The Lady and the Poet
Maeve Haran
So I had no idea that John Donne was ever sexy. Did any of you know that? Am I the only one who thought of John Donne like this:
Instead of like this?
But that second picture, that's actually pretty hot. And not just hot-for-the-1600s. Like, today hot. John Donne wasn't always the death-be-not-proud guy. Once he was Jack Donne, and he was hot, and he wrote bawdy poems about having sex with married women while working as a steward for the Lord Keeper of London and everyone was all ABUZZ about him.
John Donne is still Jack Donne when Ann More, the Lord Keeper's niece, first meets him. She and Donne get off on the wrong foot, when he mistakes her for a serving wench and tries to have sex with her against her will. And then Ann reads some of his sex poems to another man's wife, and she gets upset, and judgmental, because she's only thirteen, and even in the year 1600 some things about thirteen are always the same. But over time, the pissed-off banter between the two give way to serious sexual tension, and they fall in love. The only problem is that Ann's father, one of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, already has plans for her to be married to someone else, someone who will boost the family's position. Not a poor penniless poet who can't keep it in his pants.
Haran's novel is based on fact, and most of the pure pleasure in it was stumbling across this secret life of one I thought I knew. Donne is Haran's "lifelong passion" and it shows: she has meticulously researched not only his life, and Ann's, but the time period, too. There are so many wonderful little details about how 17th century people covered body odor, or what they ate at weddings, and how London looked and smelled (lots of smells in this book, which I love; people often forget it). If it took me a little time to settle into Haran's often-abrupt style of writing, I didn't mind it, and a few chapters in, I didn't even notice it anymore, so drawn in to the story was I. A lot of times, in historical romance, the tension is lacking because you can so easily check how it really turned out, but Haran deals with that by underlining the precariousness in life in a time when heads went rolling for far less than a violation of canonical law.
My only quibble with Haran's story was that it ended before we got to see Jack Donne become John. So in a way, the two still exist for me as wholly separate people, you know? JD spent the first half of his life a libertine, and the second a very pious and religious fellow, and I have no idea how that happened, or why. So I would have liked that, and it makes me almost wish that I'd started with Mary Novik's novel Conceit (Beware: that link is a spoiler for this novel!), which reconciles the two sides of the same man, featuring Donne the latter looking back on his life as Donne the former. I'm sort of irked because I'm all Donned out right now, and I wish I'd started with the more comprehensive view of the man instead of the limited one. Although if I can read eighteen thousand books about the Tudors in the span of a couple years I am sure I can handle another one about Donne in a few months from now.
By the way, it was nice to read a book about Tudor England that didn't feature the Tudors so heavily. I am so sick of all of them, you know? QE1 dies in this book and I have to admit that I was a little IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME about it.
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Instead of like this?
But that second picture, that's actually pretty hot. And not just hot-for-the-1600s. Like, today hot. John Donne wasn't always the death-be-not-proud guy. Once he was Jack Donne, and he was hot, and he wrote bawdy poems about having sex with married women while working as a steward for the Lord Keeper of London and everyone was all ABUZZ about him.
John Donne is still Jack Donne when Ann More, the Lord Keeper's niece, first meets him. She and Donne get off on the wrong foot, when he mistakes her for a serving wench and tries to have sex with her against her will. And then Ann reads some of his sex poems to another man's wife, and she gets upset, and judgmental, because she's only thirteen, and even in the year 1600 some things about thirteen are always the same. But over time, the pissed-off banter between the two give way to serious sexual tension, and they fall in love. The only problem is that Ann's father, one of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, already has plans for her to be married to someone else, someone who will boost the family's position. Not a poor penniless poet who can't keep it in his pants.
Haran's novel is based on fact, and most of the pure pleasure in it was stumbling across this secret life of one I thought I knew. Donne is Haran's "lifelong passion" and it shows: she has meticulously researched not only his life, and Ann's, but the time period, too. There are so many wonderful little details about how 17th century people covered body odor, or what they ate at weddings, and how London looked and smelled (lots of smells in this book, which I love; people often forget it). If it took me a little time to settle into Haran's often-abrupt style of writing, I didn't mind it, and a few chapters in, I didn't even notice it anymore, so drawn in to the story was I. A lot of times, in historical romance, the tension is lacking because you can so easily check how it really turned out, but Haran deals with that by underlining the precariousness in life in a time when heads went rolling for far less than a violation of canonical law.
My only quibble with Haran's story was that it ended before we got to see Jack Donne become John. So in a way, the two still exist for me as wholly separate people, you know? JD spent the first half of his life a libertine, and the second a very pious and religious fellow, and I have no idea how that happened, or why. So I would have liked that, and it makes me almost wish that I'd started with Mary Novik's novel Conceit (Beware: that link is a spoiler for this novel!), which reconciles the two sides of the same man, featuring Donne the latter looking back on his life as Donne the former. I'm sort of irked because I'm all Donned out right now, and I wish I'd started with the more comprehensive view of the man instead of the limited one. Although if I can read eighteen thousand books about the Tudors in the span of a couple years I am sure I can handle another one about Donne in a few months from now.
By the way, it was nice to read a book about Tudor England that didn't feature the Tudors so heavily. I am so sick of all of them, you know? QE1 dies in this book and I have to admit that I was a little IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME about it.
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
I'm going to have to look this book up, as Donne is my very favourite poet of all times! Both the early raunchy stuff and the later pious stuff. Sounds like a fun read!
ReplyDeletesounds like a winner. buying it.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting post! I too thought John Donne was more like the first guy. Sounds like a great book. I'll be looking out for it!
ReplyDeleteMy copy of Donne's poetry has that second picture on the cover, and my only knowledge of him (before reading his poetry) came from his love poems quoted in the Peter Wimsey series, so I was slightly surprised when I started reading the religious poems! I think all his work is beautiful, though, and I'd love to read more about his life!
ReplyDeleteI think that they are the same Guy. Even "Death be not proud" and all the other holy sonnets have a strange passion and corporeal vividness which is also in the love poetry and the bawdy life history. Sounds like a wicked book, thanks for recommending.
ReplyDeleteHannah
I really liked the early Donne (John Donne, Ann Donne, undone is truly one of my favorite, short and spot on poems of all time) so this looks great.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to try a fairly recent biography, 'John Donne: Reformed Soul.'
ReplyDeleteHmm - interesting. Donne is such a fascinating poet, and as Hannah says, there is a certain amount of passion to all his poetry, naughty or not.
ReplyDelete