The Wise Woman
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Review
Praise for 'The Wise Woman': 'Compulsively readable.' Andrea Newman, Sunday Express 'Gregory's principal feat in this elaborate novel is the irrefutable artistry with which she lends her prose a constant sense of history!Success results from the tense, almost shocking contrast between serious issues -- religious doctrine, political integrity, social dynamics -- and flights of erotic fancy.' Sunday Times
Product Description
Reissue of Philippa Gregory's disturbing novel of passion and betrayal in Tudor England. A haunting story of a woman's desire in a time of turbulence. Alys joins the nunnery to escape hardship and poverty but finds herself thrown back into the outside world when Henry VIII's wreckers destroy her sanctuary. With nothing to support her but her looks, her magic and her own instinctive cunning, Alys has to tread a perilous path between the faith of her childhood and her own female power. When she falls in love with Hugo, the feudal lord and another woman's husband, she dips into witchcraft to defeat her rival and to win her lover, but finds -- as her cynical old foster-mother had advised -- that magic makes a poor servant but a dominant master. Since heresy against the new church means the stake, and witchcraft the rope, Alys's danger is mortal. A woman's powers are no longer safe to use!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly disappointing,
By
This review is from: The Wise Woman (Paperback)
I have read other Phillipa Gregory novels and really enjoyed them, especially The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. Sadly this book was a real let down. The historical detail is interesting but the characters are dislikable and behave in a bizarre fashion most of the time. The main character, Alys and the male lead Hugo, frankly deserve each other as they are self obsessed and self destructive. The book is full of explicit sex scenes far more so than the other novels by this author which I have read. I was not shocked by this but felt they added little to the narrative and proved a poor compensation for unadequate character development. I do like the work of Phillipa Gregory but would not recommend this particular novel. If you want a good story read The Other Boleyn Girl, The Respectable Trade or The Queen's Fool and give this one a miss.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book but not a historical novel,
By
This review is from: The Wise Woman (Paperback)
I have read many of Philippa Gregorys book, but they have all been historical novels, so i looked forward to reading this one as it isn't. I thought the book was great and didnt want to put it down. You start off feeling sorry for Alys, but i have to say by the middle I thought she was very conniving. The ending is quite abrupt, but i actually liked it, as Alys let her true feelings come out. I have only just read all the other reviews and am surprised that it has so many bad ones. It is not like 'The Other Boleyn Girl' or 'The Queens Fool', but not all her books can be like that. And I thought introducing the white magic/herbalism was great as they did do that then. I think the wax dolls and sexual encounters were just tricks of the mind and herb Alys used. I would recommend this book to people but dont expect a historical novel, as it isn't one. I loved it.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Admittedly a 'page turner',
By
This review is from: The Wise Woman (Paperback)
"The Wise Woman" is a far cry from some of Philippa's other, first rate historical novels, but indeed can hold one's interest. I found myself eager for the next chapter to see what Alys' turning point or fate would become. Unfortunately, there was no resolution - and Alys is not a 'wise woman' by any standard.Whether this was intentional or not, the book's over-riding theme was how a desire for power, with ample doses of envy and avarice, leads to overwhelming hatred. Alys is a sympathetic figure at first - a teenager, used to the life of an abbey where she was safe, contented, and under the wise guidance of a superior whom we shall see is highly learned, loving, and of impeccable ideals. One can see Alys' fear and confusion, in an era where the life for which she was bred has become treason. Mordach, the 'wise woman' whose path is very different from that of the abbess, yet who is compassionate, dedicated, and loving in her own way, has been the closest equivalent Alys had to a mother before she entered the abbey - and one can equally sympathise (at first) with Alys' repugnance at returning to Mordach's cottage in desperation, though she initially intends to keep her vows and return to monastic life. However, sympathy for Alys cannot last long. Without providing spoilers, I shall comment that her scheming, overwhelming jealousy, and eventual evil which rejoices in others' grave misfortune (even murder) seems demonic as the plot progresses. There are many sexual references - degrading and manipulative rather than in any way romantic or affectionate. The only two characters who are indeed wise, poles apart though their approaches are, remain Mother Hildebrande and Mordach, and Alys is the cause of their destruction. Every other character is a power hungry, deceitful sort, and there is no sense of any humanity in most. Though there are references to the Tudor era which are basically valid, the changes in religious approaches actually have little to do with the novel's action, save by indirect reference. Indeed, Alys initially is a nun who is exiled because of an attack on her monastery - but the attacker is so scheming and wicked in himself, and her downfall so totally evil, that Henry VIII seems nearly amiable by contrast. The few historical references are forced. Indeed, the clergyman who sends both witches and heretics to their deaths is one of few sympathetic characters, with the slightest integrity, in the entire novel. Though this is not a 'fantasy novel,' there are several outcomes of witchcraft which Alys practises which are utterly ridiculous (and which figure hugely in the plot development.) Since the rest of the book's content is presented as natural happenings, the entire 'wax doll' theme is so utterly fantastic as to be more laughable than ominous. Alys goes from understandable to wicked to both evil and mad - and the reader will discover that the symbolism of wax candles becomes so bizarre and dominant that it in no way fits in with the otherwise credible, if upsetting, plot. It is an enjoyable book if one is looking for a few hours' entertainment, and it vaguely captures elements of the period. Nonetheless, readers will be highly disappointed if they expect anything like what Philippa produced in some later novels of the period.
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