My rating: 2 of 5 stars
We all know that tales of Lady Godiva- an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants.
Daniel Donoghue, a Professor of English at Harvard University, has quoted remarkably about Lady Godiva:
“Would anyone remember the story of Godiva if she lowered Coventry's taxes without taking her clothes off?”
It's true, maybe, we won't even remember her good deeds, since with a negative act she tried to instill and restore the good among her countrymen, and we remembered her as the bad woman who created history. And the author, Nicole Galland, who is an award winner screenwriter, has captured Godiva's tales in her new book, Godiva dating back to some 11th century in the very English kingdom where she portrayed those women who created history by getting entitled as "pagan", meaning irreligious.
Synopsis:
Lady Godiva and her nun friend, Mother Edgiva were two most popular woman of their times, Countess Godiva was known for her cheap tricks she used to manipulate powerful men with false promises to support her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia. Whereas Mother Edgiva was a pure virginal woman who was quite famous for her herbal medicinal treatments and of course due to her wisdom. Together with her husband, Godiva founded and endowed a Benedictine monastery at
Coventry. But when the evil-minded king wanted to enforce a tax system on the peasants of Coventry, Godiva not only disregards his opinion but also humiliates him, so the king punishes her by forcing her to ride naked on a horse from the town of Coventry to the gate of monastery, if she wanted to her province to be tax-free. Whereas, Edgiva, being a nun, sleeps with another Earl named Sweyn and falls pregnant with his baby.
These two notorious ladies shake the legends, by creating history with their negative acts. The story sounds good, but unfortunately, the author could not create an interest on her readers, hence the tale became quite boring and bit lengthy. Even the narration fell short and somewhat became pretty mundane. The characters are thoroughly drawn from the pages of history book, and moreover the author has strikingly gripped Godiva's charm and impulsive attitude with her words. Well according to me, the book could have been much better and Godiva could have come to life with author's carefully chosen words.Moreover, at times, I felt the story is making me feel dull and boring. Even some length unnecessary details could have been avoided. Also the the whole picture that the author tried to paint with her words and with Lady Godiva's activities was not quite striking, hence from the very beginning of the tale, I was finding it hard to make myself grip to the book.
Verdict: Read this book, if you want to learn about Godiva's hardships and tantrums dating back to the 11th century.
Courtesy: Thanks to the author and her publicist, for sending me over a review copy of the book.
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Author Info:
Nicole Galland hails from Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts, and graduated with honors from Harvard University, where she spent most of her time doing theater and secretly penning unfinished novels, although she was officially getting a degree in Comparative Religion.
Moving to California, she co-founded a theater company for teens that premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She was awarded a full fellowship to pursue a PhD in Drama at UC Berkeley, where she showed great promise at pretentious performance art. Before academia could entirely seduce her, however, she withdrew from the program and split the next several years between the Bay Area and New York City, eking out a glamorous living in theater, writing, editing, and temp work.
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