While reading 'The Beautiful and Damned' I just had to share...

Started reading this classic a few weeks ago and was beginning to despair that I *might* not actually like it. *bites nails* BUT I'm glad I persevered. To be honest the story only really starts at the sublime passage when Beauty is being told she will have to be incarnated once more to the mortal realm. How positively neoclassical!

It was as if Fitzgerald had an inkling he might be losing a reader such as myself and so threw this gem in to not only hook me once more but to remind me, foolish reader that I am, that he can still throw in the most charming and impressive pieces of text.

Then the other day, the story took me to the passage I simply must share with you because. Because.
I was so taken with this particular chunk of wordage that I put the book down there and then to let this passage sink in and marinate, undisturbed.

(I reeeeaaally don't think this is spoiler material).

WORD, Fitzgerald, WORD!

Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant

I had the great pleasure of hearing Sarah Dunant speak about writing historical fiction a few weeks back and I completely GET why she writes they way she does! (Is that ignominiously presumptuous, reader?) She's really quite passionate and vivacious, all hand gesturing and emphatic. She reminds me of my Classics teacher back in high school, only a little more jazzed.

Anyhow, once the masterclass was over, I sidled up to her, head bowed and mumbled my appreciation (aka tempered adoration) of her work, saying I looked forward to reading more about The Borgias under her penmanship. I held back, very Britishly, from blurting out that Sacred Hearts was one of my all time fave books.

I did confess that I once I read Blood and Beauty, I was really quite stunned that people lived that way, right there in the heart of the Vatican. Sorry, reader, I'm jumping ahead while you're probably wondering, what is she blabbling on about? Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant is a story of the The Borgias, the infamous Spanish family who dominated The Vatican for a certain time (late 1400s-1500s) and were basically like a Mafia clan. They were ruthless. To the extreme. Even though one of them was the actual Pope.

Courtesy of sarahdunant.com

After reading Sacred Hearts, I was intrigued by Dunant's follow-up and the subject material; I remember vaguely seeing some promos for a 'Borgias' TV show starring Jeremy Irons a couple of years back and being rather taken with the decadence and costumes, reader, which looked to die for. Obviously, I was sold on that.

Needless to say Blood and Beauty is a great read. We follow Rodrigo Borgia who becomes Pope from the opening and then we watch as he conducts his sons, Cesare and Juan and daughter, Lucrezia. Yeah, so a cardinal and then pope has illegitimate children and no one bats an eyelid. This is nothing, the least of all problems. And neither is it an issue that our pope is sleeping with a teenage girl either. That's what we're working with here. Absolute free reign while there isn't anyone else to challenge their might or wealth.

With his children, Rodrigo is the papa bear and he has a great frightening degree of control - not necessarily forced either. His children genuinely does as he commands, as if he is the Lord and not Christ. But not one of them is feeble or submissive - they all have something to say, some stamp to make and they fight for it - even if Lucrezia is unashamedly used as a pawn. Dunant writes Rodrigo as rather quite pantomime-ish, his emotions as big as his frame - in a way almost too big, for it's as if he feels TOO MUCH all the time. It's pretty relentless but then, ah, it's the Latin raw passion and bull-like determination. It's equally found in both Rodrigo's sons and one of his fiesty daughters-in-law, Sancia.

It's all an enchanting concoction, both headily disturbing and alluring - people are killed, allegiances are switched as quickly as the wind turns and allies are enemies and enemies allies at the drop of a hat. Example (SPOILER) - Lucrezia is married to Alfonso, who is Cesare's great friend at first but a change in alliances means Alfonso's family is suddenly the enemy. Does it matter to Cesare that Alfonso is married to his sister, to Rodrigo that he's married to his daughter? Nope, nope, it's as black and white as that. Blood be spilling and adultery be happening all day, every day. Oh and a hint of incest is all the rage now!

We're in the Vatican but there isn't an ounce of godliness reigning any of these people's passions - whether it's senseless murder, profiteering or debauchery. The heart of the Catholic church be damned, basically. It's disconcerting to read but I know I'm not supposed to be surprised. I just am - a little. I've realised that I don't have anything against reading about an ugly world operating in the shadows of veneered beauty, I just like to know (or be reassured) that there is some sacred place in which to dwell, whether that's physical, mental or emotional. I feel really quite exposed when the settings and characters do not give that. (That's why I gave up on 'A Song of Ice and Fire' - SIDENOTE - reading about The Borgias in this way is not too dissimilar to reading about the Lannisters and how they go about controlling and manipulating).

Anyhow, Dunant's writing is infused with the passion she has for the genre and the time period. It comes to life like a painting that jumps and bounds and is rarely still. The only time my engagement lagged was when we have a period dedicated to Cesare's military accomplishments (wars and battles, ugh) but it's not for long.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Enthralling and appalling in equal measure. I really felt I'd been put through the ringer when I finished reading. It's as whirlwind as The Borgias' rise to power. When The Borgias show was being promoted, they were using the tag line 'The first crime family' - and if we take that as so, well whoa, did The Borgias hit the ground running.

Dunant is working on the follow-up book and I don't blame her - what ELSE can this family get up to?! I'm intrigued so I'll be tuning in.

 Chai Black

Taste Like: History and Spices 

My Reading So Far and Moment-by-moment of 'City of Bones'

I can't say that I've been reading extensively of late (and I don't think listening to audio books by Deepak Chopra counts all that much).

Books that I've picked up recently:
- Kraken
- Game of Thrones
- Clash of Kings
- Stormbringers

I've not got very far into Kraken and it's still just sitting there...I don't know why but I can't say I've warmed up to it, mostly in part because of the protag and the 'voice'. I read to the end of Book 2 of A Song of Ice and Fire and decided I don't think I can take more of this kind of killing, this 'no-place-to -hide-in-something-sanctimonious-or-even-half-decent', ambling plot. (SPOILERS?!) I'd rather skip to when George RR Martin decides to throw the world of fire (dragons) and ice together (nightwalkers).
I have yet to read Stormbringers.

BUT, seeing as there's a host of kids/YA fantasy film adaptations about to hit the ole big screen, I thought I would recount the emotional journey I had when I leafed through 'City of Bones', the Mortal Instruments book by Cassandra Clare. I know reader, you are thinking, 'why, why?' I don't know, I don't know why I pick up these woefully lacklustre tales that adorn the YA shelves at bookshops, my 12 year old self lured in by something that might, *might* be intriguing. Perhaps it's some residual left over feelings from when I would day dream that I'd find other worlds and so I could escape from Physics or Maths class. Whatever. (And being lured in also by a female lead: 'Ooh, she's gotta be cool, right?...Right?' Oh how I kid myself, reader, how. I. kid.)

You're now entering the domain of **Spoiler Alert** Sam!

MOMENT 1: should have known when I read the blurb and saw 'sexy demon hunters'

MOMENT 2: should have known better when it's revealed that the antag's name begins with 'V' and was once a powerful whatsit but had ideas about 'purging' the race and so turned bad.

MOMENT 3: should have known more so when I realised the protag was a self deprecating, klutz. Paraphrased from the book:  "I'm short so I'm always called 'cute', never pretty, always 'cute.'" (First world problems, B****!!)

MOMENT 4: should have known more more so (huh, sounds like 'mimosa' if you say it fast enough) when the protag thinks 'He called me beautiful. No one had called my beautiful before.' (Sweet mercy, I'm crying it's so heart-wrenchingly vomit-inducing!)

WHAT THE HAY? MOMENT: I would say around 75% of the book's content. 

But I still read the book, reader, all of it. I am ashamed. Yet I shall not being going to see this tripe plastered over our screens. Oh no. Alas, there are, like, more books in this stupid-ass series. 

Something 'emo', I'd imagine, something touching on some forbidden love nonsense.