Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Mistress of the Sun, by Sandra Gulland

Carla
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 965
Joined: August 2008
Contact:

Mistress of the Sun, by Sandra Gulland

Post by Carla » Tue April 21st, 2009, 9:59 am

As can be deduced from the title, Mistress of the Sun is set at the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, in seventeenth-century France. It centres on Louise de la Valliere, one of Louis’ early mistresses, telling her story from early childhood to death. All the main characters are historical figures.

In 1650, in a rural backwater in central France, six-year-old Louise de la Valliere is entranced by Diablo, a wild white stallion owned by a group of travelling Roma (gypsies). Desperate to tame him, she resorts to a forbidden magical ritual and pays a heavy price. Years later, as a young lady-in-waiting at the glittering royal court, she falls in love again, this time with the King. But as her love for Louis blossoms, Louise finds herself under threat, both from her own fear of the possible consequences of her long-ago dabbling in magic and from a beautiful rival who is as desperate to claim Louis for herself as Louise once was to tame Diablo.

Mistress of the Sun is written in a leisurely style and portrays an enormous wealth of historical detail about seventeenth-century France in general and the Sun King’s court in particular. It captures both the absurd extravagances of the court (How many servants and ladies-in-waiting can it possibly take to help a princess get dressed in the morning?) and the squalor underlying the luxury. If you love the minutiae of high life in the past, with details of entertainments, dances, music, masques, clothes, buildings, riding, hunting, food, palace hierarchy and the subterfuges and romantic intrigues of the court, this is the book for you. Be warned, the detailed descriptions extend to all aspects of court life, and you may learn rather more about seventeenth-century (in)sanitary arrangements than you really wanted to know.

Beliefs in religion, magic and superstition play important roles in the novel. I am not keen on historical fantasy (as regular readers will know), and the heavy concentration on magic ritual in the first few chapters came close to putting me off. However, there’s no doubt that people at the time did believe in black magic, and the author leaves it open for the reader to decide whether to believe in it along with the characters. Louise’s struggles with her conscience over her illicit love for the King are believable, as is her eventual solution. Louis’ gradual change from an attractive and sympathetic youth into a selfish absolute monarch insensitive to anything but his own desires is also convincingly charted.

All the wars and most of the politics take place off-stage. The focus of the novel is Louise’s emotions and her relationships, with her confessor, her friends, her family, her beloved horse and her rival Athenais (the Marquise de Montespan), as well as with Louis. Indeed, despite the title, the relationship between Louis and Louise doesn’t even make an appearance until a third of the way into the book and even then takes a while to get going. Readers for whom Louise’s role as royal mistress is their primary interest should be prepared for a slow start.

At times I felt Louise was too sweet to be true. Her confessor describes her as having “a purity of soul that cannot be sullied”; I wondered at her naivety. She can also be seen as rather inclined to lie down and let people walk all over her. To be fair, this reflects the reality of her situation and the limited choices open to a woman in her position, as well as her inclination to be kind to others wherever possible, but readers looking for a heroine who controls events may find Louise’s gentle passivity frustrating. I do wish she was not referred to as “Petite” throughout the novel; for all I know it might well be her historically attested nickname but I found it excessively cute. And her first meeting with Louis, riding like a young Diana and mistaking him for a poacher, is so sweetly romantic that I hope it’s historically documented. Nevertheless, Louise rarely whines or descends into self-pity (although she had reason to on occasion), and I can think of more reprehensible goals in life than trying to make the people you love happy. I found myself growing to like her character as the novel progressed.

An epilogue wraps up the fates of most of the major characters, which is nice. I would have liked to know what happened to Clorine, Louise’s sensible and warm-hearted maid. I hope it was something good. A helpful Author’s Note at the end summarises the history underlying the novel, sets out the liberties taken, and explains which characters are real and which composites. Readers may also like to know that a glossary of period terms appears at the end of the book, although most of them can be worked out from context.

Detailed portrait of Louise de la Valliere and the glittering court of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
PATHS OF EXILE - love, war, honour and betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
Now available as e-book on Amazon Kindleand in Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader), Palm and other formats on Smashwords
Website: http://www.carlanayland.org
Blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com

User avatar
EC2
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3661
Joined: August 2008
Location: Nottingham UK
Contact:

Post by EC2 » Tue April 21st, 2009, 10:14 am

Thanks for the review Carla - excellent and balanced as always. I'll probably add this to my TBR but on the non-immediate front. I still have two of the Josephine B's to read. My sister in law will be very interested though as she is an enormous fan of Sandra Gulland.
I do wonder if anyone is called Clorine these days. As I read it in your review, I immediately thought 'chlorine.'
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

www.elizabethchadwick.com

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Tue April 21st, 2009, 2:17 pm

Thanks Carla. I know I am in the minority but I just could not finish this book, try as hard as I did. As much as I like historical details in my books, I felt they were overbearing and heavy handed to where I felt I was being hit over the head with them. Dumas did such a wonderful job telling her story in the last of his Musketeer books that I'm afraid I'm spoiled for anyone else.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
sweetpotatoboy
Bibliophile
Posts: 1641
Joined: August 2008
Location: London, UK

Post by sweetpotatoboy » Tue April 21st, 2009, 4:26 pm

I really want to read this one given how much I loved the Josephine trilogy. Shame it doesn't appear to be getting published in the UK yet - not that I can't get the US version.

Carla
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 965
Joined: August 2008
Contact:

Post by Carla » Tue April 21st, 2009, 4:59 pm

EC - It has unfortunate connotations, doesn't it? I wondered if it could be a French form of a name like Clorinda. The Author's Note says it was a historically documented name.

Misfit - I came close to giving up on several occasions in the first half of the book for the same reason, but I'm quite glad I persevered in the end. It may have helped that I haven't read the Dumas version so I didn't have that to overshadow it! What's the title of the Dumas book?
PATHS OF EXILE - love, war, honour and betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
Now available as e-book on Amazon Kindleand in Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader), Palm and other formats on Smashwords
Website: http://www.carlanayland.org
Blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Tue April 21st, 2009, 5:15 pm

[quote=""Carla""]EC - It has unfortunate connotations, doesn't it? I wondered if it could be a French form of a name like Clorinda. The Author's Note says it was a historically documented name.

Misfit - I came close to giving up on several occasions in the first half of the book for the same reason, but I'm quite glad I persevered in the end. It may have helped that I haven't read the Dumas version so I didn't have that to overshadow it! What's the title of the Dumas book?[/quote]

Carla, glad I'm not alone in that. The Dumas Musketeer series in order,

The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years After
The Vicomte de Bragelonne (sp?)
Louise de la Valliere (sp?)
The Man in the Iron Mask

Louise is in all of the last three, but its LDLV where their story is figured prominently and she's a main character. Half of the fun it was the two of them trying to court whilst avoiding the watchful eyes of Madame.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

Carla
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 965
Joined: August 2008
Contact:

Post by Carla » Tue April 21st, 2009, 5:42 pm

[quote=""Misfit""]Carla, glad I'm not alone in that. The Dumas Musketeer series in order,

The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years After
The Vicomte de Bragelonne (sp?)
Louise de la Valliere (sp?)
The Man in the Iron Mask

Louise is in all of the last three, but its LDLV where their story is figured prominently and she's a main character. Half of the fun it was the two of them trying to court whilst avoiding the watchful eyes of Madame.[/quote]

Many thanks!
That aspect also featured in Mistress of the Sun and was quite fun there too (did you make it that far?). There's something rather endearing about the idea of the King and his mistress creeping about disguised as candle-sellers and hat-makers :-)
PATHS OF EXILE - love, war, honour and betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
Now available as e-book on Amazon Kindleand in Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader), Palm and other formats on Smashwords
Website: http://www.carlanayland.org
Blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Tue April 21st, 2009, 6:08 pm

[quote=""Carla""]Many thanks!
That aspect also featured in Mistress of the Sun and was quite fun there too (did you make it that far?). There's something rather endearing about the idea of the King and his mistress creeping about disguised as candle-sellers and hat-makers :-) [/quote]

Yes I made it that far, I think it hit the wall when he snuck her out for the weekend trip (the only female in the party I think it was) at the hunting lodge.

Dumas made much fun with a secret stairway (or something like that) to one of his cohort's rooms where he could meet in secret. Another favorite part was when she fled to take sanctuary and a distraught (tears in his eyes) Louis sent D'artagnan to bring her back.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

Carla
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 965
Joined: August 2008
Contact:

Post by Carla » Tue April 21st, 2009, 6:49 pm

It was quite cool to see Versaie (Versailles) as a 'hunting lodge', before Louis developed it. I wandered round a small part of the grounds once one evening when I was staying nearby on a business trip, and my overwhelming thought was, "No wonder they had a Revolution!" It was rather nice to see it full of joggers, cyclists, families with pushchairs and strollers on a fine spring evening.

Louis went himself in Mistress of the Sun. I really must see if I can find the Dumas books.
PATHS OF EXILE - love, war, honour and betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
Now available as e-book on Amazon Kindleand in Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader), Palm and other formats on Smashwords
Website: http://www.carlanayland.org
Blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Tue April 21st, 2009, 7:54 pm

[quote=""Carla""] I really must see if I can find the Dumas books.[/quote]

Two warnings - the last three in the series were originally published in France as one huge book and we English speaking folks broke it into three books. Stay with the same publisher or you may have crossover problems. If you get the Oxford Classics stay away from the forwards/notes until you've finished. I think it was in Twenty Years After the rocket scientist writing the notes gives away the ending of The Man in the Iron Mask.

You'll be quite surprised at Man in the Iron Mask - the whole bit about switching the twin Louis is a very very minor part of the whole novel.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

Post Reply

Return to “By Author's Last Name G-L”