but that doesn't seem to be what Louise Juliane thought. Louise Juliane's own letters reflect only strict Calvinist doctrine—though I suppose she could have been wary of irritating any suspicious, flammable ministers who might be reading her letters and could contemplate taking out their fury on the surviving wife, as perhaps had happened to her own mother. Whatever the case, her mother’s death must have left quite an impression on Louise Juliane as a girl, as she herself fell incredibly ill when her father actually was assassinated two years later. Everyone worried for the girl's life for weeks—which leads me to think that at the time she actually did believe that her thirty-five-year-old mother had simply died of grief—and thus this impressionable, devout daughter was doing her best to follow suit.

Despite reading this biography in full, I still am not sure I have a solid sense of Louise Juliane, the woman who was mother-in-law to the Winter Queen.  The author is sure that Louise Juliane had infinite patience and wisdom, and it does seem that her letters were discreet--so discreet as to be a bit dull, for the most part. 

Louise Juliane's sense of prudence can be seen when she advises her son against accepting the crown of Prague. He didn't listen, unfortunately. This affront to the Holy Roman Emperor was pivotal in setting off the Thirty Years War, in which nearly half the German population was decimated in certain regions. However, there are assertions that Louise Juliane was antagonistic towards her daughter-in-law, and my curiosity is not yet satisfied on this score. Maybe I will learn a little more about her character if I ever manage to get through some of her correspondence with her younger sisters. It's in French, which I know a little of, and so hope to one day muddle through it.

Bunnett's biography of Louise Juliane is recommended for anyone who has a personal interest in Louise Juliane or her direct family members--and also for those who are trying to develop a better understanding of the Thirty Years War, of the history of Germany, or of the family roots of the kings and queens of England past King George I. Though the subject of the biography is female, the broader history is standard and male-oriented.

(I'm publishing this blog on what would be Louise Juliane's 449th birthday.  She was born on 31 March 1576 in Delft.)

'The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women' by Harriet Rubin Is Anything But Macchiavellian

Author Sophia Alexander
holding Rubin's The Princessa

The Princessa (1997) is anything but Machiavellian—for women or otherwise!  The title is catchy—shocking, even—and I suppose they went with it for that reason, plus it does convey the promise of gleaning tactics for getting what you want.

  I liked many of the concepts that Rubin expounded. It never hurts to consider ideas like her poorly-termed ‘besting’, which she uses to describe authentically working for the best for everybody involved, including the ‘enemy’—which will help them to trust you and see you as more of an ally. Rubin promotes bravery and honesty, while discouraging petty tit-for-tatting, all of which I applaud. However, the way she lays out her ‘tactics’ certainly does make the honest expression of emotions sound manipulative—which concerns me that she’s providing fuel for any gaslighters out there who might be trying to figure out us women. Yet since that art-of-manipulation was rather the implied promise of the title, I suppose she did the best she could while still giving good, wholesome advice.

By this same token, however, I fear it may convert ordinary readers into being gaslighters themselves! Near the end, she interprets others’ ‘urgent’ messages as manipulative maneuvers, and she encourages readers not to let such measures ruffle our equanimity. Once others learn that we won’t fall prey to this tactic, they’ll stop using it on us, she asserts. I blinked, thinking, “Obviously, since they’ll know that we’re not someone to go to in times of crisis.” Rather a shame to make people give up on us—including bosses and mothers!

Rubin does include a few inspirational stories of peaceful resistance—like Ghandi’s and a French pastor’s wife, Magda Trocmé, who hosted Jewish refugees openly, refusing to be secretive about it. Magda got by with it for a long time, too, which is the inspirational part of the story, though of course it eventually landed her in some trouble.

Unfortunately, the book began with a frustrated trio of women whose lives were a disaster despite some outward success, but it never cycled back to telling us how their lives had improved as a result of these strategies. Instead, it fell at last on the teachings of Stoicism, with the uplifting final encouragement: “When does a candle shine the brightest? The answer is always in the dark.” 

So I really must conclude, in the absence of encouraging updates, that for all Rubin’s research, her new tactics had not yet yielded much tangible benefit for herself nor for her friends.  Instead, she presents Epictetus’ Stoic advice to focus on controlling our own perspectives, sometimes the only thing we have any power over; having been a slave for many years, he knew what he was talking about. Despite this wise encouragement, the reader walks away from the book awash with a sense of powerlessness, the theme of her final story—which was about a damaged POW taking comfort in the wise teachings of Epictetus. While the teachings may help us to cope, it’s hardly what any woman was going for when she picked up the book, I’m fairly certain.

 

A Restrained & Complex Cast in 'The Clockmaker's Daughter' by Kate Morton

Author Sophia Alexander with 
the audiobook of Kate Morton's
The Clockmaker's Daughter

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton is a complex, somewhat sad, but delicious ghost story to bask in, restrained in a rather Victorian manner. The story meandered, encompassing protagonists of different eras, but the writing was beautiful, and the author’s characters have a certain poetic refinement that I cherish now more than ever.  I adored Joanne Froggatt’s narration, too, which certainly adds to my recommendation of this novel.

At the heart of the story is a mansion in the countryside where most of the central characters eventually wind up for some period of their lives—including the ghostly presence of Birdie, though she only flits through sporadically, at most a faint influence. The whole cast of characters have their own intricate stories, the fates of several kept dangling until the very end.  There is romance, much of it bittersweet.

My biggest critique, I suppose, is the meandering nature of the story, but Kate Morton eventually ties together the disparate stories in a most satisfying way. This is so well done that I’d retract my criticism… except that this tendency to skip tracks did cause me to put down the story on more than one occasion, feeling utterly lost at yet another new storyline.  So if you do give this beautiful novel a go, just keep barreling through, knowing that the strands will all come together eventually.

This is my first Kate Morton novel, but I anticipate more in the future. First, though, I may just repeat this one!  I don’t tend to repeat novels (at least not within the same decade), with just a few special exceptions, but I may soon just start this one over from the beginning, now that I understand the cast of characters and their relationships to one another better.

Dystopian America in 'The Seclusion' by Jacqui Castle

Author Sophia Alexander with
'The Seclusion' e-book by Jacqui Castle.

The Seclusion by Jacqui Castle depicts a dystopian America where citizens are chipped, and everyone is specialized to the exclusion of other skills and information in order to keep them dependent on the Society as a whole. They are fed propaganda daily, required viewing, and only a fraction of the original population remains, all gathered into walled cities in which surveillance cameras watch them continuously, everywhere, and from which they are never allowed to leave. Patch Collins, however, has one of the rare environmental jobs which send her outside the city to gather contaminated soil samples, exposing her to artifacts and granting her the unusual opportunity to make an escape.

I chose to listen to this book because it won the Indie Author Project contest--and maybe because I was secluded at home due to a cold (and had already purchased it).  The concept is fantastic and visionary.  The warning is valid, and the writing is good, but I do have some critiques.

For all that the author is balking at propaganda, she follows the current trends in literature for young adults by making the mother a traitor—not an inspirational traitor, but a traitor-to-family-and-friends sort of traitor, a turn-you-in-to-the-Gestapo sort of traitor. There are numerous gay individuals/couples, and Patricia herself is soon called a rather gender-neutral ‘Patch’.  It’s always a man who helps Patch, and she only superficially interacts with any woman in the entire course of the novel.  I find this a deeply disturbing, anti-feminist trend, and I’m particularly saddened that such a visionary author would fall prey to it.

Perhaps my next critique is really an extension of the previous one. Patch’s interpersonal skills are grating. She seems to have little-to-no self-control in communicating with others, which does not seem to tally with the Society described, where the least offense would have you disposed of.  While I relished that the book began with Patch smugly proud of her Society and the Board that protected them all, her transition to awareness was less than convincing.  I would have bought it better if she had had more doubts/discomfort from the get-go about whole-heartedly condemning the ‘traitors to the Society’ that were once her friends and family.  Patch not only condemns her dear friend (from her past), particularly, but she holds a huge grudge at her for not being more loyal to their Society.  So not only was Patch’s friend likely dead, but Patch, supposedly her lifelong best friend, truly held her memory in contempt—with little apparent evidence/reason to, only that the Society condemned her as a traitor and must be right.  This sort of extreme loyalty to the Society leaves me unconvinced when the slightest trouble for Patch herself results in Patch reworking all her views, seeing through the propaganda, etc.

On the other hand, I suppose there is a certain authenticity in Patch’s constant scrambling, in her confrontational personality, in her gauche behavior. I found it strange and uninspiring that her friends and family were so much nicer and savvier than her, tolerating her behavior quite well… but I reserve judgment to a degree, as when I occasionally revisit older movies, such as the first Star Wars or Labyrinth, Luke and Sarah seem to be intolerable brats, whereas I admired them immensely as a girl!

I’m also left with a few questions about logistics that might possibly be answered if I were to revisit the book, I suppose.  I just didn’t see early-on how some of her plans could work, given the ever-present cameras and monitoring. She was counting on the feeds being ignored at first, but after she knew they were watching her more closely… well, I don’t know. I left feeling that her escape strategy needed a bit more tweaking to be completely convincing.

That said, when in the latter part of the story the logic of another escape choice evaded me, it did backfire on her. So unfortunate, but also validating to know that the author recognized this error in judgment, at least. I just didn’t see why Patch’s friend Rex went along with it so meekly. Choices in a crisis, however, wouldn’t always be of the highest logic, though, would they?

All that said, I immediately downloaded the sequel, and I’m listening to that now. Jacqui Castle has created a convincing dystopia… even if her protagonist does have the social grace of an insufferable entitled brat. Just shaking my head…

Jane Austen in her 250th Year

Happy New Year's Day! I began the process of reviewing Jane Austen's novels a couple of years ago, and I'm now committing to completing them in this coming year, as 2025 will mark Jane's quarter-millenial birthday--250 years since the birth of one of the earliest, best-known female novelists! Jane's witty, incisive pen makes her good company, for all that she's... well, read the following blogs to find out what else I think of her (but keep in mind that I've saved my favorites for last):

*Sense and Sensibility (1811) *Mansfield Park (1814) *Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous) *Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)

Lloyd Alexander’s Farewell Novel, 'The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio'

At last I've completed my final unread book by my favorite author—Lloyd Alexander’s very last novel—on this, the year of his centennial birthday. I have now read all of his published books and novels, achieving my goal for this year, in his honor.  As an author myself, I’d once taken to calling him my ‘favorite childhood author’, but I can’t fathom ever calling any author aside from him ‘my favorite author’ without qualifying it.  I bought his last novel, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio (2007), long ago, and for some reason only read half of it at that time. This time, I read it aloud to my husband a chapter or two per night, enjoying it thoroughly.  We’ve been saying, “You’re a Chooch!” to one another, as Chuchio is called by many who know him, and it really does seem to be a light-hearted novel on its surface.

Author Sophia Alexander with her favorite
author's final novel

It’s not—at least not for me, not essentially. 

However, as I am not a truly objective party, it’s hard to know how much to recommend it to the unfamiliar reader. It’s fine as a novel in and of itself. Not one of his very best, but his writing craft is honed, and it certainly has his authentic voice and inspiration (unlike some of his early commission works). The novel meanders a bit, as others written in his last decade of life seem to do, but his trademark tongue-in-cheek (and sometimes slapstick) humor still makes us laugh.  So yes, go ahead and read it to your kids—or husband, as the case may be.

Lloyd Alexander dedicated this novel “for young dreamers, and old ones.” This feels personal, as at about age 12, when I was actually living in Pennsylvania (he was in Philadelphia, PA), I dreamt in a totally ordinary fashion that Lloyd Alexander was my father. In my dream, he walked into my room to wake me up, saying, “Good morning,” and peering out my little window as the sun shone in.  It was the simplest thing, absolutely normal, yet my heart was so glad.

I say now that he’s my ‘literary father’. His Chronicles of Prydain were my favorite series then (and certainly where to start if you appreciate YA or Middle-Grade Fantasy).  Since then, I have read everything of his that I could get my hands on. His were the first books that I ever requested a bookstore order for me.  Later, my husband and I hunted down his out-of-print novels online.  He even gave us one himself when we visited him on our first anniversary, about 13 years before his passing.

Some of his earlier, out-of-print works are memoirs, so precious to me. Janine Is French stands out above all for me, though I’ve come to realize that he spun this memoir about his wife rather artfully, making something lovely out of a difficult situation. I don’t love it less for that, though. I do read between the lines now, shaking my head. But it is beautifully done.

In Carlo Chuchio, young Kuchik asks, “Are you saying, Chooch Mirza, these [folktales] are lies?”

“Yes,” I said, “but some lies are better than others.”

He did love Janine, so much. She passed away at age 90, only two weeks before him (he was 83). He wrote this book somewhere near his passing, no doubt within that last year of their lives, as it was published by his estate after his death, and he did tend to publish almost annually. 

(Spoiler Alert.)

At the end of Carlo Chuchio, the love interest, Shira, has decided to journey onwards, about to cross a river that she’s dreamt of crossing.  She weaves a branch into a circlet, explaining that journeyers carry wreaths of willow to remember where they come from. I can’t help but think of the river Styx. (Lloyd Alexander read mythology insatiably as a boy.)  Chuchio tells her, “Weave a circlet for me. I’m going with you.”  And he did.  He truly did.

So, from my perspective, I see Carlo Chuchio not only as a farewell to readers for himself, but as a second, minor ode to Janine. I don’t think she’s in most of his books, actually—rarely the inspiration for a fictional character, at least not obviously. I think I do see her a bit in Mickle (from The Westmark Trilogy, his darkest YA fantasy series) and here, in the character of Shira.

Despite their hidden marital troubles, I’m convinced Lloyd Alexander was speaking of Janine when his character, Carlo, tells Shira’s little brother Kuchik simply, “I love your sister.”  This was the essence of his life, it seems, as she was getting ready for her journey—their journey—beyond the river Styx. He’d lived with her, mostly childless, for nearly 60 years.  And the charming ‘lies’ in Janine Is French perhaps gave his true heart away, after all.

I recently read an enlightening short story of his written in a peculiar, artsy, existential style when he was quite young (his earliest published work that I’ve seen) but jaded from the war, and he seems to have written it about Janine, saying (and I may be paraphrasing), “It’s you, it’s always you.”  I’m not sure that ever actually changed.

All that said, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio is more the story of Carlo than of Shira or even Carlo-and-Shira. It’s memoir-like at times, Carlo being Lloyd, of course. Uncle Everiste’s early frustrations with the hapless Chooch mirrors Lloyd’s father’s frustrations with him. Interestingly, though, Lloyd had ceased to travel by the time we even met him in 1994, saying that the last time he’d gone somewhere, many years before, that had been it, as the river had caught on fire! (I'd love to know the specifics on that, but I don't think I asked at the time.) So Carlo’s restless, ceaseless travels are perhaps more analogous to his writing career progress than to his physical journeys.  On the other hand, maybe not—he’d traveled much in his early years, and he’d been happy to settle down with Janine in Philly—much like Carlo was happy to settle with Shira at her homestead—but then when she had to move on, over the river, he chose to go with her.

In his old age, perhaps all those decades in Philly seemed like the blink of an eye. Shira’s home was where the treasure was (like his Newberry medals, books, etc., in Philly), but he was leaving it all to be with her. Perhaps this earthly realm even seemed more Shira’s domain (hence it being Shira’s family home instead of his) because of her grandchildren and such—she had deeper roots to keep her here, though he’d been happy to share her space. And wished to continue doing so.

I’m sure I’ll continue, as I’ve always done, to re-read and sometimes review Lloyd Alexander’s books, for all that this feels so final. And that’s the beauty of literature, isn’t it? That we can continue to read and even re-read the thoughts and imaginings and wisdom of brilliant people long since gone.

I’ve only just realized that I’m finishing his entire published works and am reviewing his final novel at the same age he was—exactly a half-century—when my life was just commencing. He began with memoirs and advanced to fantasy. I began reading his fantasy novels and have come to favor reading his memoirs. Ebb and flow, beginnings and endings… the written word is less bound by time than most. Yet Lloyd Alexander still said farewell, in a way, as Carlo Chuchio, once more recasting his life, this time as a hapless Chooch who ultimately does find his beloved—and his treasure, but it was always more about the journey, anyhow.

Redeeming the Witchy Greek Goddess that is ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller

 

Author Sophia Alexander holding her copy of Circe by Madeline Miller

I had asked Odysseus: “What did you do? When you could not make Achilles and Agamemnon listen?”

He’d smiled in the firelight. “That is easy. You make a plan in which they do not.”  

-p. 272, Circe

Circe, daughter of the Greek Titan Helios and granddaughter of the Titan Oceanus, is infamous for turning sailors into pigs when they land on her island. However, in this tale by incredible storyteller Madeline Miller, this much-maligned goddess’s situation is revisited so convincingly—from her perspective—that one wonders how her situation and actions were always so ill-depicted before. Miller has me convinced, as what else would be so likely to bring a nymph living alone on an island to do such a thing?

That said… even as Miller subtly points out the misogyny of extant myths by correcting them in Circe’s interests, I find her protagonist to be rather misogynistic in her own right, for all that I didn’t sense that Miller meant her to be. In Circe’s millenia or so of life, she never has a truly close female friend. During her exile on a deserted island, which lasts for centuries, she is finally sent other nymphs for attendants/company, but she never makes a single friend among them, nor does she seem to really try. The people who matter most to her are always male.

Circe even hates her mother, and her mother hates her.  Miller somewhat rectifies this offense to mothers later in the story, but even that is with regards to a mother’s relationship with her son, not a daughter.

Meanwhile, the story drips with lush, poetic descriptions and brings to life a number of the Greek gods and heroes in all their vanity and cruelty and beauty and self-interest. I was gripped by the tale from beginning to end and highly recommend it for its power and prose—and, of course, for its educational value in helping us to get a slightly better grip on those Greek myths. Madeline Miller holds a Master’s degree from Brown University in the Classics, and so within this novel we can absorb select drops of her coalesced Classical brilliance and understanding. All it takes is sacrificing just a few short, exquisite days of our mortal lives on this, Miller's altar to Circe. Totally worth it.