The Delicate Balance of a Novel

Henry VIII was one of England's most powerful monarchs. His reign included periods of peace and of terrible wars. One of his most memorable characteristics was his insistance in allowing divorce and re-marrying several times. Henry is a very fascinating historical character, and it is popular to write about these fascinating figures, but there is one sligh problem. Henry Tudor was a monarch. How do you write about a monarch's life and at the same time try to exlude the history of his country? In Cheese and Flutes, a book review by Steven Gunn, two biographies are compared. The first one is called Henry VIII, and it was written by Lucy Wooding. It is a biography that explores the whole reign, and starts a debate with Henry the eight's works of the last few decades. It is her who faces the challenge of knowing how much history of the reign should the biography include. The second book is Henry, The Virtuous Prince which concentrates more in the early life of the king. Both kings give us a complete portrait into the king's life according to Gunn. However, the fact that one is about the whole reign and the other one only about the early life seems like an excuse placed by Starkley to avoid having to talk about the reign. Therefore making Wooding's book slightly better. However, he also says that Starkley talks more about the details, which sometimes are so insignificant that they seem useless. This may take Starkley's book to a greater level than Wooding's, but it may also lower its score because he adds details that are not important. Gunn seems to be giving more preferance to Wooding, but he is really explaining the delicate balance that a book must have in order to be good. You cannot exceed in anything and you cannot lack it either. The extra challenge added by Wooding gives her more points, but the deeper content Starkley has gives him points to compensate for his lack of real challenges. I begin to understand how delicate that balance is, and how important it is to find the maximum points of all the aspects of the book.