Featured Reading Guide
Rose Tremain
In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV’s Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realises that the musicians have to perform in a freezing cellar underneath the Royal apartments, he understands that he’s come to a place where the opposing states of Good and Evil, Light and Dark are waging a war to the death. Designated the ‘King’s Angels’ because of his blond good looks, he finds himself falling in love with a young woman who is the companion of the King’s adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally…
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Rose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes. Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the Sunday Express Book of the Year. Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film; The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Two of her books ( The Colour and The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.
topAbout the Book
In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV’s Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realises that the musicians have to perform in a freezing cellar underneath the Royal apartments, he understands that he’s come to a place where the opposing states of Good and Evil, Light and Dark are waging a war to the death. Designated the ‘King’s Angels’ because of his blond good looks, he finds himself falling in love with a young woman who is the companion of the King’s adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realise his hopes and save his soul?
topRose Tremain interview/review
From a feature in the Irish Times by Katie Donovan
“Books always have a nugget that starts you off,“explains Tremain. “For me this point of departure was the cellar. I loved the image of creative people in the darkness – the contrast between them and the rich, powerful person listening in the warmth and light of the room above.”
Tremain has written two historical novels but dislikes being pigeonholed in this fictional category. She gives her books different settings because “I want my writing to take me to places I wouldn’t dare to go,” but admits that writing historical fiction has certain advantages, such as “not being tied by the tyranny of our day-to-day social and cultural world.” When it comes to writing historical fiction, research is necessary at first: “I have to do research in a scholarly way. Then I lay it aside and let it become mine. This alchemy has to occur, otherwise it simply remains data.”
For Music & Silence she was most inspired by visual art: “I worked a lot from portraits: of Christian and Kirsten, and coronation scenes; paintings of Copenhagen.” In spite of the ‘disguise’ of writing about a different period with historical characters, she admits: “I write out of my own mindset. I can do only that. Ironically, the invention of the disguise serves to reveal even more of who I am.”
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Discuss the way that Tremain sets up thematic contrasts in the novel – between music and silence, good and evil, duty and passion. Discuss also how the structure may be seen as a succession of ‘arias’ in different voices.
- Tremain says she worked from portraits and other visual materials yet she sometimes alters history to suit her fiction. Does it matter to you how much of the novel is fiction and how much researched fact?
- Consider the pleasures and pains that music brings and how music can be a way of imposing order on chaos. How does this compare to the ‘music’ that Marcus hears in the natural world? Think too about the way that Marcus uses silence as a weapon against Magdalena and how the gentle Emilia is a haven of calm in the noise of the court.
- Many of the characters have experienced some trauma in their past. Consider how Christian is affected by the death of Bror; Peter by his love affair with Countess O’Fingal; and Queen Sofie by her hoard of gold.
- Discuss the nature of life in the royal court and the tension between private and public, open and closed spaces – castle bedrooms, gardens, the silver mine, cellars.
- Both Magdalena and Kirsten – who are libidinous and ruthless in love – suffer whilst Emilia’s patient love is rewarded and plain Charlotte finds happiness. Is this one of the ‘morals’ of the story?
Other Books by Rose Tremain
Evangelista’s Fan
In Rose Tremain’s teasing and brilliant title story, Evangelista’s Fan set…
Letter To Sister Benedicta…
Fat and fity, educated only to be a wife and mother, Ruby Constad has reached…
Music & Silence
In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the…
Restoration
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR Robert Merivel is a dissolute young …
Sacred Country
At the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk,…
Sadler’s Birthday
‘Sadler’s Birthday is as far from the stereotype of a young woman’s first novel…
The Colonel’s Daughter
At the moment that Colonel Browne is standing in the shallow end of the swi…
Suggested Further Reading
- Restoration ~ Rose Tremain
- An Equal Music ~ Vikram Seth
- Hamlet ~ William Shakespeare
- Gertrude and Claudius ~ John Updike
- On Tycho’s Island ~ John Robert Christianson
- The Aesthetics of Music ~ Roger Scruton
- The Betrothed ~ Alessandro Manzoni
- Casanova ~ Andrew Miller